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Why Clearwire's 4G Network Plan Is No Slam Dunk
alphadogg sends this NetworkWorld story discussing the obstacles Clearwire will have to overcome to succeed, which begins:
"Clearwire recently announced the completion of its Sprint Nextel transaction and the formation of the new Clearwire Corp. In addition, it received $3.2 billion from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks. As expected, Clearwire's conference call emphasized all the positive aspects of the deal. Namely, it owns lots of spectrum, is building an all-IP network that is 'open,' and will use fourth-generation (4G) mobile WiMAX technology (IEEE 802.16e). I'd love to see a nationwide 4G mobile network, but let's be clear about some of the challenges facing Clearwire, including cost, device and competitive ones."
Damnit! Viewing threshold was too high.
You suck and fail horribly. Sorry but checking to see if there are posts before your usually helps...
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
O.M.G.
already a 4G, is it such a trendy term now that the G(eneration) gets thrown around everywhere.
My business that i've built from the ground up offers $20 internet, $20 Phone, and $20 TV over a fixed base wireless connection at a customer's place of residence. I've built the entire business from the ground up on open source technologies and at 25MB down/ 5MB up, unlimited phone, low latency links, and dirt cheap television, I really don't feel that i have any competition. So maybe by the time "Clearwire" is actually beginning to do something, I'll take my 802.11/802.16 network and slap a billion dollar price tag on it. I mean if Wal-mart can do it, why can't I? Oh, and the name of my company is FIREWI, and we open to the public Jan 1 for all of SoCal. I have a 300MB full duplex backhaul to set up right now. Late-
I hope that when you die, slowly, there are other people to watch it happen and jeer at you, tormenting you till the last moments.
O.M.G.
I think the correct acronym you're looking for is: W.T.F.
The NetworkWorld article mentions that according to ClearWire, LTE will be out in 2011, but according to Telenor they will have in operation by 2010. The claims of both sides should of cause be taken with a grain of salt.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
I am a proud Clearwire partner, and I am lucky to be able to observe the team we have on site working on our WiMAX testing and technical support. They are a very dedicated group of individuals who work tirelessly, and directly with our test market customers. The progress they have made in such a short time has been very encouraging. The last paragraph of the article stated that "Clearwire has completed an important first step and has partnered with blue chip investors. But the company is embarking on a long journey with very significant challenges. It is going to be fun to see what happens". Well, for me personally, it has been pretty fun to watch this team take on these significant challenges head on and come up with creative solutions for them. We are already getting great speeds on this new system, and I believe we will be able to roll out this network more efficiently then the article would have you believe. It will be a long journey, but it will be worth it. I believe this company will be very successful because they care about their employees enough to let them go out of their way to satisfy the customer with almost any issue they have, even if its not supported by us personally. This makes us a great company that customers can trust and rely on. I know I could never get that level of support from my ISP, who outsource, and therefore I can barely understand. (I don't live in a Clearwire market...yet). Clearwire lets me have the freedom to try and resolve most of our customer's network problems, and because of that, we have customers who can trust us and count on us. This new WiMAX deployment will be a great challenge, but with the level of dedication that these people have put into this idea, I believe we will succeed. You may think I am biased because I work for them, but you would be mistaken. I have my own concerns and issues about Clearwire. This job burns me out a lot, but I still love working for them. The article says that "Clearwire's 4G network plan is no slam dunk". Well, most new technologies are never slam dunks immediately, but with the dedication of our teams, I don't see why a three point shot would be out of the question. Hey, I'm just a fly on the wall watching this team work. With the level of dedication I have personally observed, I believe we will succeed.
I think you forgot to sign your post with:
- Clearwire Marketing Droid
I think there is a theory somewhere that explains why someone would react so strongly against something so meaningless
It seems Clearwire might be a tentative venture just from the quick read I gave the article. If I invested in tech stocks in my portfolio, it might be worth buying a few shares and letting them sit for awhile to see what happens, never know.
I wonder if this technology, once widely deployed and used by lots of people at the same time, will have the latency to compete with cable and DSL. Not bandwidth, latency. Cable used to be pretty bad in the latency department, but has improved over time. DSL historically is pretty good in the latency department.
If WiMax's latency is too high for people to play their networked, this would be a major strike against it.
No, I am not a fucking drone, nor do I have any thing to do with marketing. I just happen to sit next to the WiMax team, and I am proud of how willing they are to make this project succeed. I admire them because they are willing to go out of their way to make this work. Since I am practically a Marxist, I couldn't give two shits about marketing anything. I am so cynical about most things, that to see people actually care about and work for something they believe in, it makes me want to do better myself. You may think I'm a drone, so as far as I'm concerned, you can go fuck yourself, but you can't demean the fact that these people actually care about what they are doing. They make me want to do better at my job, so that's all I care about. I don't give a shit that Harry Roberts thinks I'm a drone, because the people I work with actually make me want to be a better worker. So fuck you Harry if you think I'm some marketing drone (although Dr. Spliff is a cool name).
Well, from what I have been observing, our teams and managers have been working overtime to get this project rolling and I have very high expectations for next year. I have been at this company for a while and I believe we are building something great here.
sorry, I've worked too long in the industry and instantly presume comments filled with praise about anything IT related to have spewed from the foul orifice of a marketing drone.
Thankfully you're not a marketing drone, and it seems I've just been jaded by too many marketing types polluting the internet.
Sorry I got so angry. I've been pretty disillusioned myself about how we were going, but the dedication of this WiMax team has actually restored much of my faith in this company. I feel better about us than I have for a while, so I took too much offense from your comment. I would of felt the same way for such comments praising a company, so I understand your skepticism, and I hope there are no hard feelings. I understand your jadedness, so I shouldn't have been so quick to anger. I feel the same way myself a lot of times. So, sorry about that, and I wish you well :) .
No doubt the latency would be higher than DSL. But it is not designed or (i hope) marketed as a DSL replacement/competitor. Its for mobile internet access.
Oh, and not to mention the last company I dealt with that implements WiMax (who will remain nameless) was managed by a bunch of asshats who had engineers and tech staff trying to jump ship and generally avoid them at any cost.
If the engineers seem to be going well then it bodes quite well for the company.
I've dealt with my share of ass hats like that, so I definitely feel you there. I personally am not on the Wimax team, but I work very close to them. They are definitely working overtime to deliver the service we have been hyping for years now. Their enthusiasm is really rubbing of on the rest of us. The next few years are going to be very hard, but hopefully worth it. Like I said, I'm no marketing guy, and I have my own issues with the company. But like the article said, it is going to be fun to see what happens. Anyways, peace, and long life. Take care.
That doesn't help though. Slashdot doesn't have an atomic "check for first post, submit this post if one is not present" feature.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
No but it does have posts and a post time... He wasn't off by a minute or two.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Since I am practically a Marxist, I couldn't give two shits about marketing anything. I am so cynical about most things, that to see people actually care about and work for something they believe in, it makes me want to do better myself.
Probably you should stop saying you are practically a marxist, and say something more fashionable, like anarcho-capitalist or something like that.
Marxists are everything but cynical. They accuse _other_ people of being cynical. You can't be cynical and keep hoping for the construction of a new world, a new man, or something like that.
And being motivated at work for a corporation is not very compatible with marxism, either. You might go to work, because you need to put food on your table, or something like that. Being motivated to benefit your exploiter is not a very marxist thing.
IANAM, BTW, but I play one on TV.
a Marxist asset, either. If it was some kind of cooperative thing, maybe.
What's going to hapen next in this twisty tale of geek camaraderie?
Tune in next week. SAME GEEK-TIME, SAME GEEK-CHANNEL
a. they are teaming with Sprint. Sprint?! Sprint is a sinking ship
b. Comcast & Time Warner? blood sucking shithole companies whose employees I hope choke on their own vomit. Nothing good can come from their involvement. Roberts can go fuck himself in particular.
Furthermore, what is the supposed advantage of WiMax over LTE in the mobile comunications space? It sucks without LOS. When moving the performance is dismal. It's not the long term plan for the vast majority of mobile operators, including VZW. If the goal is fixed last mile access, maybe it's viable. But for cell phones, it's just weak.
So many injustices..so little time..
Nah, marketing droids know about paragraphs.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Although this sounds good, it will still have the same drawbacks as the current 3g network. Currently, every ISP of the 3g networks throttles your connection after 5gb (a month). A faster speed just means I use up my limit even faster.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
But i like my Pepsi flat as well as fizzy.
Coke, however, really is bad flat.
There is the difference between the drinks, tastiness when flat.
This new network will be a monopoly, even more than the current mobile telco monopolies (lockin). At least on the current mobile networks you can roam on a different network, even though each network can use its monopoly of access to it to set prices and policies arbitrarily expensive and restrictive. For comparison, see the Internet backbones, which are comparatively cheap and open (even though the telcos/cablecos are increasingly coordinated in a cartel, abusing openness and fixing prices).
Of course the first of anything gets to be a monopoly, especially when there's no "photo finish" race among competitors to be first. And the early adopters will pay whatever cost is required. That monopoly might even be necessary and acceptable for a while. But the incumbent mobile telcos have shown that the monopoly lasts forever, even if there are competing corporations (each with their own monopoly).
These networks are all courtesy of the public, especially the mobile ones that lease the public airwaves. Those leases should include a public/private benefit formula that accounts for investment and risk by the spectrum developer, allowing monopoly control long enough to protect profit enough that investors are encouraged to go for the gold. But once some range of motivating profit is achieved, equal access and price anti-gouging rules should protect the public from the monopoly, protect the market from the monopoly crushing any competition entering. Perhaps the lease price should include a refundable deposit that reverts to the spectrum developer once competition is achieved, and is used to fund competitive entrants (under equal access and price protections) if the way the developer runs it doesn't allow competition soon enough.
Make the incentives and protections for competition match the environment, and the market will run properly. Otherwise, we're just going to pay retail for a fourth generation of the telco monopoly that interferes with all our other development, exploiting public property for a very narrow private gain.
--
make install -not war
Do you know if they are hopefully going to address encryption in the newer stuff? See http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=980713&cid=25205303
I was visited by 2 representatives of the company, encouraging me to switch to their service. They offered a demo of its speed. They hooked it up and I got 5 bars. I am on a second floor with a clear line of sight to a cell tower about 300 yards away, so no surprise. However, they were gobsmacked at this 'linux' thing I ran on my computer. They didn't know what it was or if Clearwire would work with my system. I did a few pings and direct ip addresses, hoping to see if it would work. No go. All in all, I was not impressed. They were nice guys and all, but didn't know much beyond plugging things in. I won't be switching.
Debian unstable Registered Linux user #226117
My blog:Real Health
Call me cynical, but get back to us on "great service" when you're no longer an early adopter test-case but just another of thousands of customers. Sure Clearwire is working hard to make it work for you--that's what always happens a first. They want to use you to get the bug out of their system, so of course they're on top of things and "working hard for you"
In about three years when Clearwire has thousands of customers, try to get customer service . Given past experience, I'm pretty confident their service will be on par what's offered by their partners Comcast and TimeWarner--two of the worst customer service departments I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.
Note that I'm not saying you aren't getting good service now; I'm making a prediction about the future--past experience does not guarantee future performance.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I remember when the first WiMax technical specifications were published back in like, 2006. I read them as part of a research project associated with a securities firm to help compile research on the companies involved. Even back then, the prospect of having a broadband network operational at least two to three years in the future with deployments probably (at least, hopefully for the wimax people) continuing for at least five, that could only pump 10MB at a 10kM range seemed absurd. This is a system that at its unrealistic ideal pushes sub-ethernet levels of connectivity.
I know it's a mobile network, and at that, it's very very impressive compared to a lot of what's out there. But honestly the only reason to build a network this large is the hope that you will capture at home users and compete with traditional broadband services (which they fully hope to do in metro areas). How can WiMax possibly hope to compete in those settings against GPON and DOCSIS 3.0/4? Does anyone else think that this has already been cornered by the competition into a niche before it even gets off of the drawing board?
I'd love to see a nationwide 4G mobile network, but let's be clear about some of the challenges facing Clearwire, including cost, device and competitive ones.
portrays some of my thinking, but the bigger problem I have with Clearwire is its terrible service. They have (or, at least a year ago, had) silent bandwidth caps and usage policies so draconian that they make cable companies look friendly by comparison. I wrote about my experience here.
Part of the impetus for buying Clearwire's service was helping to create more competition for the cable and telephone companies while simultaneously saving money. Little did I realize that what money I saved was quickly gobbled up in the form of time spent dealing with the company.
Hey, you might want to fix your personal website: There's no such thing as a "386 DX-2 running at 66Mz".
Intel 80386, for reference.
You probably had a 80486 DX2.
HTH. HAND.
We are GSM. All your base are belong to us.
I was under the impression wimax was very power hungry and hence not suitable for mobile handsets. is this wrong? surely the technology chosen for 4G networks should actually be usable on handsets
I suppose its a good thing that it is not being established as a "mobile" service, but more along the lines of a highspeed wireless "internet" service.
Clearwire is not setting foot into the cellular market... at least, not in the near future.
Everyone seems to be talking about WiMax and Clearwire supposedly sucking as a mobile wireless carrier/connection. I can't say I disagree with that assessment, except the problem here is... it is not being established [at least for the time being] as a mobile wireless company, at least in the same manner in one regards his cell phone.
Yes, you can take the modem with you to various locations, but it is not intended to be used while mobile. Yes, it has PC cards, but trying to use it while driving down the road creates inherent issues with IP address when you continually change towers and base stations. I mean, can you roam from router to router.... no. I know the technical specs are different, but the concept is the same.
Yes, as far as wireless internet is concerned, it will be faster than what is out there, but we are almost comparing apples to oranges when we compare it to modern "mobile wireless" networks. It is not being set up as a wireless internet service, it will be some time before they step foot into the cellular market.
Also, don't forget that Intel plans to start including WiMax in their chipsets... so when WiMax finally rolls out, it will make WiMax more viable.
(sorry about that last line, an editing error)
I wish you well. I live in rural Northern California (Shasta County, near Redding) and we were delighted to get ClearWire and off dial up. I hope you bring us 4G as well.
No kidding. I sincerely mean each and every word of the first paragraph.
However, CLWR is far from a "great company that customers can trust and rely on".
Your help desk people... they are pleasant enough and obviously native english speakers. However, they apparently don't know squat about networking (apart from windoze configurations) and they apparently have no mechanism at all to find a grown up.
I have had serious problems w/DNS and signal quality from time to time, and even when I provide dedicated concrete examples of system failure and a cell phone number, nothing gets solved. I do network management for a living and I would be delighted when someone actually steps forward w/a well defined and repeatable problem.
Seriously, I hope you make it but don't front that CLWR executes perfectly. It's not true. And as much as I like your product, you guys look good simply because all the alternatives suck so much more.
Here, let me summarize that giant run-on paragraph for you into Marketing-speak:
Clearwire: Because hard work is its own reward. Our investors and partners are only impressed with our hard work. (Not accomplishing things that make money.)
Learn to hit return/enter once in a while, try out that cute little "Preview" button if you're unsure, and slow down a bit. The speed at which you posted that obviously affected the QUALITY of your work. Hope you're not doing the same thing at the office. Lay off the Red Bull or something.
Burnout man cometh! Been there, done that -- "Customer focused" company doing "great new things" in the late 90's just prior to the tech capital market's self-destruction. Company's still around, owners made 4 million, none of us who worked 60 hour weeks got to stay long enough to make anything other than 3 year's salary. Company had printed their Red Herring and was attempting to IPO when the IPO market fell out. Wouldn't have mattered if they'd created the next Apple or HP, the IPO market was done for a month after they tried. Stock options were as worthless as toilet paper, since they weren't even printed on paper -- just electronic confirmations and a list in HR and Legal of who would own what.
You know what "partnering with blue chip investors" means? They are even more keen on making a high percentage return on investment than cheap investors who are dabbling in high-risk small companies. Money now, means pay up later.
Here's a tip of the hat to Clearwire - let's hope they can do what they've hyped.
+++OK ATH