CNET's Michael Kanellos looks at Intel's deployment of WiMax in the Amazon city of Parintins, where the wireless technology is being used to connect two schools, a hospital, a community center and a university to a broadband Internet.

"The Parintins project also helps Intel to highlight WiMax, which it has long promoted," Kanellos writes. "In established nations, most of the interest in WiMax centers on deploying the standard to replace Wi-Fi. In emerging markets, WiMax is being considered as a way to avoid digging trenches and laying cable in hostile environments and poorer nations."

"We've been blessed with this project," says Parintins mayor Frank Bi Garcia. "We're really isolated and don't have the conditions to receive the Internet with cables. So we're receiving it wireless, from antennas, from satellites -- access to wireless Internet is a great pleasure for us. This project will prepare this generation for the future."

Intel's press release is here.