Remember the good old days when reporters said that WiMax was
this huge success story before it even existed? Then came the WiMax
backlash, and various delays in actually getting certification testing started.
Finally, back in July we were told that certification was really (no, really!)
starting and we could maybe expect actual, honest-to-goodness, certified
WiMax equipment by the end of the year or early next year. Except, of
course, that the company expected to be the biggest provider of equipment
didn't actually send in any equipment to be tested, and now Broadband
Reports points out that actual testing won't start until October, suggesting
that, once again, the whole concept of WiMax may have peaked way too
early. In the meantime, the companies who are really interested in WiMax
have moved on to focus on mobile WiMax equipment which isn't even
standardized yet, let alone certified. So, for all the hype around WiMax
(which often focuses on the mobile capabilities), we're still talking about
years before you're actually going to be able to use the technology to surf
the internet from anywhere, by which point there will be plenty of other
alternatives available as well.