Back in April a university in Taiwan became the first school in the world to provide WiMAX to its campus and community, and now Liberty University in Virginia is aiming to do the same for Lynchburg.
Lynchburg Virgnia's Liberty University has partnered with Virginia School of the Arts, another local school, to create the Lynchburg Educational Broadband Joint Venture with hopes of bringing high-speed mobile WiMAX to the university and surrounding community. With long-awaited permission from the FCC, the Lynchburg Educational Broadband Joint Venture will allow communications companies to bid on leasing license channels currently owned by Liberty University and Virginia School of the Arts.
While Clearwire is currently the only US owner/operator of a WiMAX network (remember, Sprint and Comcast are MNVO's of Clearwire's service; they do not own their own networks), other companies may enter the bidding as well since the two schools are leasing the necessary license channels.
If Liberty University's plan pans out, this could prove to be an important precedent for future networks at other colleges. WiMAX has been promoted by many industry insiders as having great potential for providing wireless high-speed internet at the community level, and it will be exciting to see how the Lynchburg Educational Broadband Joint Venture fares.
