The chosen vendor for the city of Grand Rapids municipal broadband Internet initiative is back online again following its merger with Sprint Nextel. Originally announced in 2006, the Clearwire agreement was slated to make broadband wireless access to the entire city. The city government had signed on as its first and largest customer as part of a deal that would have brought discounted Internet access to low income residents.
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United States federal regulators today gave Sprint Nextel the green light to spin off and merge its XOHM mobile broadband network with that of Clearwire. …
XOHM's first market, Baltimore, accepted its first revenue-bearing customers in October. Washington D.C. and Chicago have been in market test for several months with plans for customer readiness in the next seven weeks. The cities of Boston and Dallas already have WiMAX base stations operating and Baltimore customers can roam into these markets today.
Clearwire's contribution to the mobile WiMAX effort starts in Portland, Oregon. The Portland sales team is being recruited currently and customers are anticipated during the first couple weeks of 2009. Las Vegas, Atlanta and Grand Rapids are the subsequent cities to go live in 2009.
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