According to Maravedis, Clearwire is the world's largest broadband wireless access (BWA) provider in the world. The firm recently counted all of the global WiMAX and proprietary BWA subscribers and found that Clearwire's 443,000 subscribers account for nearly one quarter of all individual broadband wireless connections in the first quarter. According to the report, some 1.988 million broadband wireless subscribers are in the world, with more than half using proprietary wireless broadband technology. Of the 602,000 customers on WiMAX gear, 509,000 have fixed 802.16d WiMAX service, while only 193,000 are using a real mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) network, and of those, the vast majority, 145,000, are on Korea Telecom's WiBro network, which obtained certification under the WiMAX Forum this year.
Clearwire is working to upgrade its proprietary gear to mobile WiMAX and plans to merge with Sprint's WiMAX assets later this year.
For more:
- take a look at Telephony
Related stories:
Maravedis tackles the idea of a combined WiMAX/LTE standard. Maravedis story
Analysts say Russian market big for WiMAX. Russian WiMAX story