The Australian WiMAX Disaster

We’ve been keeping you updated on all the various WiMAX deployments on their way in Pakistan. Other than the lacklustre marketing that plagued Wateen’s initial launch, so far has been so good. Today we got news from Australia that Buzz Broadband’s WiMAX network, the first to go live Down Under, has failed miserably and has already been shut down. Two questions come to mind: is there something inherently the matter with WiMAX? (We think not!) and have the Aussies been a bit hasty in shuttering up and going home? (Sound like we’re dealing with some quitters here..) Here’s more:

Gizmodo reports:

An early WiMax operator has shuttered its network, and stunned an audience at a WiMAX conference by calling it a disaster. The CEO of the Australian company, Buzz Broadband, had numerous complaints, including “non-existent” line of sight performance over 2 kilometers, indoor performance “decayed at just 400m” and latency hit 1000ms. Commsday, who filed the original report, notes that not all WiMAX operators are unhappy, though. [Commsday via Slashdot]