May 6, 2011

The El Dorado HOA meeting today introduced a surprise agenda from Telnor. They are promising WiMax. The budget has been earmarked for the infrastructure and base station equipment. The high speed backbone is to be the fiber optic cables that were interred beside the highway all those years ago. The wireless broadband system will require Prodigy Aire customers to have their antennas and boxes swapped out for the equipment needed for the new broadcast frequency, which, if the University of Guadalajara is any example, ought to be 3.3 Ghz.

Many communities north of the border have been basking in the benefits of WiMax for years. It is a relative cheap way to employ microwave tower infrastructure for the purpose of broadband wireless internet.

Telnor announced its broadband packages would range from 200 peso/month lite internet usage to a 950 peso/month 5meg connection. Various long distance and local telephone usage will likely work their way into some of the account structures.

Thousands north of town have grown old and harried over the years dealing with the spectacularly poor service provided by Telnor's internet branch. Outages and bottlenecks are as common as roadkill, and just about as effective as a tool for communication. Often it seems the buzzards get more use from the towers than Telnor's customers. Unfortunately, WiMax is load dependant for its speed, just like 3G and Prodigy Aire. Overselling the bandwidth can drag speeds down, exactly what is happening now with our other internet options.

The inaugural date for local WiMax has been rumored to be 3-4 months. This would, if it keeps to schedule, establish a Brave New welcome for returning snowbirds.

Another upside to WiMax: people will likely begin to lose weight. With 1-5 meg connection speeds, there simply won't be enough time to cook a pot roast or drive into town to shop while laptops at home laboriously struggle to load a web site.

True broadband internet... Bon appetit.