Commercial WiMAX Network Planned for Silicon Valley

In addition to Clearwire's earlier announcement on the development of a WiMAX developer's testbed, the San Jose Mercury reports that Clearwire plans to make fixed and mobile WiMAX service commercially available in Silicon Valley sometime next year.

The cities and total area to be covered by the WiMAX network are still being worked out, said Todd Lewellen, market-launch director for Clearwire.  But he said details about that should be forthcoming in a few months.

Once connected to the mobile WiMAX service, "you can be on a bus, your kids can be in the back seat of a car watching their favorite video, there are just a lot of cool things you can do," Lewellen said.  Although the cost of the service here hasn't been determined, Lewellen said it probably would be comparable to what people pay in Portland, Ore., where basic mobile service costs $30 a month.  In addition, WiMax customers will need to buy a $49.95 network connector (often called a "USB dongle"), which plugs into a USB port on their notebook PC or gadget, unless the end point device has a built-in WiMAX adapter. 


Fixed WiMax service, that only connects a person's home to the Internet, may cost about $20 a month.  We would assume the speeds offered by Fixed WiMAX would be comparable or better than the "business class" DSL service AT&T offers here (this author pays $30 per month for 2.6M bit/sec downstream and about 800K b/sec upstream).  Cable based Internet from Comcast is much more expensive, unless you have a triple play service.  Hence, Clearwire's fixed WiMAX service should be quite competitive with wired broadband access.


Comment and Analysis:

We believe the following will happen if WiMAX does get deployed in Silicon Valley within the next year:

- Comcast will be a MVNO for mobile WiMAX, but not fixed WiMAX (which competes with its cable modem based internet access).  Sprint will probably only resell mobile WiMAX, as they do not have much of a presence here outside of cellular services.

- More mobile WiMAX gadgets will be announced as the service becomes more available.

- Fixed WiMAX will take market share away from AT&T's DSL service for residential users.  It appears likely to be more cost effective, but we need to see the deployment details from Clearwire to be sure. 

Clear Spot portable Wi-Fi Router


- The Clear Spot portable Wi-Fi router will be a big seller, allowing most Wi-Fi-enabled devices and PCs to connect to Clearwire's WiMAX network.  The list includes smartphones (including the Apple iPhone, some RIM BlackBerry devices, Windows Mobile phones, the T-Mobile G1, and the Palm Pre), Wi-Fi-enabled game and music devices, as well as Wi-Fi-ready digital and video cameras.  The Clear Spot can also be used to replace the residential Wi-Fi Access Point/Router that connects to a DSL or cable modem, while keeping your home Wi-Fi network intact.


 

Friday, April 10, 2009 in Deployments  | Permalink |  Comments (5)