The first mobile WiMAX network in Europe opens in Amsterdam
By admin at 19 June, 2008, 8:27 pm
The Dutch operator launches Worldmax Aerea, the first mobile WiMAX network in Europe, deployed in downtown Amsterdam with Alcatel-Lucent. It is the first commercial network in Europe to exploit the standard broadband wireless 802.16e, corresponding to mobile WiMAX.
The mobile WiMAX allows for speeds much greater than 3G/3G + (several Mbps per user) for a wireless Internet connection, available even on the move. With packages starting at 20 euros per month, users of laptops can connect to the network Worldmax in downtown Amsterdam via a PC-Card adapter compatible.
The coverage is planned to eventually extend to the whole agglomeration of the Dutch capital, then in other cities. The extension of this network to cover the whole territory will require the construction of some 3,000 sites, said Jeanine van der Vlist, CEO of the operator, to Reuters.
High-speed mobile technology very promising, the mobile WiMAX penalty to prevail in Europe, where 3G is firmly established. In the USA, a proposed deployment of magnitude is under preparation to cover a population of 100 million people. In France, where experiments have taken place around the mobile WiMAX deployments and regional small fixed WiMAX networks, no deployment is expected in the short term. Free, holding a national licence does not plan to deploy a WiMAX network for several years (at best 2010). Other operators have various regional licences, including SFR, Altitude Telecom and Telecom Bolloré. The latter seems to believe the future of mobile WiMAX in France already holder of 12 regional licenses, it just made the acquisition of 8 additional licenses to TDF, which laid the sponge to cover almost the entire territory.
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