Big news in the world of wireless broadband: Inukshuk has been rolled out in Canada! Inukshuk is a Bell/Rogers initiative to put pre-final certification WiMax equipment into cities and (as dictated by the CRTC) rural communities.
Check this link for availability in your area. (link to Bell's site)
or
Check this link for availability in your area. (link to Rogers' site)
Aside: if you go to the Bell site and reload a few times you will be able to see the black book-sized modem that provides your internet connection.
This is great, although it appears to be a re-branding and country wide rollout of Fido's old iFido wireless system. Amusing to see Bell/Rogers push out one of the front of the curve technologies that Rogers(nee Fido) had in its stable.
This launch is a huge win for rural towns as WiMax has the *potential* to facilitate immediate rollout of highspeed internet access to smaller communities for much less cost than digging ditches and laying wires.
Now for the bad news. There are download caps (as low as 4GB/month!). There are roaming fees (so much for being "unwired" and "mobile"). There are no additional features (these will be rolled out over time).
The biggest road block: its freaking expensive. The 3Mb/512Kb connection is 130$/month.
Ouch.
But for some, this is better than dial-up and perhaps the only other option.
Summary:
The caps will go up with time (slowly) and the roaming fees will melt away once WiMax cards start making their way into notebooks but in the meanwhile this is very much not for widespread adoption.
Comments
A welcome, yet not a new development, as you've articulated.
However, I'm interested in the reverse of your logic currently presented by Northwestel in relation to caps and exorbiant fees (ie ADSL @ $60/mo w/ 10g CAP) with no end in sight. Why should Yukon consumers believe WiMax will be treated any differently as a business model?
If I read the maps and description properly, I believe the range is currently limited to a 5km radius of Whitehorse city limits, is this right? Be interesting to see how motivated they are to expand.
Hopefully, varying levels of government in the Yukon will recognize some value in this product and invest in their frequent flyer employees.
WiMax is going to be mishandled at this point because the companies that are rolling it out, telcos, have no impetus to make the service cheaper. The technology is very bleeding edge/early adopter and that is the market that you typically want to milk all the while providing you with free QA services.
Prices and download caps will move over time but in the initial rollout there is no desire to canibalize their own revenues from land based ventures.
I highly, highly doubt that YTG or the Fed will adopt this in the near term either. Governments, in general, are not front of the curve early adopters. The modem's are book sized still; when WiMax VoIP phones being to appear and notebooks come with WiMax cards pre-installed you will see more widespread adoption.
Disclosure: I currently work with Northwestel.