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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."
Yes, going from ~1-3Mbps to 20-40Mbps DOES justify getting labeled as a next generation service! Heck if they have decent enough coverage this will be a huge deal for us. We currently have a few 3G routers that we sendout whenever we open a new field office with no notice or where a sites internet service is down with no ETA for repair, having upload speeds in excess of 1Mbps will mean we could use it even for our large offices.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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
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.
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..
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?
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
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?