Free Newsletter
Clearwire building muni-WiMAX network in Michigan
The city council in Grand Rapid, MI unanimously approved a bid from Clearwire to build a muni-WiMAX network, the company's first foray into municipal contracts. Clearwire beat out nine other proposals from companies such as AT&T/IBM, EarthLink, NeoReach and Pronto Networks. Clearwire will own and operate the broadband network and will include hybrid WiFi hotspot locations. In an odd twist, Clearwire plans to reimburse the city for its costs associated with choosing a vendor because the city promised to offer broadband coverage at no expense to taxpayers.
For more about Clearwire's plans to roll out WiMAX in Grand Rapids:
- check out this article from RCR Wireless News
Comments
Posted by Jacomo | December 7, 2006 - 3:16pm
Interesting-did Neoreach bid with their new 2 Radio Cisco product instead of their more functional and scalable Strix system? If they stuck with what won them most of their earlier deals they might have been more successful.
We will watch with interest how the Clearwire WiMAX 2.5Ghz based system (if that is what they bid) performs in a heavily canopied market.
Jacomo
Posted by Anonymous | November 21, 2007 - 11:18pm
Good Call Grand Rapids, Sprint by far has the worst coverage in Grand Rapids, I don't understand why they wouldn't select a good company like AT&T to start rolling out their new LTE Network, oh well I guess that's just another reason why the state of Michigan is struggling right now, simply because the people who are making the important decisions are complete fools..such as Governor Jennifer Granholm who is doing wonders for our state.. :-(
Posted by Paul Johnson | December 4, 2007 - 10:45pm
This doesn't seem like a very good plan for a small city like Grand Rapids, This Wimax network will be up sometime in 2008 which pretty much means that the network will become obsolete within 2 years. Within 2 years the LTE networks from AT&T and Verizon hit the market. This hardly seems worth the $24 million that the tax payers in the city of Grand Rapids are paying for.
Click here to get the FierceWireless email newsletter for FREE!
Be the first to comment