WiMAX One Step Closer To Reality

Big news for travelers and those who don't work out of an office: Clearwire today announced that it had earned FCC approval for a WiMAX laptop card, the first of its kind. Product availability is set for the second half of the year. The company's press release is here.

For those unfamiliar with the term, WiMAX is a high-speed wireless data technology designed to be used over long distances. Ideally it's the best of both Wi-Fi and your cell phone connection: You can get high-speed Internet access with your laptop, anywhere you go, not just when you're at Starbucks. Service will be sold on a monthly basis, much like your cell phone, and you'll only need a card for your laptop to get on the WiMAX network.

While numbers have been thrown out that say WiMAX can offer 70Mbps over a range of 70 miles from a WiMAX tower, that isn't exactly the case. A more accurate bandwidth should be about 10Mbps within 1 mile of a WiMAX tower, especially in an urban area. Clearwire doesn't offer any performance figures or pricing for the product yet, but if the estimates hold true, it still sounds awfully tempting in an era where most broadband service tops out at 5 or 6Mbps. The company currently offers a form of WiMAX running at 1.5Mbps (max) in 12 states, but it requires non-mobile router that connects to your Ethernet port and an A/C power connection.

I've got my name on the Clearwire list to check this out firsthand when it launches, though it doesn't currently offer service in San Francisco. Maybe Yahoo! will send me to Maui, where it does...

LINK: FCC Approves First WIMAX-CLASS Laptop Card to be Offered by Clearwire