Back in October

I mentioned progress being made in the area of WiMax wireless broadband.  One major problem was the limited amount of

licensed radio bandwidth available—there seems to have been some movement on

this front.

The Register

reports that Intel and Pipex have entered a joint venture to launch a wireless

broadband service in the

UK’s

larger metropolitan areas, London and Manchester to be the

first.  Intel’s venture capital arm,

Intel Capital, has invested $25m—Pipex has signed over their 3.6GHz spectrum

license to the new company (there goes our radio bandwidth problem). 

I’m not quite sure what’s so groundbreaking about this

venture—as I reported back in October, SOBroadband

offer WiMAX class broadband in the UK up to 10Mbps. There has also been criticism of the decision to provide

services to urban areas-the main point of WiMax services was that it can offer

broadband in areas unable to receive wired DSL or cable services.