Thu 19 Jun 2008
Everyone was buzzing about the prospect of a wide-open network during the 700MHz auction (don't hold your breath on Verizon making good on it), but Clearwire is giving it to us now. The company, a joint venture with Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner and others, is promising open everything on its new WiMax network. Bring your own device? Check. Use any application? Check. Pick your own retailer? Check, and that's the real measure of the open network.
Clearwire's stance appears to be to drive as many subscriber units as possible by allowing dozens of retailers to market their services. With so many large companies backing the venture, we'll likely see cable companies offering their own branded wireless voice, data and mobile TV services. This changes the dynamics of the field much more than the now-aging triple-play.
Sprint in particular is eager for this show to get on the road and projects a launch this fall. After losing almost 1.1M customers in a single quarter, getting dumped by Qwest and being the target of acquisition and spin-off rumors, Sprint needs something beyond fixing its notoriously bad customer service to get on its feet again, though I'm left wondering if operating yet another network in addition to CDMA and the aging iDen is such a good idea.
WiMax, though, isn't quite the savior technology that everyone would like it to be. It's a common mistake for folks to say it'll do around 70Mbps up to 30 miles. The technical reality is that those are both theoretical maximums and are inversely proportional towards each other. The further out you go with the signal, the lower the data rate goes. In a real-world urban environment, it's more like 10Mbps over about a six-mile radius for mobile users. WiMax also only operates on expensive licensed frequencies. This means lot of towers, a lot of FCC licenses and lots of backhaul, but not a lot of blistering speed. In other words, don't cancel your DSL service just yet.
This will probably shake things up in the cell market, especially with Comcast and Time Warner offering private-label services, but don't expect this to cause significant shakeups in broadband delivery.
June 20th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Will be nice to see um give it a go, I wouldn’t call this a third pipe tho, it does fit nicely into the .5 of 2.5 options category(phone company + cable company + dialup/wireless/satellite).
It has the potential to change how the wireless market works AT&T otta hate that. especially after they dropped all that extra cash to get 700mhz space with no restrictions on it, I would bet that verizon has made the better investment with the open access space they bought.
I wonder how long verizon/AT&T are gunna hold onto LTE 4g when every product containing parts from intel, amd, and the dog next door is going to have a wimax adapter wedged into it.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:25 am
I think the most interesting part will be to see if voluntary open access becomes the norm instead of the exception. The cost of rolling out new networks has gotten prohibitive enough that attempting to deploy a closed system poses substantial risk. By partnering with other companies to both cover installation costs and provide retail services, you place yourself in a position to capture a substantial piece of the market and pay off that investment quickly. Only time will tell if the market has gotten smart or if we’ll just continue to see more Comcasts and Broadweaves in our midst.