As certified WiMAX products stand to make their debut once the WiMAX Forum meets in Spain this July, companies now are ramping up services and coverage for the 802.16 broadband standard.
Just this week, for example, two providers started beaming WiMAX-class services in two West Coast cities. Speakeasy set up shop on top of the Space Needle and other downtown buildings in Seattle, while TowerStream Corp. expanded its service into the San Francisco Bay Area from atop the Clay Jones building, the highest point on Nob Hill.
Speakeasy says the Seattle deployment is the largest of its kind for businesses. It also touted Seattle as an ideal site for the installation, due to the city’s challenging weather, terrain, bodies of water and dense skyline. Success in Seattle, Speakeasy says, means easier adoption in less geographically challenging areas. For now, the Space Needle, along with other sites throughout the city, is beaming high-speed wireless broadband to urban businesses, which will start receiving service early next month.
Speakeasy is a member of the WiMAX Forum, and uses technology from Intel Corp. and products from Alvarion in its installations. Each base station in the Seattle deployment sends and receives signals at distances of approximately two miles.
The Speakeasy service will reach users throughout Seattle’s downtown core, including the Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, Central Business District, Pioneer Square and Lake Union neighborhoods. With an annual contract, rates will vary from $500 per month for 3MB of connection, to $800 per month for 6MB of connection.
Further down the coast, TowerStream, a fixed wireless ISP and WiMAX Forum member, also this week launched its WiMAX-class services. The company offers T1 and 100mbps connections.
"In every market we currently serve, people have been ecstatic to experience freedom from the phone companies in receiving broadband for their business, plus a sizable helping of new features and benefits,” says Jeff Thompson, COO of TowerStream, in a statement.
Other companies, too, are getting on the WiMAX bandwagon. In April, NextWeb, another fixed wireless ISP, launched VoIP services with the help of CommPartners. NextWeb called the initiative the largest deployment of VoIP over a pre-WiMAX network in the United States. The service will be rolled out in NextWeb’s footprint sometime this month.
So, as WiMAX service nears reality, it’s not just service providers readying for the standard. Recently, equipment maker Alvarion Ltd. demonstrated its working WiMAX-ready CPE using the Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 5116 broadband interface system-on-chip. Alvarion says it now has integrated successfully the PRO/Wireless 5116 into its BreezeMAX 3500 CPE. The two companies started working together in 2003.
"With the product slated for commercial release in the second half of 2005, this milestone represents a significant step forward for both Alvarion and the industry as we move to widespread adoption of WiMAX standard products,” says Zvi Slonimsky, CEO of Alvarion, in a statement.
Alvarion launched the WiMAX-ready BreezeMAX 3500 in June 2004.
