Wow, WiMax is alive!
With all the talk and grandstanding by some wireless manufacturers over standards, it appears that BellSouth – one of the largest telephone companies in the USA – is going to take the WiMax plunge and roll it out in test trials later this year. This could have huge implications if done properly.

Why? Well, since it’s allegedly cheaper to set up customers with wireless access, it could eat into the company’s high-margin DSL business. Also, DSL technology depends on telephone companies, but wireless does not. So if you have access to a big fat alternate pipe running through your home or office, you can say “goodbye” to the telephone (and cable) company once and for all. Thus, if BellSouth‘s customer really like the WiMax service, then what’s stopping other competitors from offering something cheaper – assuming they’re not a bloated monopoly?

By the way…AT&T Agrees To Buy BellSouth For $67 Billion

Wait and see…
Well, I’m just going to sit back and see how this thing pans out. This blurb was interesting:

“BellSouth, which recently agreed to be sold to AT&T Inc., already sells city-wide wireless broadband services in five markets including New Orleans using a proprietary technology. It is looking at Wi-Max to lower costs and expand its subscriber base.

The No. 3 U.S. regional provider plans to test Wi-Max equipment in its labs in the coming months and expects to run a live network trial in the second half of the year. It said it has not yet decided whose equipment it would use for the tests.

Wi-Max, designed to blanket whole cities with high-speed wireless services, is expected to provide an improvement to Wi-Fi, the dominant wireless technology used in laptops today, which is confined mostly to places like coffee shops.” Read more…

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