Thanks to Bernadine Joselyn for the heads up on the recent article in CNN (Charles Street Partners Selects Nortel WiMAX to Bring Broadband to Rural America).

The headline says it all, Charles Street Partners(CSP) plans to use WiMAX technology from Nortel to bring wireless broadband to U.S. residents in rural areas of Arizona and Florida. The network will offer data and VoIP capabilities to about one million residents and businesses – some who haven’t had access to broadband before.

CSP has found that WiMax provided the lowest cost-per-megabit. It sounds as if CSP works with a number of local providers, so they act as an umbrella organization (parent company) of some sort  but that the last mile support will be provided by local entities. Nortel will provide an end-to-end, completely integrated WiMAX solution that provides operators with everything they need – from devices and applications to infrastructure and services.

Charles Street Partners has secured over $35M in loans to bring broadband to underserved rural markets in the U.S. from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program.