Denver, Colorado and Bridgeport, Connecticut have just become cities number 69 and 70 to get hooked up to Sprint’s WiMAX network. We used to say Sprint was falsely adverting WiMAX as a 4G technology, but the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently backtracked on their definition of what should and should not be called 4G, so … a rose by any other name is just as sweet, right? Benchmarks show that T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, which currently runs at 21 Mbps and is expected to double in speed to 42 Mbps by the end of next year, is faster than what Sprint has to offer; it’s cheaper too. But if it’s pure speed you’re after then you’re going to have to bend over and fork over $50 per month for 5 GB of data from Verizon Wireless, who just recently launched an LTE network, and is getting a serious amount of praise for the performance it’s achieving.
The only, and I mean only, advantage to Sprint’s WiMAX network is that they offer a truly unlimited internet package. They’re already claiming that an average user goes through about 7 GB of data per month. There’s a 5 GB limit to data downloaded over a 3G network, for those times when you’re in a city with no WiMAX coverage, but that’s quite fair in the scheme of things. Sprint also offers a prepaid service that’s quite competitive. If you’re in one of the 70 cities that have WiMAX coverage, you can get unlimited data for $5/day, $20/week, or $50/month. An amazing deal if you ask us, especially if you’re a city that has constant broadband outages.
Are you a WiMAX user? If you can leave a brief comment below telling us about your experiences, that would be great. As a replacement for wired broadband, it’s killer. As a way to get faster download speeds on your smartphone though, forget it and go with someone else.