The WiMax coverage in Baltimore is good but far from comprehensive. The signal blankets downtown and many of the neighborhoods, but it stops just a few blocks from my house. The cellphone tower is on one side of the hill and my house is on the other. Clearwire says that it is slowly expanding coverage but I’ve seen little change in the map over the last few months.

WiMax can also suffer from the same problems that affect all wireless services. Rain and snow absorb the signal, reducing the quality of the service during storms, an effect the industry calls “rain fade.” Trees and other plants are filled with water and can cause the same problems even when the sun is shining. Thick walls are also a challenge. Being closer to the tower is always better for service. All of these effects work together, so it’s no surprise that the maps of WiMax service show that early deployment is concentrated in the densest part of the city where trees are rare. That’s where the most people will find the best reception.

But wireless also comes with advantages. I’ve averaged about one visit from the phone or cable company every year or so because the copper wires coming to my house need their care. Both services require internal wiring that must either be fished through the walls or the baseboard. Wireless service to the home avoids these problems.

The Xohm/Clearwire base station can sit anywhere in the house and it can even be moved, but putting it on a higher floor near a window improves service. If the house isn’t near the tower, it may even help to put it on the closest side of the house where there’s no dense foliage in the path. Using the WiMax laptop card alone also works under the same conditions.

The more I used the laptop while traveling around the city, the more aware I became of the time it took Windows to start. While the Internet service may be available everywhere, it took several painful minutes for Windows to boot up. To make matters worse, the U300 card needs its own minute or so to look for a signal.

Some netbook manufacturers are experimenting with adding a simpler operating system that can start much faster than Microsoft Windows. These machines can boot up in less than 10 seconds but only by loading a lightweight operating system that offers a few basic services like a Web browser or Skype. The full version of Windows is still available if you need it. Needless to say, offering such a start-up time will change the utility of these microlaptops considerably.

Speeding the start-up time will be crucial if the netbooks want to compete with smartphones for casual use by people on the go. The bandwidth is ready to supply full-size applications that augment reality with an endless heavy stream of data. Scott Richardson, chief strategy officer of Clearwire, told me: “I did a demonstration in Portland with some computer industry guys. I was driving down a road going 60 miles per hour and I got a 14 megabits-per-second download.”

Portland came online in January of this year and Clearwire just announced that it was selling service in Atlanta and Las Vegas a few weeks ago. This isn’t the end. Clearwire says it’s on to Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Honolulu, Seattle and Charlotte, N.C. They’re all fine cities, even if they don’t all have the same level of baseball and the same fertile source of inspiration for narrative crime dramas.