Why is WiMax such a big deal?

To my knowledge I don't even think there is any coverage in my area (close to a major city). Its like having cars, but not roads : /

Does someone have some resources on WiMax coverage? Is it a subscription like thing? Who even offers it?

technically is its, but it seems some think of its as the big liberator as its not a mobile technology in a way. its wireless networking taken to the Nth degree.

so i guess some hope it will be as open as current wifi offerings at starbucks or other places...

I have no idea, i just want more RAM

The N810 WiMax edition has more RAM?

WiMAX can be used as a mobile service, or as a last-mile service.
In the US, on the mobile end, Sprint is the farthest along, with xohm (as they call their WiMAX service, for reasons best known to themselves). I know nothing of any last-mile plans in the US; that seems to be more popular in Europe.

The reason a lot of people are excited is that it eliminates the need for a mobile phone with voice plan and data plan and tethering plan. (Depending on provider, of course.)

With a WiMAX tablet you can:

• Eliminate the phone
• Skip the voice plan (if you use VoIP, why pay for voice?)
• Not worry about whether to spend more for a tethering plan or risk getting caught tethering with no tethering plan
• Hope that your area eventually gets solid coverage
• Hope that prices (I don't believe any solid pricing data is available) don't go through the roof

Naturally, by the time the N810W is actually for sale, the coverage and pricing data will have firmed up, but some people are naturally optimistic now and perhaps more excited than circumstances warrant (right now).

I think Nokia just wants to put its name next to WiMax.
Probably they won't sell a lot of units, but it for sure will give more light to this new type of devices.

That, to me, it's the main reason Nokia accepted to make a WiMax version of the tablet (and the reason why they did not come up with a brand new device).

My 2c

One of the exciting things about Wimax, at least in the way Sprint seems to want to market it as Xohm.. is that it's pretty much a wide-bandwidth "bit hose" for use with whatever applications we care to run, much like wired broadband services have mostly been to date.

The problems with mobile handset data services are that:
a) They aren't fast enough for the high-bandwidth apps we want to use
and
b) The system operators/carriers are stuck with this idea that they can "own the app" and wall us into their proprietary enclaves and applications.

The explosive growth of the early Internet largely refuted the contention in (b), but it's understandable that people expending thousands of millions of dollars on infrastructure buildouts wouldn't want to be stuck offering a low-cost commodity service.

There has to be a balance somewhere, and there's hope that Sprint gets the right idea.

< devils advocate >
Couldn't you just do that with 3G anyway? Surely the differences you are describing are actually more political than technical reasons?
</ devils advocate >

I think 3g needs to have towers in a smaller radius wheras wimax towers have a comparitively larger signal radius ..... thereby needing lesser towers in rural areas and still having good coverage, unlike 3g which needs much more resources to achieve the same.

can do today.

see above

no need to worry about it

a valid problem no matter the technology in my experience.

[/quote]Hope that prices (I don't believe any solid pricing data is available) don't go through the roof[/QUOTE]

as above, not dependent on tech but on how greedy the corps are.