DigitalBridge Communications (DBC) has launched the first commercially available mobile WiMAX network in the US. The service in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, aims to enable customers to access mobile broadband services as they travel around the popular holiday location. According to Unstrung, the service – which runs over recently-certified Alvarion equipment – will cost customers around US$40 a month and offers download speeds of 1 Mb/s, with 250 kb/s on the uplink. Unstrung notes that DBC’s business plan is to provide “broadband wireless to small and medium-sized communities of up to 150,000 people.”

The deployment is tiny in comparison to other high-profile mobile WiMAX networks planned for launch in the US later this year. Clearwire intends to launch its first mobile WiMAX network in Portland, Oregon, and Sprint will likely be the next operator to go commercial with mobile WiMax with a Baltimore launch planned for September. The two operators will then combine into the ‘new’ Clearwire to deploy a national network in 2009. Last month service provider Worldmax launched what it claims is Europe’s first network based on mobile WiMAX technology. The network – currently offering mobile broadband connection via PCs only, as WiMAX-enabled handsets are not yet available – initially covers the city centre of Amsterdam but plans to extend across the Netherlands in coming years.