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Mary Richards reportingThere will soon be a new way for you to use the Internet on the go. It's called WiMAX, and the providers hope it will be faster, stronger and more accessible throughout the nation.
On Main Street in Salt Lake City, my laptop shows a few wireless Internet options around me, including XMission. I can use XMission for free, but not the new WiMAX being built by Sprint and Clearwire.
"They're doing it for a commercial purpose, and when XMission puts free wireless Internet out there, we're doing it for an advertising purpose," explained XMission President Pete Ashdown.
Ashdown says users will pay to use WiMAX, but it should allow portable Internet access over a much larger geographic scale. Wi-Fi drops after about a block or so.
Sprint hopes to have WiMAX going by next year.
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
