Clearwire, the WiMAX wireless broadband service provider created by Sprint Nextel, is rolling ahead. The company has started pre-selling its services in Portland, Oregon and hopes to make it widely available throughout the city early next year. Portland will be the second city after Baltimore to have WiMax, which is fourth generation or 4G wireless access. Clearwire has also rebranded the service as ‘Clear‘ replacing the Xohm brand that Sprint Nextel has used so far. It will cost $50 for unlimited monthly usage, $40 for 2GB monthly usage and $10 a day for a 24-hour pass. Two months ago Sprint kick started the service in Baltimore, Maryland and hopes to extend to other cities such as Chicago and Washington D.C. next year. Clearwire will initially offer the wireless broadband service only for laptops and later bring it to phones, says the company. An early handset designed by Nokia for WiMax access has already sold out in Baltimore. Clearwire is backed by Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks, which together have invested $3.2 billion in the company. Its open all-IP network can provide users with average download speeds initially of 2-4 megabits per second and peak rates that are considerably faster, says the company.
I was just at http://www.clear.com/?utm_source=bc and I think this Clear service almost sounds too good to be true…but a friend of mine recommended it as the fastest wireless Internet access and I trust his opinions about technology so I’m gonna try it out. I am hoping they continue expanding as they’ve planned, since I have a few friends around the U.S. that will really dig this if it’s as fast as they say. This service will hopefully make my job as a writer a little easier when it comes to online research!