March Madness - WiMAX Style

posted by Bill Kircos on March 18, 2009

What a month for wireless broadband news...and it's only just after St. Patrick's Day.  The press sure loves a controversy, and within the last 20 days or so, we've seen a slew of news ranging from LTE planning some 30 or so cities by 2010 to Clearwire initially facing some press scrutiny -- but then following up with an 80-city rollout plan, including Vegas, Chicago and even Honolulu to many more in 2010. And, bringing a telecom veteran to run the company.

The good news here is, if LTE can get its technology specification done -- and get the money and engineering to start testing and rolling out its network on top of just deploying 3G -- those who crave a super-fast wireless connection will be super-pleased as LTE catches up. 

And the final touches on WiMAX "version 2" around 2010 will further boost things.  No doubt some of the success of WiMAX, and reviews that have exceeded expectations, have played a role in seeing the LTE folks move up their delivery times some 3 or more years.  This is a good thing.

I do have two bones to pick, and being in PR I realize it is typically career suicide to poke at the media. First, while coverage is trickling in, I think the mainstream press missed a key component or angle of the Comcast news Monday. Comcast is going to resell the WiMAX network in Portland - called Clear by Clearwire - around the middle of this year.

As former reporter, yes I know the impact is small and narrow to one city, later this year. But there are all kinds of implications on this news. This is a cable company - the biggest in the US - saying they are going to add broadband, high-speed wireless networks to their portfolio. What does this mean for the telephone companies, and/or DSL?

And second, I realize controversy and competition are the best type of news articles to report on. Currently, WiMAX and LTE are being pigeonholed into a 'Beta vs. VHS' type of debate - i.e. it's going to be one or the other. In reality, if LTE delivers on the technology and aggressive timeframes, it's going to be more like Coke vs. Pepsi (or maybe Dr. Pepper), or DSL vs. Cable. It won't be an either/or scenario at least how spectrum plays out now.