Independent Clearwire Blog

After shaking hands with McCaw, count your fingers

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Tuesday, 2008-01-22 in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Bell Canada must be smarting a bit today with Clearwire's announcement that Clearwire has chosen Nortel to provide voice services infrastructure for Clearwire. As I described in a March 8, 2005 article - Clearwire and Bell Canada announced that they have formed a partnership for Bell Canada to exclusively handle the VOIP telephony operations of Clearwire's US operations and be the "preferred" VOIP partner for Clearwire's operations outside the US. Announcements are coming fast and furious from Clearwire of late, and it's time I got busy again and rededicated myself to writing about Clearwire as the largest pure-play Broadband Wireless Internet Access Service Provider in the US on my Independent Clearwire Blog.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

Sprint Nextel reductions - you know there has to be a BWIA angle

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Tuesday, 2008-01-22 in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

 While there was nothing stated about Broadband Wireless Internet Access in its announcement of significant cutbacks, Sprint Nextel's (expensive) commitment to deploy Mobile WiMAX services using its 2.5 GHz spectrum has to be weighing heavily on Sprint Nextel's new CEO Dan Hesse. It's going to be expensive for Xohm to get traction in its launch markets of Washington / Baltimore and Chicago. Not only does Xohm have to explain what it's service is, but why you really need it, especially given the aggressive competition for customers of such services by AT&T Mobility (nice that a name has finally settled out for AT&T's wireless services) and Verizon Wireless, soon-enough T-Mobile's (true) broadband services expected to launch this year... and, worst of all, Sprint's own 1xEV-DO Rev. A services on its CDMA network. And doing so in the midst of downsizing Sprint's workforce and possibly consolidating Virginia employees to Kansas (good luck!), stockholder angst that the reductions don't go far enough, and salvaging a viable business out the badly-damaged iDen service. My prediction stands that Sprint Nextel will essentially spin out Xohm and its 2.5 GHz spectrum into a joint venture with Clearwire, or dump it outright. There's simply too much corporate inertia at Sprint Nextel - invested careers and tribal knowledge, technological infrastructure built for "the core competency of a telephone company is to generate billable events", and the external pressures of "the good old days of the cellular business" for a Mobile WiMAX service, with its radical distillation of "telecommunications" into "Stupid Network", for Xohm to gain any significant traction within Sprint.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

(Prediction) Clearwire Takes Over Sprint Nextel 2.5 GHz Spectrum

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - BWIA Predictions / Trends for 2008 (Part 2) in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News

I don't see any way in which this isn't inevitable. Clearwire has the vision, but they'll need a lot more money, and although it's a bit nuts, Clearwire apparently still isn't deploying Mobile WiMAX in new markets. Sprint Nextel will struggle just to rationalize its Nextel 800 MHz conversion and its Sprint 1.9 GHz CDMA networks and streamline their overall businesses - it simply can't afford, or significantly fund Mobile WiMAX on 2.5 GHz spectrum - even if the strident shareholders were supportive, which they're not.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

New BWIA Deployments - Clearwire, Alaska Communications Systems, Verizon Wireless, and Alltel

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Monday, 2007-12-17 in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News.

One of the larger (relatively speaking) BWIA news buzzes today... yet another slow BWIA news day... is that Clearwire has launched (still apparently proprietary Motorola Expedience, not Mobile WiMAX... but, to Clearwire's credit, at least they're not trying to spin it as "kind of WiMAX-ish") a new service area in Rochester, New York, a burg of about 220,000 souls. But on the same day:

• Alaska Communications Systems reported that they have expanded CDMA coverage in Peterspurg, Alaska,
• Verizon Wireless expanded its CDMA / 1xEV-DO network in Northwest Indiana, and
• Just in time for that gift of always-on Broadband Internet Access to the folks back in Helena, Missoula, Billings, and [other Montana] communities along Interstates 94 and 90 that can't get DSL or cable modem, and satellite Broadband Internet Access still sucks and is too expensive... Alltel has expanded its CDMA/1xEV-DO network in Montana.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

Sprint keeps sending out feelers what to do about its 2.5 GHz spectrum - wither Mobile WiMAX?

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Tuesday on Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Sprint Nextel's fumbling of its proposed Mobile WiMAX network and its pandering to its investors that it's "investigating options" for its 2.5 GHz spectrum is, to me, really starting to impact on Sprint Nextel's overall credibility. Sprint Nextel's latest ramblings, reported in the Financial Times, simply smack of desperation. It's abundantly "clear" (no pun initially intended) that Clearwire is the only US company poised to take full advantage of 2.5 GHz in the US to offer Broadband Wireless Internet Access services. AT&T and Verizon Wireless would probably be willing to buy Sprint Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum, but that would be a horrific strategic blunder in making those two behemoths an even stronger competitive threat against Sprint Nextel - expedited corporate suicide. T-Mobile has its corporate hands full and isn't in position to exploit 2.5 GHz.

Clearwire new service area - Charlotte, North Carolina... but apparently not Mobile WiMAX

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Tuesday on Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Conspicuously absent from the announcement of a new service area for Clearwire is the word WiMAX. At all... the word is simply not present at all in the announcement that Clearwire now offers service in the Charlotte area. Curious...

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

Slow BWIA News Day - Pontification

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Monday on Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Very slow news day; apparently the BWIA newsmakers are catching their breath after a busy week last week. So, like Glenn Fleishman, I'll take this opportunity to pontificate a bit. I'll be terse, and perhaps a bit mysterious here - I intend GDBWIA to be "light" and a quick read, and save the long-winded, in-depth pieces for FOCUS. That said, here goes.

The telecommunications industry is entering another inflection point, similar to what happened to it with the rise of the Internet, and the rise of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony, and "pure" VOIP like Skype. We're just beginning to see the dimensions of the next generation of wireless. We're experience a severe clash between the comfortable, familiar, and safe technology evolution, and the disruptive technology of Mobile WiMAX. Investments and commitments continue to pour into conventional wireless telephony, most recently, Verizon Wireless' stated intent that "Long Term Evolution" LTE is what it plans to use for the direction of its network. But the potential of Mobile WiMAX technology to offer very efficient use of spectrum, optimized for TCP/IP / Internet and able to easily deliver multiple megabits  per second and integrated (and high-quality through bandwidth reservation protocols) VOIP is highly disruptive. If Mobile WiMAX gets a "toehold" in a market against more conventional wireless telephony, it could easily out-compete wireless telephony.

Glenn Fleishman does a good review of the Motorola Expedience PC Card

From Good Evening, BWIA - Thursday in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

I was impressed with Fleishman's pretty thorough review of the Expedience PC Card as used on Clearwire's Seattle-area Expedience network. I was surprised that Glenn reported no problems using it while actually mobile (street speeds, not freeway speeds). I know that Glenn knew better than to call Expedience "WiMAX", and he did a good job explaining that Expedience and Clearwire-to-date isn't WiMAX to his readers.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

By-now obligatory Clearwire Rumor of the day

From Good Day, BWIA - Wednesday in Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Today's rumored acquirer? Comcast, according to Seattle Post Intelligencer writer John Cook... but citing no sources for this rumor. Imagine... all the efficiency and customer service of Comcast applied to wireless... fascinating to imagine.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

Reader Question

Excerpt from Good Day, BWIA - Monday on Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News:

Stafford Smith asked Wall Street sees the Sprint Nextel retreat from a joint Wimax network as big setback for Clearwire.  Do you agree? Yes, and No. Yes, that the Sprint Nextel / Clearwire agreement was a big win for Clearwire - they would have given them enormous benefit of their customers having roaming access to much bigger network coverage than what Clearwire could have done on their own - size of team that they can devote to building out network, finances, spectrum acquisition and footprint, etc. Not to mention that Clearwire would have been able to offer their customers nationwide wireless telephony service immediately via Sprint's existing CDMA network. Overall, the agreement would have been a huge win for Clearwire. No, that Clearwire would have been saddled with, and attention diverted by, dealing with a company with enormous legacy issues, including circuit-switched telephony technology, last-generation billing and management systems, huge personnel legacy and "worldview" issues, and thorny migration of Nextel users (those that haven't already quit) from 800 MHz to Sprint's 1.9 GHz CDMA network.