Max Phone

This HTC Max 4G will be a collectors’ item soon. It is the first 4G phone to the market. But don’t import it just yet

Even as we are looking to roll out a 3G mobile telephony network in India, the world’s first 4G (WiMax) mobile telephony network has enveloped Moscow. The first 4G-enabled phone, notebook, USB modem and data card are also ready to be tried out by the masses, the very rich among them. This piece is about the phone, the HTC Max 4G. Even before services officially kick off on 31 May 2009 in Moscow, a duly unlocked version is available and selling freely on the Internet. For regular voice calls or light data applications, you can use it as any other tri-band/Edge phone. But if you need ultrafast and robust mobile broadband while driving your car or commuting on a suburban train, then you can switch to WiMax—a technology that can give you speeds up to 1 Gbps. Yota in Moscow, though, is offering a measly 10 Mbps for 500 to 900 roubles a month. Features wise, the phone offers most of what any touch-screen phone today can boast of. Although fixed WiMax networks are functional in India, the Max uses the protocol for mobile WiMax, and in any case, WiMax licences in India have been allotted in the 3.3 GHz range while the Max can function only in the 2.5 to 2.7 GHz range. So, even if a WiMax network were to roll out next year, this phone would be unable to give you access to it.

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