When wireless > DSL: Sprint, Motorola show off WiMAX on the Chicago River

On a muggy early-autumn evening, I set sail down the Chicago River with a group of Motorola and Sprint executives, marketing people, analysts, and journalists. Everyone was there to see one thing: Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) publicly demonstrated for the first time on Sprint's WiMAX spectrum, complete with hand-offs between towers.

With all the discussion about the upcoming 700MHz broadband auction and its potential to provide a third broadband pipe in the US, it's possible to lose sight of Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX service, which will offer broadband-class speeds using the 2.5GHz spectrum. Dubbed "Xohm," Sprint's $5 billion WiMAX venture will be launched in the spring of 2008 in Chicago, Washington, DC, and Baltimore, with a nationwide rollout to follow.

Hosted by Motorola, tonight's event was a chance to get an idea of WiMAX's real-world performance. For the demo, Motorola set up a mini network along the Chicago River consisting of four towers stretching across approximately 0.8 miles of the river, one on the north bank and three on the south.

There were 12 laptops and tablet PCs along with a handful of WiMAX-enabled cell phones simultaneously using the network to stream data, video, and voice with an eye towards proving that WiMAX has what it takes both in terms of speed and its ability to seamlessly hand clients off between towers throughout the network. Barry West, CTO and president of 4G mobile broadband for Sprint Nextel, described the mini-network as "a sample of what our service will look like across the country."

Along with the demo hardware, there was a table with a few consumer products: Motorola-branded WiMAX Wireless Broadband Gateways. They function in the same way as a typical home router, acting as a gateway to a 2.3, 2.5, or 3.5GHz WiMAX network while providing Ethernet jacks and 802.11b/g/n connectivity for devices in the home. A Motorola employee explained that the devices on display were currently in production, with sales to WiMAX providers to begin soon. At some point, he said, consumers would be able to buy the gateways at their local big-box retailers.

Surfing on the river

Once the boat untied from the dock and set sail, the tech staff began making the rounds with the hardware. The laptops and tablets all had massive PCMCIA cards with what looked to be two antennae protruding from slots on the sides of the machines, while the cell phones were popular Motorola handset models with new internals supporting WiMAX and 802.11b/g.

Although I didn't get a chance to play with the laptops myself, I was able to ask the tech to load a handful of web sites and observe how responsive the connection was. The surfing went off without a hitch, with the sole exception of Apple.com, which we were unable to load (only 2.5G need apply?). Every other site loaded quickly and seemed very snappy. ESPN.com, which is a Flash-heavy web site with a video box, loaded quickly and the Flash video box began playing quickly.

We also watched some talking heads on CNN.com. In both windowed and full-screen modes, the video quality was very good: no dropped frames or hiccups of any kind. It was similar to what I get at home with my 8Mbps/1Mbps cable service from Comcast.

After watching the video and browsing some random web sites, I asked the tech to load Speedtest.net. While Speedtest.net has its limitations, it had the advantage of being easily accessible. It's also one of the tools I used to benchmark and evaluate Verizon's EV-DO service over the summer. The results were impressive. The first time we ran the test, we got 2425Kbps down and 1474Kbps up with a 99ms ping, with the S.S. Summer of George cruising down the river 30 feet below street level. We hit Speedtest again after the boat tied up, and the results were even better: 3229Kbps down and 1500Kbps up with a 70ms ping.

Both the performance and experience were far superior to Verizon's EV-DO service. The absolute best I was able to squeeze out of EV-DO was 1253Kbps/674Kbps with a 179ms latency—and that was a best-case scenario. Speeds were more typically in the 500-700Kbps range.

Speed aside, the browsing experience was much different than any other mobile broadband I've used. Unlike other wireless services, which feel "laggy" and offer a markedly different experience than a wired connection, the WiMAX demo was more akin to DSL and cable. Latency was good, and, as the Speedtest.net number indicated, speeds were comparable to a decent DSL connection.

Xohm on the range

Xohm was originally scheduled to launch in Chicago, Washington, DC, and Baltimore by the end of 2007, but availability has now been pushed back to March or April 2008. A nationwide rollout will follow, with the service available in major US markets by the end of 2008. Unlike 3G wireless services, which are targeted at mobile users needing a quick broadband fix, Sprint plans to take on the DSL/cable duopoly with Xohm. Sprint spokesperson John Polivka told me that pricing would be competitive with DSL and cable, although the exact numbers have not yet been determined.

There's also a strong open access component to Xohm. Although consumers will be getting the service from Sprint or Clearwire, they'll be able to use the hardware and applications of their choice on the network. Polivka said that there wouldn't be fixed-length, cellular-style contracts either. Instead, consumers will be able to subscribe to the service for as long as they want, using hardware that they purchase themselves.