The WiMax bubble slowly deflates

The American mobile phone operator Nextel has abandoned its plans to use WiMax, Cnet reports.

WiMax - the popular name of the IEEE 802.16 wireless standard - has a range of up to 31 miles and allows data transfer speeds of up to 75Mbps. The 179 member WiMax Forum is in charge of certifying the technology, but so far Intel has been the driving force behind it.

Nextel isn't the first large company to raise questions about the technology's viability. According to Light Reading Cisco CTO Charles Giancarlo early November all but thrashed the wireless standard: "Other than providing the backbone infrastructure that may be behind any WiMax deployment, Cisco is not invested in WiMax," he reportedly told delegates at the Next Generation Networks conference in Boston.

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