“What do you know about WiMax?”

I’d just introduced myself to a girl from Intel.

“I’m Ewan,” I said, “I’ll be your mobile blogger for this evening.”

I say that a lot. It’s a way of introducing myself and making it clear what I do and … well, it goes some way to explaining why I’m asking inane questions about your mobile handset choice later on in the evening.

I was at the Computing magazine awards last night and walking about saying hello to people, handing out business cards and searching for mobile related companies to blog.

The girl I’d just said hi to asked me ‘What do you know about WiMax?’

Arse.

‘Er, well…,’ I mumbled.

I’ve read widely on WiMax. But just, not, well, not recently and — I often like to wait until things are real and usable before getting stuck in.

‘It’s wireless internet over large areas,’ I said, attempting to look reasonably knowledgeable. The girl began an overview and it was all I could to avoid hearing the Intel bing-bing-bong-bing chime in my mind as she did so.

‘Kilometres,’ she said.

‘You what?’

‘It works over kilometres,’ she explained.

‘Ah right. But does it work? You know, work?’

‘Sorry?’ She asked. I was browsing the menu hoping not to see sodding Salmon. Award ceremonies in my experience always seem to feature sodding Salmon or some sort of sodding fishy thing.

‘Can I buy one?’ I asked, ‘Can I go to PC World and buy a WiMax kit and use it?’

‘Pretty much,’ she said, ‘The technology is excellent.’

Well I’d expect to hear that from Intel, I thought.

‘What, you mean I could get a WiMax router and plug it into my BT connection at home and start using it, right now?’

I think she was getting a bit fed up of my (stupid) questions. I qualified my idiot probings by explaining that I’d really not been paying too much attention to WiMax at all while folk jumped around trying to get it to work. I’d very much associated it with mesh-networks-and-all-that-jazz. You know, coming soon, sort of, in trial, sort of… not really ready…

Kudos to the girl though, she wasn’t giving up on me, ‘Yeah, you’d need a WiMax card for your laptop though,’ she continued.

‘Right, so, theoretically, I could get a WiMax router and card for my laptop and then I could sit in the cafe round the corner from my place and use MY internet connection?’

‘Yeah, exactly,’ she said, with no small amount of triumph that I’d eventually got it.

‘Could I, theoretically then, go to the gym — that’s about a block away — and check my mail on my laptop there?’

‘Yes!’

Wicked. Right. Sign me up.

I really should have paid more attention to WiMax. I’m certainly aware of the general limitations and arguments for and against the technology. It’s worth having a play with it though, which is exactly what I’m going to do.

I suddenly remembered reality: ‘Do you do WiMax cards for Apple laptops?’

‘I’m sure there’s one that’s compatible,’ she explained.

Right then. Standby. I’m going to get hold of a WiMax router and card for my laptop and I’m going to do it. I want to check my email and post a note on SMS Text News via *MY* connection at my local cafe whilst I wait for my two-poached-eggs-on-toast.

Update: Heh. I don’t know what I was smoking when I wrote this. Obviously, WiMax routers aren’t for sale in your average PC World…. at least, yet. Thank you Carlo for helping me press reset. I’m going to see what I can do to play around with WiMax here in the UK anyway.