Clearwire

Clearwire comes to Spain with mobile WiMAX

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:39:15 -0400

Following through with its ambitions to expand outside of its US home market, Clearwire has announced plans to offer mobile WiMAX services in the Spanish cities of Malaga and Seville starting next year. The company said it would be using WiMAX 802.16e infrastructure equipment from Alvarion and ZTE in the 3.5GHz band to offer high-speed mobile broadband services under the Clear brand.

This move will see Clearwire compete with Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone each of which have invested heavily building HSPA networks capable of downlink speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. However, the Spanish fixed broadband penetration stood at over 21 per cent at the end of 2008, according to Pyramid, which is five percentage points below the Western European average.

Speaking to Unstrung, Stela Bokun, analyst at Pyramid Research, said Clearwire "will have to have a very low-cost strategy and fill in the gaps where the big guys don't want to compete. If WiMAX operators target rural or high-density areas where Telefónica and other big players do not want to invest or are not providing high quality of service, those may be places where they'll have more success."

Speaking at the ITU Telecoms Show in Geneva, Barry West, president of Clearwire International, said: "We intend to prove that WiMAX can work not only at 2.5GHz, but also at 3.5GHz." He added: "We believe WiMAX affords Clearwire an unprecedented time to market advantage in meeting the pent-up demand for wireless broadband services in Europe."

Orange, Vodafone, Telefonica and TeliaSonera all have mobile operations in Spain, but none is likely to have 4G services in place until 2012 or later, even though Madrid has been a hotbed of LTE testing by Vodafone and China Mobile, and Telefonica recently announced its own trials, to start next year in its home country.

For more on this story:
Unstrung and Rethink Wireless

Forget WiMAX, says Nokia

Paul Rasmussen — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:47:42 -0400

Having been a founder and high-profile member of the WiMAX Forum, Nokia has now compared the technology to Betamax, the video format that lost out to VHS over 30 years ago. The company, which developed and launched its N810 WiMAX device a year ago (since dropped), believes that LTE is the only way forward and will be the dominant standard for mobile by 2015.

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's head of sales and manufacturing, said WiMAX was not establishing a significant presence anywhere in the world, "and I don't think the future is very promising for WiMAX. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market. I see exactly the same thing happening here."

This viewpoint, the strongest on WiMAX that the company has made, echoes a study conducted by IMS Research late last year that claimed the technology would be quite successful as a fixed broadband solution, especially in underserved markets. "However, although mobile WiMAX networks are already going live thanks to Sprint/Clearwire and Korea Telecom, the prospects of additional mobile WiMAX networks from Tier 1 operators are looking pretty grim," said IMS analyst Bob Perez.

However, Samsung seems not to support Nokia's gloomy outlook and has unveiled a WiMAX device that would appear to fall somewhere between a smartphone and netbook in capability. The unit, labelled Mondi, supports Windows Mobile 6.1 and seems destined for use on Clearwire's US network--albeit that the WiMAX service is only available in Baltimore and Portland, Oregon today.

For more on this story:
Financial Times and Cellular News

Nokia pulls out of WiMAX

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:32:55 -0500

In yet another blow to the ambitions of the WiMAX camp, Nokia has announced its intention to end production of the only WiMAX device in its portfolio, the N810 tablet PC. According to a Nokia spokesman, the device had reached the end of its lifecycle, remarkably quickly it seems as the N810 was only launched nine months ago. Nokia did not rule out re-entering the WiMAX device market but this does not seem a realistic possibility. The Finnish vendor was an early and keen supporter of WiMAX but seems to have cooled on the technology.

This has not been a good week for WiMAX, which until recently was being touted as a key player in the fourth generation wireless space. Its most significant supporter, Intel, announced it was writing off the US$950 million it invested in WiMAX, leaving the highest profile WiMAX operator, Clearwire of the US, dangling in the breeze. Support for Long Term Evolution (LTE) is another key factor in depressing the hopes of WiMAX. With all the US and Chinese CDMA operators now on board, more than 80 per cent of mobile operators are committed to evolving through the LTE path leaving little room for WiMAX.

For more:
- go to ITPro.co.uk and Tech Tree

Related articles:
Nokia hoists the WiMAX flag 180 feet
Nokia ends production of N810 WiMAX tablet

Clearwire eyes European WiMAX partnerships

Paul Rasmussen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:06:49 -0400

Having collected together a number of heavyweight backers for its U.S. WiMAX deployment, Clearwire has revealed that it is considering partnering with European firms to help it deploy mobile WiMAX. The company owns licences in seven European countries, covering 200 million people. "There are ongoing talks about potential partnerships," said Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff. "The transaction in the U.S. has prompted some interest. It might behove us to partner with those companies who might bring something more to the table." Without revealing any names, Wolff said companies of interest could bring with them network infrastructure and subscriber bases.

Clearwire's expansion into Europe goes back to 2004. Since then, Clearwire has acquired 3.5 GHz licences in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Romania, and Spain, and through its affiliate in Denmark, Danske Telecom A/S . As of the end of March, Clearwire had just 51,000 customers in Brussels and Ghent, Belgium; Dublin; and Seville, Spain. Separately, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to invest up to US$20 million in the Russian WiMAX broadband Internet provider Prestige, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Enforta Group. The investment, designed to improve Internet coverage in Russia, will help Enforta increase its service area to 55 cities.

For more on this story:
- go to EETimes and Unstrung

Related stories:
Clearwire expects 30 million subs by 2017. Clearwire story
Comcast CEO offers insight on Clearwire investment. Clearwire CEO story