Gizmodo: xohm wimax

Sprint WiMax Slowing Down Corporations with "Narrow" Certification Pipeline

Mark Wilson — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Sprint's enticing Xohm WiMax network is slowly making its way across the country, but Lenovo has complained of a major problem with it gaining popularity. According to GigaOM, Lenovo expected to dominate the market with a variety of WiMax products since they had put a lot of time and effort into testing equipment. But Lenovo explained that Sprint is requiring a "narrow" pipeline of internal product testing—something you don't see for Wi-Fi equipment—which has nixed much of their WiMax product line for launch. It's tough to tell where WiMax will go from here, but when a big company like Lenovo can't get products approved for release, it's hard to believe that the countless, smaller companies necessary to drive down prices and promote popularity will break into the market any time soon. [GigaOM]

Xohm's WiMax Coverage Quietly Live and Working in Six More Cities

John Mahoney — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:15:00 EDT

We saw Sprint/Clearwire/whoever's Xohm WiMax tested in B-more with speedy results. And now, news from a Xohm employee in Baltimore is that the service is also live and working (albeit in an "unsupported" test capacity) in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and northern Virginia. So anyone with WiMax-enabled hardware in those cities, let us know if you're picking up any sweet 3 mbps pipe out there. [MP3Car]

Sprint XOHM WiMax Quietly Goes Live In Baltimore

John Herrman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:40:00 EDT

Just over a week ago the word was that Baltimore, the first city in a pilot program for the new wireless tech, might not see WiMax until October. With a minimal announcement and little fanfare, though, it looks like the service has gone live in select parts of the city. The pricing options are interesting though already controversial, as there are different fees for unlimited monthly access depending on whether or not that access comes from one or many locations.

Home access is $25 a month (on promotion, down from $35) but only allows you access from one place. A full monthly package is available for $30 (from $45), which gives you citywide access to the network. Lastly, there is the $10 one-off option for 24 hours of access. There are no long-term contracts available, which is actually kind of refreshing for a service that could theoretically be used as a primary connection. Not refreshing: the website warns that the sky-high expectations for WiMax bandwidth won't quite be met, with the network capable of enabling an "average 2-4 Mbps download speed and 0.5-1.5 Mbps upload speed." Check the via for a coverage map, and let us know if you try it out. [XOHM]