Baltimore, the home of the hapless Orioles and a favorite backdrop for so-called realistic TV crime dramas, just happens to be one of the most wired cities in the country. It ascended to the throne after Clearwire introduced WiMax service last winter, giving the city a preview of what the company is slowly building throughout the country.

Calling the city “wired” is not quite accurate because, HBO series aside, WiMax has little to do with copper; it delivers the Internet through radio signals broadcast from cellphone towers. The service is much faster, though, than what many cellphone networks currently provide with their 3G networks. Indeed, WiMax delivers speeds much faster than many DSL circuits, rivaling many cable modems. I often clock downloads at 6 megabits per second (equivalent to basic cable service in many areas) and uploads at faster than 1 megabit per second.

To read this report in The New York Times in full, see:
www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/technology/personaltech/30basics.html