Photos: Clearwire’s WiMAX In-car Video
As the battle for 4G supremacy heats up, Clearwire last week at the Cable Show in D.C. showed off an in-car entertainment setup powered by its WiMAX network. On display were two demo vehicles, one of which was set up in Sprint’s booth, rigged with WiMAX-equipped computer stations.
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- Clearwire car
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- Clearwire car interior
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- Hulu playing inside the car
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- Video on dashboard
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- Wi-Fi Station
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- PSP
Clearwire’s had discussions with several CE manufacturers interested in creating “pluggable” type technologies, which let consumers port gear between their homes and cars, according to reps. One of the demo vehicles had a Sony PSP with video playing on it strapped to the back of a seat, as well as a portable Wi-Fi base station that was connected to the WiMAX network via a little Motorola dongle.
Stacey has written several posts on GigaOM about the WiMAX vs. LTE battles that will continue to grow over the next couple of years as providers pick sides and roll out their 4G solutions. Clearwire was unsurprisingly bullish on its technology; reps cited what they referred to as its “huge spectrum position” and what amounts to an advantage in backhaul capacity of some 10 times. Setting up new technologies such as WiMax or LTE is not trivial. Citing their own experience with delays of equipment setup and testing, the reps I spoke with said they think carriers are underestimating the length of the trial periods needed to get the LTE systems up, tested and stable before they can do widespread rollouts.
Clearwire is currently running trials in Portland, Ore., and Baltimore and is teeing up Vegas and Atlanta next to be ready by mid-year. They are also rebranding the Baltimore market, away from the original Sprint XOHM branding.
Nate D’Amico works with telecommunications providers on implementing SaaS solutions for their business and consumer customers. He’s also written for our sister site OStatic.
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[...] has the edge with rollout planning/testing schedules and they definitely get the nod for some cool demos of what a Clear connected world will be like at the Cable Show in DC back in [...]
Always On: WiMax Makes Progress vs. LTE-…
— 10:25 AM on July 21, 2009
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The Portland market is commercial and live, and not a test. It launched Jan. 6. Here’s a video of the Clearwire WiMax cars in action, from Chicago and the WiMax World show last October: http://www.sidecutreports.com/2008/11/02/wimax-test-drive-roamin-on-xohm-in-chicago/
was the psp streaming hulu? that would be awesome, i haven’t tried, but psp’s and the like have a hard time with flash stuff.
Paul is correct about Portland, but it’s also important to note that Baltimore is a commercial WiMAX deployment, not trial, available today as well.
Yep, I was running Xohm/Clear back in November:
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-11/xohm-wimax-invades-dc/
Paul, Suzy, Dave, you are all correct, these markets are live for Clearwire.
The reps I talked to referred to both as “trials” in a sense that both cities are their first experience to go live and see how their initial pricing plans/offerings are recieved.
It sounded like even though things are working they are continuously learning from both deployments and will apply that knowledge to each of the follow on ones.
nice post realy this is great we like to touch and see some articles like this ..