WiMax 4G Porn (Kansas City)

[turtle3]

Had a chance to chat with the Clearwire guys testing the towers on my building...they were nice enough to let me snap some pics. Nothing that hasn't been shown before, but still cool to see nonetheless. The box is SO SMALL compared to the AT&T "shed" that can be seen in the pics.

I also got to see the live coverage footprint (basically a google map showing all the antennae) and WOW - They've blanketed KC. It's very very impressive. For all the "haters" that think their coverage will only be in Downtown....think again. Blue Springs to the East, South to Belton and Olathe, 7 Hwy to the West and all the way to the airport up North. Sprint/Clear have been hard at work in KC. The guys said they are moving on to another city very soon to do exactly the same thing (I won't say where).

I'll keep my "location" private for now so those guys don't get in any trouble. No reason they should though since everything seen in the pics was shown in a video on online about Sprint/Evo/WiMax months ago (couldn't find the link, but it was like the WSJ or something).

Anyway....just something to keep us tied over until the 4th

I can nearly taste the Evo. Going to be legit. Nicely done Sprint/Clearwire.

[Eguy]

Clearwire's tech is so great, it's amazing to see how small these facilities are. Can't wait for the massive build out.

[kudosmog]

fapfapfap

[TheOnlyMorgan]

Ahhhhh yeah. Good stuff.

[Wnt2bsleepin]

Nice hardware. Now get it to New York dammit.

[turtle3]

oh it's coming. They mentioned they've only been in KC "a few months". Sprint knows they've got a differential advantage and will ride the Evo rage influx of money to build out their network quickly and keep ahead of the competition, imho.

I will mention too that when AT&T launched 3G in KC, my friend told me he could only get 3G when he was in close proximity to downtown on his iPhone. I know that has probably changed by now, but I like that Sprint isn't limping their rollout and claiming it is up - instead they are blanketing a city, then moving on to the next. Customers will likely be much happier with the latter.

[turtle3]

I might as well add these too.

1st is a speed test on Sprint 3G (using a Clearwire USB fob, I might add)

2nd is a speed test on 4G...numbers look good! 5.6mbs down and 3.4mbs up. And I might also add that at this point the antennae that were 25ft away were turned off. So, this was pinging a tower a few miles away. They had the antennae on my building off to run tests on the strengths of the towers in proximity. (I add all this because someone would likely come back and say "oh yea, of course you're going to get 5+mbs when you're sitting right next to the antenna").

The tech said he's been getting speeds of 7-8mps sometimes dipping down to the 4mps range. Kinda funny they mentioned if you plug straight into the box, you'll get around 90mps- HA! I have a feeling the "strength" of the USB fob transmission might be slightly different than an Evo 4G running on a much smaller battery and probably tweaked to conserve power (read: not full radio strength). So, I expect Evo tests to be a little lower than these numbers, but dang - still impressive.

If these speeds are consistent around KC I'll probably be ditching Time Warner for a Clearwire subscription. We'll just have to see after I get my Evo.

[xenophon]

<spurting silicon on the ceiling>

Impressive that Clear is covering that much of the metro as KC is a very very sprawled metro. Back when Sprint rolled out EVDO, they announced it with only about 50% of metro covered. It took another year for Belton to get 3G.

So Clear is supplying 100Mbps backhaul, huh? Very very interesting if that's the case with all sites.

[flyawaymike]

pretty sweet!

incidentally, you'd think the gear in those little cabinets would get overly hot in the summertime without any cooling system in it (or maybe there is one there and I'm just not seeing it?)

[turtle3]

Originally Posted by flyawaymike

pretty sweet!

incidentally, you'd think the gear in those little cabinets would get overly hot in the summertime without any cooling system in it (or maybe there is one there and I'm just not seeing it?)

Yea, there were little fans...sorta hard to see in those pics - it was the long grey part on the pic that is straight-on. But nothing even close to the ATT shed (the big white one) which had full-time cooling systems running (which were LOUD). I was floored by the small footprint of the Clearwire box.