Re: is anyone actually still using WiMAX

[Dan Winship <danw gnome org>]

On 02/12/2015 12:47 PM, Stuart Gathman wrote:
> > Am 10.02.2015 um 15:53 schrieb Dan Winship:
> > > Of course this would not affect people using WiMAX via external hotspots
> > > (assuming such people and hotspots still exist).

> WiMax by its nature encourages locked, proprietary end points, so it is
> primarily used with an external hotspot.  This is not a bad thing - buy
> the proprietary hotspot, and you have WiMax internet anywhere in Jordan,
> for instance.  But it would be an uphill slog to support directly
> connecting to proprietary networks, and I have yet to see an open WiMax
> network.
>
> So my 2 cents would be to shelve support until there is WiMax network
> that can use it.  (Does anyone know of one operating today?)

The networks themselves are proprietary, but the protocol for
communicating with them is open, just like with GSM/CDMA-based mobile
broadband. If you have certain Intel Wi-Fi chipsets in your laptop (like
the 6250) then, you can connect to WiMAX networks directly, without an
external hotspot. Except, as noted, the driver support is sketchy (last
time I tested it, using WiMAX at all caused Wi-Fi to break completely
until you rebooted), and at least Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu aren't
building support for it.

(So it's looking like the answer to the original question is: no, no one
will care if we rip out support for it completely.)

-- Dan