WiMax

While WiMax has lost the battle to be the 4G technology of choice for most U.S. consumer handsets, it's still alive and kicking in the enterprise market.

Clearwire is outsourcing day-to-day customer care to TeleTech Holdings, shifting about 700 employees to the company, in its latest move to cut costs.

More than 150,000 people are still living in evacuation centers in northern Japan following the massive earthquake and tsunami in March. They have food, warmth and a place to sleep, and now IT companies are helping them reconnect with the world.

Since the wireless industry can't yet agree on a single definition for the term "4G," it should be no surprise that the 4G World show in Chicago this week saw top service providers deliver mixed messages about what consumers might be able to expect from the "fourth generation" of cellular services over the next year. But one thing is clear: We're a lot closer to enjoying the faster speeds of the new networks than we were a year ago, and the advance of the technology is picking up speed.

When smartphones came into wide use for Internet access and data transmission, consumers and carriers quickly recognized the need for faster, more reliable wireless data networks with broader geographical coverage. The current mobile telecommunications technologies, collectively known as 3G, for third generation, emerged about 10 years ago. At long last, successor technologies are now entering commercial service. The whole idea behind 4G is that it will offer very fast, widely available broadband.

Yes, it was only a demonstration. Even so, Samsung's trial of WiMAX 2 technology that touched speeds of 330Mbps is impressive.