XOHM Goes Live in Baltimore

At long last, Sprint’s XOHM exists!  The WiMAX network went live today in Baltimore ^[1].  Now, will people flock to it?  I think it depends entirely on how well it works, i.e. how reliable the speeds are and how solid the coverage area is.  Muni wifi failed largely because it, well, sucked.  DC and Chicago are next in line presumably soon, and Clearwire is due to start opening markets too.  The era of WiMAX is finally upon us, while there were a few early starts from smaller companies this marks the entry by the big players at last.

The plans seem reasonable enough, $10 for a daily pass, $25/month for home usage, $30/month for ‘On-the-go’ service, and $50/month for a combination of two devices – and you have to buy the devices too of course.  So if you have a laptop and want WiMax service anywhere you take it, you pay $30.  If you have a desktop or a bunch of them and a wireless router you can just pay $25.  If you have a desktop *and* a laptop, you can do both for $50 – but when you’re at home I guess you could use either connection, I wonder which is better.

Actually, here’s what I bet some will try.  If you have the $50 plan, one wireless router hooked up to the non-mobile WiMAX device, and a laptop with both wifi support and a WiMAX card – you should be able to bridge the wifi and WiMAX connections and try to double your speed.  Will Sprint allow that?  I don’t see any major harm from it so they probably won’t care.