Nextel Quietly Launches Wireless Broadband Trial
Feb 5, 2004, 10:36 AM by (staff)
Nextel Communications is publicly seeking testers for a trial wireless broadband network in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The 6-month trial will test FLASH-OFDM technology capable of speeds up to 3.0 Mbps. In a Decemeber conference call, Nextel president and CEO Tim Donahue discussed a trial network using FLASH-OFDM equipment from Flarion Technologies with "about 150 sites in a relatively large city down south." If launched commercially, the service would compete directly with the 1xEV-DO service currently being deployed by Verizon Wireless.
Comments
EDGE is not that fast. It's 3x faster than GPRS, but that only makes it slightly faster than 1xRTT.
1xEV-DO and this - FLASH-OFDM - are many, many times faster than 1xRTT or EDGE. It's just like the difference between 56K dialup and DSL.