Was it more about the device than the network? I used mobile WiMax from Clear for years until it ended its service. For what it was, it worked great. It wasn't necessarily a speed demon, but it was reliable. I used it to avoid public WiFi congestion, as a backup when my home network was down, and in 'bring your own infrastructure' situations.
Yeah it depends on the market you were in. I helped build the WiMax network but it was built very quickly and in places it was built by people who didn't care very much.
It was all microwave back hauled so rain fade in stormy weather was absolutely a thing. Most of those were FCC licensed or should have been but I know of at least 1 market where they just never filed the paperwork to get the licenses and built it anyway.
I had a clear hotspot puck in the DMV area, worked well most of the time. I don't think I had any issues with price paid vs performance given the current state of tech at the time. I think targeting homes was just a hard battle, FIOS and others were really ramping up their initial push into fiber and it was just not going to compete sadly.
That's possible but it was a Sprint-branded device bought from Sprint that was clearly supposed to be compatible with its new 4G network. And they charged an extra $10 4G access fee every month!
The other bonus was that being a CDMA device, there was no connectivity when traveling internationally, and no option to buy a local SIM card. Wifi only.
