Wireless Broadband Provider Clearwire Amazed at Speedy Expansion
By Tricia Duryee, The Seattle Times
Jan. 19--SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Clearwire is seeing more demand for its cutting-edge wireless broadband service than the company ever imagined, Nicolas Kauser, president and chief technology officer, told an industry conference Wednesday.
The Kirkland company, run by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, is rolling out a service based on WiMax, a technology standard under development that delivers DSL-like speed through a wireless connection.
Kauser, speaking to the Wireless Communications Association International, said Clearwire is "ahead of our projections -- even our wildest projections."
Currently, the company provides service in 25 cities in the U.S. and 16 markets around the world, including cities in Belgium, Ireland and Denmark.
Kauser said Clearwire is well-positioned to compete against DSL and cable providers, and to a certain degree wireless carriers that are rolling out high-speed cellular networks called 3G.
While WiMax is still an evolving technology standard, Clearwire and others have launched ahead of schedule using technology referred to as pre-WiMax.
The hope is that the products of today may be upgraded to be certified WiMax products in the future.
The first certified WiMax products are expected to be announced today at the conference, which has drawn about 1,700 participants.
Kauser's talk centered on lessons Clearwire has already learned. In Ireland, people unexpectedly used the service to watch the latest episode of "Desperate Housewives" instead of waiting for a broadcast version, which is generally shown much later.
The company initially launched in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2004; In Washington, the service is available in Bellingham and the Tri-Cities.
Clearwire uses the broadcast spectrum and makes connections through a modem that plugs into an outlet and a computer.
About the size of a thin dictionary, the modem makes the service portable but not mobile.
Kauser said the company will soon launch in Poland and Spain. He also said it expects to start rolling out Voice over Internet Protocol services this quarter in existing markets, allowing Clearwire customers to use their access to make phone calls.
In a later presentation, Guy Kelnhofer, president and chief executive of NextNet Wireless, Clearwire's equipment subsidiary, said Clearwire already offers VoIP in Mexico through the provider MVS Net.
Kelnhofer said two-thirds of the MVS subscribers use VoIP, and they make an average of 2.5 million phone calls a month.
He also said the company was working to allow roaming between providers in different countries.
The goal is to use a network being launched by Bell Canada and Rogers Communications in Canada, Clearwire's in the U.S. and MVS Net in Mexico.
Beyond other broadband technologies, Clearwire faces competition from companies such as Sprint Nextel, which owns a lot of the necessary spectrum but has not rolled out a similar service.
But Kauser said Clearwire is headed in the right direction.
"I believe we are the leader today. ... We are selling aggressively in every one of the markets we have," he said. |
