Portland Prepping For Jan. 6 WiMax DebutPortland Prepping For Jan. 6 WiMax Debut

A massive WiMax wireless network is slated to officially launch in Portland, Ore., next month, although the wide area hotspot has been in operation for at least two weeks.

Wireless provider Clearwire and Intel said Tuesday that they would host a press conference on Jan. 6 to formally launch the West Coast's first 4G mobile Internet WiMax service, known as Clear. Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff and Sean Maloney, an Intel executive VP and longtime WiMax supporter, are expected to be on hand for the event at Portland's RiverPlace Hotel.

This is the second major deployment of WiMax in less than four months. Sprint rolled out a similar service called Xohm in September in Baltimore with the help of Samsung, Nokia Siemens Networks, Google, ZTE, and Motorola.

The Portland location, which Clearwire had earmarked for its first mobile WiMax deployment, has been offering the service on its Web site. The Portland rollout was initially announced earlier this month when Clearwire and Sprint merged under the Clearwire name with Sprint owning 51% equity in the combine.

When formally launched, the service is expected to include monthly WiMax connections of $50 in addition to a $35 activation fee.

The WiMax installation is somewhat of a do-over for Portland. Although the city is covered by a network of Wi-Fi sites, major attempts by MetroFi and Microsoft to deploy a municipal Wi-Fi network have not fared well.

And while Sprint has a hand in the launch, it's not immediately clear what impact, if any, the Portland rollout will have on other Sprint-announced WiMax deployments. Washington, D.C., and Chicago had originally been scheduled to debut by the end of the year. In anticipation of the rollouts, however, Sprint on Wednesday unveiled a $149 dual CDMA/WiMax modem, which should make the WiMax service more attractive to users.