Re: is anyone actually still using WiMAX

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Tue, 2015-02-10 at 09:53 -0500, Dan Winship wrote:
> While taking cheap potshots at WiMAX during devconf.cz, we started
> wonder whether anyone would care (or even notice) if we dropped support
> for it in NM 1.2, given that:
>
>   - WiMAX seems to be a dying technology
>
>   - the Intel WiMAX driver for Linux has never worked very well, and
>     the SDK appears to no longer be supported
>
>   - NM's WiMAX support requires a hacked up version of the Intel
>     WiMAX SDK that supports libnl3, which exists only in a git
>     repository whose location has never been terribly well
>     advertised, suggesting most distros probably don't build it
>     anyway.
>
>   - Fedora dropped it a few releases back and there was no uproar
>
> Of course this would not affect people using WiMAX via external hotspots
> (assuming such people and hotspots still exist).

Side note: here in the US, Clear/Sprint (the only national WiMAX
provider) will be shutting down their WiMAX network in June 2015 and
transitioning the spectrum over to TDD-LTE.  Yota in Russia moved to
TDD-LTE in 2013, and I think the only major networks left are UQ in
Taiwan/Japan and KT in South Korea...

Also, Intel devices are the only ones supported by NM right now, and
they haven't made the hardware or updated drivers since 2012.

Dan