There is no question that WiMAX will come along, and be available to most people, given the substantial investment already committed by two or three large "pushers," but the schedule is still uncertain and widespread availability is likely to take longer than has been implied in a lot of the hype. If you're lucky, it may be in your area fairly soon, but those of us out in the boonies will probably have a year or two - at least - to wait for it. For some, good fiber optic lines may be available first, although subscriber prices will need some adjustment to compete with planned WiMAX services of comparable speed.

The WiMAX modem available at present, which is required where the service is available, is an external desktop style unit. It's maybe "luggable" but not portable. The release of the new Intel chip (planned for May 2008, but informed people know about schedule reliability?) is pretty much a requirement for portables/laptops to use WiMAX effectively. Although a half dozen laptop makers have committed to "incorporating" the new chip, there's as yet been no committment that I've heard of from desktop builders, and the laptop makers have indicated that it will be a "modular element" - which implies that it will be an option, probably at extra cost, for those who believe they'll be able to use the new thing.

The cheaper computers currently available seem to be available only with Vista. Any other (Windows) OS doubles the price (since most of the cheapest ones don't permit substitutions). Having been forced to look at Vista on my new laptop I may be compelled to nurse my existing 6 year old computer for another 10 or 12 years, or switch to 'NIX. My current opinion is that Vista is a worse fiasco than WinME (generally considered the worst mistake MickeyMouse ever made - 'til now), and Office 2007 is even more f****d up than Vista.

(Note: some personal opinion expressed immediately above.)

John