VoIP providers may be eagerly anticipating Clearwire and Sprint's next dance onto the nationwide WiMAX network floor, but at least one early adopter, Australian Garth Freeman, CEO of Hervey Bay's Buzz Broadband, labeled the technology a "miserable failure." Freeman, who operated--and closed--Australia's inaugural WiMAX network, told a pro-WiMAX audience at a Bangkok conference last week that the technology was rife with bugs that made it unacceptable for use with VoIP and other Internet apps. Specifically jitter and latency rates as high as 1MS, and "non-existent" line of sight performance beyond 1.8 miles. Add poor indoor performance outside a quarter mile, and WiMAX-supported VoIP installations begin to look a little pie-in-the sky.
 
Buzz isn't alone in decrying WiMAX penetration issues. At an IEEE conference in 2007, India's VSNL said it was recording loss of signal just two football field's away from base stations.
 
Freeman went on to lambaste the "opportunistic hype" surrounding WiMAX, concluding with a warning to the gathering that "WiMAX may not work." A year ago, just months after launching WiMAX, Freeman said Buzz had signed 10 percent of its target WiMAX market, using VoIP value as a come on.
 
For more:
- Read about Garth Freeman's tirade [1] in CommsDay
 
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Clearwire launches VoIP over WiMAX network Report [3]