WiMax arrives in Anchorage
27 Jun
AT&T quietly rolled the announcement on their homepage recently that WiMax is now available in the Anchorage area. Reading the fine print, it’s obvious they’re not reaching everywhere in town yet. The $19.95 price point looks attractive at first, but you can quickly deduct they are trying to rope you in on the low end bundle deal with local and long-distance plans then tacking on the less-than-interesting 384K Internet option. As much as I am really excited about WiMax, this really stinks.
I had high hopes that our friends at AT&T would get progressive and really drive hard to be a leader in the Internet business. Sure, we’re a tiny town and consumers don’t amount to much – but we could all get behind a company that REALLY broke the mold (and mildew) of the same old bait of $19.95 for crappy Internet speeds. I’ve said it many times before, give us our IP connection and make it fast, open and unrestricted – and we’ll pay you for it.
Maybe I jumped the gun with this blog post, as I am still waiting to hear from AT&T for details on plans, pricing and areas of town that are eligible for WiMax today. Who knows, I could be totally off base and they’re planning a complete Internet revolution for the Anchorage market – but I’m not holding my breath just yet. Check out the current WiMax information on www.attalascom.com.
Kevin’s $.02
AT&T Alascom is sitting on a golden opportunity to really own this market – and here is the formula:
- Unbundle the old technology from the new
- Who uses long distance on a landline?
- Offer truly high speed connections
- Anything less than 4Mbps is insulting
- Bundle the new technologies
- Think: iPhone phone/data plan with WiMax unlimited usage
From the AT&T website: “19.95 applies to 384 Kbps speed bundled with local and long distance”
First off, I could run to the Library and get information quicker than having a 384 Kbps connection! No! Seriously! I am so pissed off with this SHIT! 384 Kbps! It’s criminal that they can even charge for this! We are so far behind with internet it’s ignominious!
It’s bad enough that they can expect to charge $20 for this, but the fact that it requires local and long distance service as well is atrocious! This is also without taking into account the high probability of download and upload caps and the absurd overages that come with them.
Note to everyone: Get off your ass and let companies know this shit won’t fly! People forget that they control the market; you do, it’s called spending!
384 Kbps…I could create more bandwidth chopping wood!
Wow! I’d say your name sums it up. I have to agree with you wholeheartedly, that we need to speak with our wallets. It’s past the point of embarrassing, annoying and ridiculous… Maybe you could chop some wood for me, I could really use that extra 384K over here! *cough* MTA rip-off *cough*
But! Where else do you get “10 Mbps of web space!” with your internet connection! (that’s from the Alascom page) Now if someone could just tell me what 10 megabits per second of web space is, I’d be even more excited!!!!
Wow, great catch. I sent a note to AT&T, let’s see if we can at least get the verbiage correct. Next, we’ll work on getting the right plans/solutions!
I use Clearwire right now, which I think is some flavor of WiMax. I chose it because it’s not a bundle. I hate bundles. I think if ATT could offer the 2M D/L and something decent for U/L speeds, they’d have my business. Well, they’d also have to toss in unlimited D/Ls and U/Ls like Clearwire (thought CW does monitor upload useage, and calls you on it if they deem it “excessive.” I’d hope there would be no monthly fee for long distance, just usage, but that’s probably too much to hope for.
Anyway, I think AT&T could own this town if they’d do what you and the commenters above suggest: give us faster internet for a fair price. Is it really too much to ask?
I currently have WiMax at home, and I LOVE it!! Look, you guys are doing the same old Anchorage thing, and waiting for someone to spoon feed you info through advertising. CALL AT&T BEFORE YOU BLOG!! That should be anyone’s motto. I have a 2Mbps D/L and 1 Mbps U/L from them, and it’s great. Apparently, if you’re a business, you can get even faster, like 3Mbps! The price is great, and the service is excellent. What more can I say? Styop wondering if they have more speeds and decent pricing, and CALL THEM! They definitely do!
Krista
i currently have WIMAX and live on government hill 2 blocks from there tower, i still get interference. my speed will go from 2 meg to 1 meg and so on and so forth. NOT STABLE!!! upload or download. i have tried placing the modem everywhere from the window sill to hanging it from the ceiling !!! i even hooked a 50ft cat 5 cable to it and had my son walk around the house with it , plugging into different wall plugs still not any better , signal say full bars always but speed tests show a real inconstancy in there service. i am using ACS DSL for my computer and have the wife and kids sharing the WIMAX with 3 comps and a router , even with the router removed and 1 pc i get the same results PS they now offer ala-cart ( no package just the internet ) for 1 MB/ 256 its 49.95 and for there 2MB/ 768 it is 59.95 WAY over priced , but the upload is better then most packages that GCI and ACS offer. i would say unless you dont mind slow speeds or want a contract STAY AWAY!
I’ve had WiMax now for a while, and I like it much more than our other options in this town. I refuse to deal with GCI ever again, and my ACS connection was just as expensive and not any faster. Not to mention when speaking with their customer service it was like pulling teeth. In fact, when they first installed it, ACS disconnected my neighbors phone line, and installed mine instead. Then they wanted 3 weeks to reschedule and fix the problem. That’s nothing compared to GCI’s billing problems. I could never figure out if I owed them more, was paid up, or about to be cut off and neither could they. Even after I got fed up with it, and discontinued the service, they continued to bill me.
I don’t need a bundle, and I don’t have one with my WiMax. Its a little more expensive than the GCI plan with similar speeds and no package, and beats the pants off of any ACS plan, plus they don’t require a 2-year contract.
The real story is how far behind the times we are compared to the rest of the country. I was just in Seattle for a weekend using my friends Comcast cable internet. She’s getting 200M, compared to my 2M. I was downloading movies and entire seasons of TV shows in a matter of minutes instead of hours and days. If GCI could ever get their act together and get a 200M connection up and running up here, I would actually consider going back to them despite their billing problems. Which wouldn’t be a problem since I don’t have any contract with AT&T. Today though, I’ll stay with them because I actually don’t mind doing business with them, and they’re happy to have the costumer (something I was never sure about with their competition).
Actually the bundled promotion of $19.95 refers to a 1Mg speed, which is usually $29.95 bundled but is on promotion. How do i know this, because i sell the service every day. I also have the service in my home and love it.
For basic internet browsing, downloading and watching short video a 1Mg is plenty fast. Great for the price. For xbox gaming, probably wont’s work. You are NOT required to bundle it, however it is discounted if you do. There is no cap on the amount you can download, unlike GCI. No contract to lock you in, not happy then cancel, simple as that. No antenna or cables to install. And your first month is free so you can try it out and make sure you are sitisfied.
It really is a simple nice product, and in a perfect world the coverage would be perfect. However we live in Alaska, far from perfect. Terrain, large buildings and other things cna interfere with signal strenght.
Also a thing to mention, as to why we only offer a 2Mg at the highest speed . . . GCI has a monopoly in Alaska, they own the majority of the bandwidth in the state, Clearwire is owned by them. Therefore we can only offer speeds so fast so we can provide it to more areas. Give or take . . . fast speeds or more coverage. Hmmm.
Just on a side note, in comparison to the lower 48, Alaska will never have the speeds they do. So expecting more is ridiculous.
I would love to utilize WiMax, even at 1MB, that’s as good as I get with MTA and at $120 LESS per month. You can definitely live with 1MB, not that anyone should have to, but I’ve been at 768K for so long that anything faster would be an improvement. What AT&T needs to do is focus on the under-served markets first, then compete with the GCI/ACS behemoths. Give the folks in MTA territory a chance to choose! Note: GCI does not own Clearwire, rather Clearwire’s traffic is riding on GCI’s network. I think it’s shortsighted to say that Alaska will never have the speeds that are found in the L48. Look at Hawaii, they’re in the middle of the freaking ocean and have better prices and performance!
WiMAX is total garbage. It only works for 5 minutes every hour. The speed does go up to 2MBPS as advertised (when it works). I called them, and all they told me was to power cycle and all of the usual customer service stuff that doesn’t really work. Then they told me it doesn’t work in my area and that they shouldn’t have sold it to me to begin with. That’s a lie. It worked perfectly for 5 months, and then stopped working in May. I’m suspecting they reduced the coverage area from their antennas. Those sneaky, stealing, lying crooks. They’ll be losing at least one customer now. Bye-bye, AT&T.