Intel Helping Japan Try To Cover Itself In WiMAX
Forget LTE. Forget HSUPA. Intel's still thinking WiMAX, and so is the
entire nation of Japan. Shortly after hearing confirmation that Intel
was still dead-set on its WiMAX investments being viable, along comes
news suggesting that Japan could soon be the first nation to "unwire
its entire country with WiMAX." And, you guessed it, Intel's chipping
in to ensure it happens.
As the story goes, Japanese carrier UQ Communications will be teaming up with the aforementioned chip maker in order to hopefully provide WiMAX across the entire nation. Quite interestingly, UQ Communications has just recently launched a free trial WiMAX service that will run through July, and apparently it's hoping to hook people on those 802.16e waves in order to drum up demand for nationwide deployment. UQ WiMAX wireless broadband service is now available in 23 Tokyo wards, Yokohama, and Kawasaki, and Intel is currently toiling away with notebook makers across the world to help bring embedded WiMAX capabilities to more and more machines.
We're
told that OEMs including Acer, Asus, Dell, EPSON, Fujitsu, Lenovo, NEC,
Onkyo, Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba have already committed to
delivering WiMAX-enabled notebooks in the country, which guarantees
that citizens won't be stuck with services that they can't easily use. We
can't see this admittedly incredible initiative knocking LTE off of its
track to dominate in the next few years, but who knows -- maybe this
kind of thing is just what WiMAX needed to prove its viability to the
world.
As the story goes, Japanese carrier UQ Communications will be teaming up with the aforementioned chip maker in order to hopefully provide WiMAX across the entire nation. Quite interestingly, UQ Communications has just recently launched a free trial WiMAX service that will run through July, and apparently it's hoping to hook people on those 802.16e waves in order to drum up demand for nationwide deployment. UQ WiMAX wireless broadband service is now available in 23 Tokyo wards, Yokohama, and Kawasaki, and Intel is currently toiling away with notebook makers across the world to help bring embedded WiMAX capabilities to more and more machines.
We're
told that OEMs including Acer, Asus, Dell, EPSON, Fujitsu, Lenovo, NEC,
Onkyo, Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba have already committed to
delivering WiMAX-enabled notebooks in the country, which guarantees
that citizens won't be stuck with services that they can't easily use. We
can't see this admittedly incredible initiative knocking LTE off of its
track to dominate in the next few years, but who knows -- maybe this
kind of thing is just what WiMAX needed to prove its viability to the
world.
