This New York Times article is worth a read, despite the ad you have to click through (and NYT registration is required). It's about companies that are beginning to deploy WiMax.
The article helps dispel some of the hype, like the frequently quoted "up to 30 miles" range, which is actually about half that most of the time.
On the first page of the article, one of the owners of the profiled company confirms something I have been saying for years, that "The real estate is the hard part of the business." If communities would make very modest investments in identifying where to put antennas, provide easy permitting to mount antennas on public facilities, procure tower sites, and put up towers, it would be easy to get private sector companies to come in and offer affordable wireless broadband.
But you can't have it both ways. Too many communities complain about the lack of affordable broadband, but don't want to spend any money to get it. In smaller markets (i.e. virtually all rural communities), it is naive to expect every wireless provider to come in and make substantial investments in site surveys, permits, buy or lease real estate, and invest in towers.
Make all those available easily as community infrastructure. By doing so, the community can dramatically lower the cost of market entry for private providers.
And just to be clear, none of those investments involve getting into the service side of the telecom business, if you live in a state where the legislature has prohibited that.
On the second page of the article is another bit of information that also includes something that I have been warning communities about for years: cable redundancy. The WiMax company has a major business vulnerability because a key location has no alternate cable route. Every community needs to have a technology master plan that has a section detailing plans for redundant routes in and out of key regional towns and communities.