The Linux Kernel Looks To Eventually Drop Support For WiMAX

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Linux Kernel Looks To Eventually Drop Support For WiMAX

With the WiMAX 802.12 standard not being widely used outside of the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communication System (AeroMACS) and usage in some developing nations, the Linux kernel may end up dropping its support for WiMAX but first there is a proposal to demote it to staging while seeing if any users remain...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-WiMAX-2020-Staging-Move

[edwaleni]

Now what do i do with my Samsung Note from Sprint? LOL.

[dylanmtaylor]

Surprised there are still WiMAX users, I remember how much of a failure Sprint's WiMAX 4G rollout was

[QuantumFireball]

I remember visiting my grandmother in Preston, Minnesota sometime around 2009 with my Lenovo T500 and using WiMAX from a local ISP up there because my she didn’t have Internet.

[Guest]

Surprised there are still WiMAX users, I remember how much of a failure Sprint's WiMAX 4G rollout was

Well like Michael said in the article, just used for commercial use cases now. I don't think they care about staying in-tree in the kernel, they're probably using some 2.x or 3.x era kernel and will stick with that until all of the hardware dies, and replace WiMax with something modern.

[edwaleni]

Surprised there are still WiMAX users, I remember how much of a failure Sprint's WiMAX 4G rollout was

It was their insistence to not upgrade their backhaul that killed it.

And all WiMAX clients were tunneled back to Sprint's datacenter in Kansas City over a VPN. Which was extremely aggressive in knocking down the tunnel.

Because they used WiMAX in the Clearwire bands (2.5Ghz), it really didn't serve mobile data very well as it would drop the VPN tunnel and then reestablish it when you hit the next tower. Users simply saw this as slowness or buffering.

So while Sprint bragged about WiMAX data rates, many of the towers were still running good ole circuit switched T1's from the towers to the head ends. Anyone connecting to the legacy Clearwire towers saw much better throughput.

To me it ranks right up there with AT&T "5G" marketing baloney.