Intel Chairman Craig Barrett discusses the company’s wimax rollout with Clearwire.

source: Forbes New
After years of delays, Clearwire has finally started rolling out its WiMax wireless-broadband service. Intel has a lot riding on this service: It invested $1.6 billion in Clearwire and is making chips that will embed WiMax directly into laptops, phones and other devices.

Forbes.com caught up with Intel (nasdaq: INTC – news – people ) Chairman Craig Barrett at the Consumer Electronics Show to get his thoughts on WiMax and its rival technology LTE–shorthand for “long-term evolution.” (See “Intel’s Barrett Pushes Charities, Not Chips.”)

Craig Barrett: WiMax is the clear winner over 3G in terms of the bandwidth and the reach. LTE, or the fourth generation of 3G, isn’t here yet. It won’t be here for a couple of years. So, what we’re comparing is something that is here today to something that will be here some time in the future. 4G is starting to rollout. There are 300 to 400 commercial implementations around the world. Portland [Ore.] is the second city in the U.S. to rollout a WiMax network this week.