Sprint’s 4G Xohm WiMax: How fast is it?
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
With most American mobile data networks busy trying to deliver third-generation (3G) mobile wireless access to traveling businesspeople, Sprint’s newly launched Xohm service takes a giant step forward by offering America’s first 4G system.
Based on WiMax technology, it can deliver broadband data speeds to notebooks, Internet tablets and eventually smartphones. But at the moment, there aren’t many devices to connect with, the network is struggling with reliability issues, and the high-speed service is limited to just one city — Baltimore.
WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a wireless data system based on Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology and the IEEE’s 802.16e spec. That’s a lot to swallow, but Xohm’s basic facts are that it broadcasts on the 2.5-GHz portion of the radio frequency spectrum, a slightly higher frequency than the 2.4 GHz that the 802.11b/g/n standards, commonly used in Wi-Fi networks, operate on.
