Vig (www.lazyelegance.com), a blogger from Atlanta explore the possibility of using a netbook/MID as a phone through CLEAR WiMAX Atlanta.

Several questions that he think will come in the coming months would be :Can I use the internet to provide me with reliable mobile telephony ? Is it cost effective ? What hardware is needed to use a WiMAX service to provide internet telephony ? What stands in the way of this being indistinguishable from a traditional cell-phone service? He posted the experiment plan story on Slashdot and got many responses.

In my opinion, Vig’s experiment is not going to utilize the capability of WiMAX network.Because CLEAR wouldn’t support WiMAX devices to have phone call.It will be conflict with CLEAR Voice service.

If he use Skype or Google Voice, it’s a VoIP software over WiMAX and not different from other VoIP phone service.

It’s not a pure WiMAX !

WiMAX is data communications and phone is voice on cellular network.Is there any WiMAX-enabled device that can receive voice call from cellular network ?

As far as I know HTC MAX 4G is WiMAX+GSM phone available on market as Yota WiMAX device.

The latest WiMAX+WCDMA smartphone is Samsung SCH-M830 which working on WiBro WiMAX network.

But I don’t know whether WiMAX and GSM/WCDMA can work together on HTC MAX 4G and Samsung SCH-M830.For example, someone is watching Yota TV (WiMAX) on HTC MAX 4G and suddenly he get phone call (GSM). Is it possible to receive phone call while watching ?

Another WiMAX device that spotted at CTIA 2009 was ECS U71 eMAX.It’s  a dual-function dongle that will support high-speed wireless data communications over Mobile WiMAX and voice over Quad-Band EDGE networks.Developed by ECS (Handset) , Comsys (WiMAX/GSM-EDGE baseband processor) and Intrinsyc (Software solutions)

Comsys will be cooperating on demos at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2009 (Booth #17-19) and WiMAX Forum Global Congress Amsterdam (Booth #3.413), both beginning on June 2.Visitors will be able to gain first-hand user experience of this device by conducting voice conversations over a cellular network and web-surfing over a WiMAX network.

The dongle-phone is commercially available for WiMAX providers requiring multimode devices capable of supporting and providing seamless handover between WiMAX and legacy GSM technologies a necessity at least for the initial stages of WiMAX deployment.

The biggest issue of dual mode multimedia mobile device will be the battery capacity. Samsung SCH-M830 apparently has the answer with a big1500mAh battery capacity for longer usage.

Actually HTC MAX 4G has dual-function capability.It can also be used as Mobile WiMAX-modem. Plug it in computer or notebook and surf the web.

Now Yota is developing Yota Video-Phone that will allow the user making video-calls (VoIP + Video) from one HTC MAX 4G to another.

HTC MAX 4G is high-end and very expensive but ECS U71 eMAX will be more affordable.

Question : Is it possible to have phone conversation or send-receive SMS while browsing the internet via WiMAX ? Do you have any experience ?

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