Wimax

Hey guys, yesterday my dad got an 8 day trial for internet via Wimax. For those who don't what it is, well...look it up. :P Basically, instead of DSL and cable that use the phone line, or cables, Wimax just sends it wirelessly. So your modem has an antennae and picks it up that way. Then you just connect your computers like usual.

Anyway, it's not as great as I thought it would be. Here is my list of observation:

Wimax is suppose to be symmetrical, unlike DSL for instance which is asymmetrical. What this means is that the download and upload should be the same (unlike DSL, which has a very low upload, and normal download). We asked the guy who sold us the Wimax, and he confirmed it. However, it's not. The internet company, Orbitel, rips their consumers off according to a Spanish forum I was reading.

The main problem is really that consumers here have no interest in bandwidth apparently. Like I might've mentioned previously, when we asked about the 2MB service in Bucaramanga, the guy was quite surprised, and said we were the first to even ask about that speed. So people here in Colombia just don't seem to understand much about speeds. 1Mbit here is a big deal, while over there it's actually quite a low DSL speed (Comcast offers 6-8 Mbits, and Verizon is actually selling 50Mbit fiber optic in the northeast!)

Anyway, apparently Orbitel chops up our upload, which should be at 1Mbit like our download, but is at some 300Kbits. Less than 1/3, which is crap (for what they guaranteed we'd get). In fact, this trial we are taking is suppose to be satisfaction guaranteed! I'm not satisfied...here's another problem:

Wimax has a 7km range. Signal is affected by your environment as well. We asked the guy if our speed diminished if our signal got week (e.g. we were at the edge of that 7km radius). He reassured as that as long as we were in the coverage, we'd have our speed. He obviously does not know what he is talking about, and my assumption was correct. It's quite the opposite. It's just like a regular Wi-fi network, how can you guarantee full speed on 1 bar of signal? That's crap.

Lastly, Wimax is a little more expensive than DSL or Cable, and with the 2 previously mentioned problems I don't really see why we would stick with it.

That is all.