Covad to roll out fixed WiMAX this year

Covad indicated it will begin rolling out a fixed WiMAX wireless broadband offering this year, with a promise of offering data speeds of 6 Mbs. Covad says its decision to offer the service followed a lab test and field trial in the San Francisco Bay area. Now the carrier will install WiMAX equipment at existing base station locations in the Bay area as well as in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Covad has named Axxcelera as a preferred WiMAX vendor. The carrier says tests of the vendor's gear resulted in a total symmetric bandwidth of 8-plus Mbs at 5-plus miles and registered less than 1-percent packet loss and less than 50ms network latency. Axxcelera's equipment will be part of Covad's "Super-T" product offering for business-grade broadband access.

"Covad has built a profitable, growing wireless broadband business, using pre-WiMAX equipment, in the San Francisco Bay Area, greater Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Chicago," said Covad Wireless General Manager Lee Gopadze. "We see great potential in Axxcelera's WiMAX equipment that will allow us to enhance our existing Internet access services with additional Ethernet-based wireless service features. These features include class-of-service options, enhanced reliability and expanded network capacity. Axxcelera's equipment exceeded our expectations."

In February, Covad agreed to test a WiFi network in San Carlos, Calif., as part of the struggling Silicon Valley Network, that ambitious WiFi initiative that aims to blanket 1,500 sq. miles with WiFi.

To find out more about Covad's WiMAX plans:
- check out this article [1] from TelecomWeb