Document Actions
Sprint & Clearwire
Forget Sprint Nextel Clearwire news!
I found the news that Sprint Nextel and Clearwire
would offer mutual roaming agreements to their subscribers encouraging for the
industry. I invite readers to travel back in time to the happy year of 1999 when
tech companies put out all sorts of utterly meaningless press releases and the
stock prices jumped off the charts.
Lets peal back the onion on this news. First, neither Sprint Nextel nor
Clearwire has deployed a single true WiMAX base station (I have no doubt they
ultimately will do so). Given that, neither has earned one dime from real 802.16
WiMAX operations. Ergo, the reality is that the press release runs along the
lines of a 1999 "memorandum of understanding" type press release indicating to
Wall Street that "so-and-so is in bed with such-and-such" all of which
ultimately meant zip in terms of revenues and earnings.
Memo to analysts: we can all day trade anything. For long term success look for
industry players to deploy real WiMAX providing real services to real customers
for real money.
Frank Ohrtman
_____
tags:
