Sprint and Clearwire switch on WiMAX 4G in NYC, Tampa Bay, and four more

Keeping true to the promises made by Sprint and Clearwire in October, the New York City WiMAX network was "switched on" today, along with Tampa, Florida, Trenton and New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut.

"Sprint is the first national wireless carrier to make 4G a reality for our customers and with the addition of these six new markets we are now in 61 cities, including Chicago, Baltimore and Houston, and are growing. By the end of the year Sprint 4G plans to light up several major new markets including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Denver and Washington DC to name a few," Matt Carter, president of Sprint 4G said in a statement today.

Both New York state and Florida had prior WiMAX deployments go live earlier this year, but these are the first ones for Connecticut and New Jersey.

"Trenton is the first city in New Jersey to welcome the arrival of CLEAR 4G," said Jerry Brown, regional general manager for CLEAR. "We realize Trenton is much more than the state capital - it's a progressive city that needs a progressive new way to access the Internet."

The deployment in Trenton actually provides the smallest per capita coverage of the group launched today. While it extends as far north as Princeton Junction and as far west as the Delaware River, it covers just about 250,000 people. The combined networks in New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut cover nearly 1.5 million people; Tampa Bay's network covers 2 million, and New York City's covers 11 million.