Sprint and Clearwire turn on 4G in New York City

Wireless users in Gotham, rejoice! A faster mobile data connection, 4G, is now available in the New York City area. That is, New Yorkers can surf the Web wirelessly at speeds approaching a wired, broadband connection—as long they have the right equipment and accounts.

By officially flipping the "on" switch to the WiMax-based network in New York (and Hartford and New Haven, Conn.; New Brunswick and Trenton, N.J., and Tampa, Fla.) Sprint is making steps toward making 4G accessible to a greater portion of mobile subscribers in the U.S.: A promise it made earlier this year when it introduced its first 4G smart phone, the HTC Evo.

What's more, 4G won't be limited to just Sprint customers with an Evo or a Samsung Epic 4G. Service will also be available through Clearwire, which built the WiMax network with Sprint, and through Time Warner Cable.

I've had the opportunity to try out the fledgling 4G service in various spots in New York—including the "outer boroughs" where I live and play—using both a USB modem press sample from Clearwire as well as my own personal HTC Evo.

My judgment so far?

Sprint's 4G service on my Evo rocks! In both midtown and downtown Manhattan areas, I've seen speeds as high as 5-Mbps on 4G—easily 20 times the typical speeds I get in the same areas using Sprint's 3G service. In the outlying neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, I've seen speeds dip to 2-Mbps or even lower (700-Kbps). With Clearwire's 4G USB modem, however, typical speeds were more modest—around 2-Mbps.

Keep in mind, though, that my informal tests were done outdoors and during the last few weeks during which Sprint and Clearwire were still shaking out the bugs. When I moved indoors, speeds dropped considerably—or even died completely if I was in my house located close to New York City's border with Long Island.

Still, we're eager to put Sprint's 4G service through its paces and we hope to report more official results here soon.

We're also looking forward to more wireless broadband competition soon—chiefly in the form of Verizon's often-touted but still-unseen LTE network. But even if Verizon won't have LTE in New York anytime soon, we're still glad 4G came to New York, since that now means we'll no longer have to travel to Philadelphia to test Sprint's latest 4G smart phones.

—Paul Eng

4G Wireless Reaches the New York Area [The New York Times]
Sprint Unveils First 4G Mobile Network in the Big Apple [Sprint]
Clearwire Brings CLEAR 4G to the Big Apple [Clearwire]
Time Warner Cable 4G Mobile Network to Launch in the New York City Area on November 1 [PRNewswire]

—Paul Eng