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Something I have always been wondering is: how much was WiMAX a threat to this centralisation and the 3 - 5 ISP per country model? I remember around 2010 there

Something I have always been wondering is: how much was WiMAX a threat to this centralisation and the 3 - 5 ISP per country model? I remember around 2010 there were cities with several small new ISPs providing fast home and mobile Internet for cheap and with very good coverage. Infrastructure costs were probably very low. Order of magnitude I guess compared to 4G, cable or fiber. You could find phones supporting it (HTC was one of the maker) and it seemed to be the perfect solution for most users. I am not sure if those small ISPs already had a roaming system in place but it would have made a lot of sense. Anyway, when Intel finally gave up I thought there are probably strong forces wanting to keep access to the Internet in a few hands, expensive and centralised.

axus 1y ago
The centralized search engine's AI summary says that LTE became more popular, and the people who would buy WiMax hardware ended up buying LTE hardware instead.
- sunshine-o 1y ago
  From what I remember (and I might be wrong) WiMAX was first competing on the "home" Internet market. Mostly against cable & DSL I guess at the time. It was a USB dongle you would put in your laptop. Having a one WiMAX enabled smartphones was the cherry on top and probably more of a long term goal. The only one I remember was the HTC Evo 4G [0] (the first 4G enabled smartphone released in the US, and by 4G they meant WiMAX, not LTE). My guess is there was for sure a big battle between Intel, major phone manufacturers, telcos, infra providers and various patents holders. There was probably a chicken and egg dilemma for mobile phone manufacturer since they had to wait for the network to grow before risking launching their WiMAX phone but having a WiMAX enabled phone would make WiMAX at home really attractive. My guess is also that since people usually get their phone from their telco, phone manufacturer had to be careful not to go against their interests. And since most telco wanted LTE, WiMAX couldn't take off. But there might be more to this story, including the fact Intel was also trying to get in the phone SOC market at this time. - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Evo_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Evo_4G
wmf 1y ago
how much was WiMAX a threat to this centralisation and the 3 - 5 ISP per country model? Not at all. Today there are hundreds of WISPs based on Wi-Fi(ish) or proprietary FWA technology in the US alone.
numpad0 1y ago
WiMAX was just Intel alternative to LTE. It might have been threat to Qualcomm, and cellular telecom in-groups, but not a threat to centralization trend at all. Range was shorter than existing cellular, so it needed more towers, not less.

axus 1y ago

The centralized search engine's AI summary says that LTE became more popular, and the people who would buy WiMax hardware ended up buying LTE hardware instead.

sunshine-o 1y ago
From what I remember (and I might be wrong) WiMAX was first competing on the "home" Internet market. Mostly against cable & DSL I guess at the time. It was a USB dongle you would put in your laptop. Having a one WiMAX enabled smartphones was the cherry on top and probably more of a long term goal. The only one I remember was the HTC Evo 4G [0] (the first 4G enabled smartphone released in the US, and by 4G they meant WiMAX, not LTE). My guess is there was for sure a big battle between Intel, major phone manufacturers, telcos, infra providers and various patents holders. There was probably a chicken and egg dilemma for mobile phone manufacturer since they had to wait for the network to grow before risking launching their WiMAX phone but having a WiMAX enabled phone would make WiMAX at home really attractive. My guess is also that since people usually get their phone from their telco, phone manufacturer had to be careful not to go against their interests. And since most telco wanted LTE, WiMAX couldn't take off. But there might be more to this story, including the fact Intel was also trying to get in the phone SOC market at this time. - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Evo_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Evo_4G

wmf 1y ago

how much was WiMAX a threat to this centralisation and the 3 - 5 ISP per country model? Not at all. Today there are hundreds of WISPs based on Wi-Fi(ish) or proprietary FWA technology in the US alone.

numpad0 1y ago

WiMAX was just Intel alternative to LTE. It might have been threat to Qualcomm, and cellular telecom in-groups, but not a threat to centralization trend at all. Range was shorter than existing cellular, so it needed more towers, not less.