Sunday, 11:40 a.m., Patterson Perk coffee shop on Eastern Avenue, Southeast Baltimore: Just down the hill not too far away from the pagoda is a coffee shop, where I stopped for an iced soy chai latte. Very tasty and robust.

The WiMAX connection inside the shop was also strong: At 11:44 a.m., I clocked it at 3.526 megabits per second on the download, and 1.501 megabits on the upload -- well within XOHM's "high performance" range. Five minutes later, I did another speed test and got noticeably different -- but still good -- results: 2.846 megabits on the download and 1.272 megabits on the upload. There was some "hitching" in the videos I tried to watch, but it smoothed out after a few moments. (By comparison, my Dell laptop's Verizon EV-DO card was only pulling in 331 kilobits per second on the download and 111 kilobits on the upload -- so XOHM was blowing it away.)

But suddenly, XOHM just dropped me -- and I hadn't even finished my iced latte yet. I reconnected to XOHM and surfed the Internet again for another 45 minutes, with no problems, before leaving for Federal Hill.

Sunday: 2:40 p.m., Federal Hill Park, downtown Baltimore: After a leisurely lunch break with my wife, we mosied over to Federal Hill Park, where I sat on a bench overlooking the Inner Harbor with the laptop. The city's downtown skyline figures prominently in XOHM's marketing materials, so I figured I'd test it while staring at that same skyline.

Ironically, the XOHM service at Federal Hill park was the spottiest of all the areas I had tested. While trying to do my first speed test and watch the pleasure boaters float around the harbor, I got dropped by XOHM. Over the course of about 45 minutes, XOHM would drop me four more times. Not cool. When I was able to get online and do a speed test, I measured a download pace of 2.214 megabits per second and an upload rate of 2.208 megabits.

At this rate, XOHM struggled to deliver two videos at the same time (via Hulu.com and Amazon.com). And at one point, Internet Explorer just crashed. It got to the point where I was having trouble discerning if some of the problems were due to XOHM or to Windows. Interestingly, subsequent speed tests showed that upload speeds were actually faster than download speeds, which was unusual. It made me think that XOHM still has some work to do fixing some of the patches in the downtown area.

Monday, 11:12 a.m., my desk at the Baltimore Sun building, 501 N. Calvert St.: Amazingly, the Lenovo is catching a WiMAX signal deep within our newsroom. I sit about 40 feet from the nearest window and I'm picking up a modest signal. Sprint officials told me they've designed their network to penetrate, on average, about 15 feet into buildings, so catching XOHM on a laptop where I sit is a pleasant surprise. Sure, it's only 1.623 megabits per second on the download and a measly 62 kilobits on the upload, according to my speed test -- but it's something, and it's steady. I'm checking email and watching videos on YouTube with no problem. It's moving extremely slow in pulling up videos at Hulu.com -- but they work fine once they get going.

My thoughts on XOHM, overall: It has tremendous promise -- and its share of hurdles to leap over. It obviously needs to finish building out the rest of its network in Baltimore for most consumers to even begin to seriously consider using it regularly. The network has to offer a consistent experience to its customers -- and Sprint knows that. See the map of the network's current coverage below:

If it can't offer a seamless coverage experience for customers, than its monthly fees might have to come down a little. [ed note: I made this point to Barry West last week. -- DD] Offering a mobile, wireless broadband service in a metropolitan area shouldn't mean you should have to get into your car and drive your laptop to a spot that catches the WiMAX signal.

That said, it's not quite fair to be overly-critical of its coverage so far, since Sprint just launched the network two weeks ago. It worked very well in most places I could see myself naturally wanting to use it. Plus, remember how long it took for the major cellphone companies to build out their cellular networks? Years. Many years. Sprint's pushing to cover 1.3 million people in the Baltimore area by the end of next year. It's an ambitious goal.

If you're not in the market for a new laptop that comes WiMAX-enabled, then you'll probably be using one of the plug-in devices for your laptop. Stay tuned for more on WiMAX.

(Photos by Karen Sentementes)