Sprint: WiMAX now ready in DC, Baltimore

Brian Dolan — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:08:26 -0400

Sprint Nextel and Samsung Electronics announced that WiMAX services in Washington D.C. and Baltimore have completed the testing phase successfully and are now ready to launch commercially. The companies, however, did not disclose a specific date for when the services will be made available to the public. Sprint spokesman John Polivka said the services will make their full commercial launch sometime "later this year."

"This is a major step towards launch readiness and Sprint is extremely pleased with the performance of the mobile WiMAX network and access devices from Samsung," said Barry West, former president of Sprint's mobile broadband network branch, called Xohm, and now president of Clearwire. "The collaboration with Samsung and our other partners has created a WiMAX ecosystem that has now proven that it can deliver this new technology to the marketplace well ahead of any feasible alternative."

Right now only PC cards have been used, but mobile devices such as Nokia's tablet are also in the pipeline. Plans to embed WiMAX chips into various personal devices, including digital cameras, have been widely discussed.

For more on Sprint's WiMAX in D.C. and Baltimore:
- read this article from Washington Business Journal

Clearwire clears 400K subscriber mark

Brian Dolan — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:35:24 -0400

Clearwire posted a first quarter loss that was nearly double its year-ago loss because of increasing network buildout costs. The $176.4 million loss is close to twice last year's $92.6 million figure. Clearwire's total revenue rose 76 percent to $51.5 million, up from $29.3 million last year.

Subscribers: Clearwire added 48,000 net new subscribers during the quarter. The carrier ended the quarter with about 443,000 total subscribers.

ARPU: Clearwire reported a slight increase in average revenue per user (ARPU): $36.86, up from $35.80 last year. The carrier pointed to increased sales of VoIP and PC cards as well as an improvement in international sales as reasons for the ARPU uptick.

Churn: Clearwire posted domestic churn of 2 percent for the first quarter of the year and 2.2 percent consolidated churn, which includes its international markets.

For more:
- read this Clearwire's Q1 press release