Sprint and Clearwire Avoid WiMAX War
January 16, 2006
Clearwire and Sprint Nextel, the biggest holders of 2.5GHz WiMAX spectrum in the US, are both planning significant network expansion over the coming years.
For the meantime, however, there is a big enough market available for the two companies to steer clear of direct competition, and each focus on their own areas of the spectrum. This is a similar arrangement to the alliance between Austar and Unwired in Australia.
Clearwire has chosen the route of providing service to lower-density suburban and semi-rural areas in hopes of unhampered expansion, with very little competition.
Sprint Nextel, meanwhile plans to aggressively move into dense population centers, and recruit as many customers as possible. Part of the reason for this strategy is Sprint’s agreement with the FCC, which obligates them to make WiMAX service available to at least 30 million Americans by the end of the decade.
Of course, by choosing the high-density areas, Sprint could potentially face competition from 3G cellular networks, which now use EV-DO and HSDPA technology to provide data access for laptop computer users. The fact that these networks now exist might lower demand for WiMAX technology in cities, unless it is priced very competitively.
In these crucial formative years for the WiMAX standard, companies will have to do all they can to effectively promote the standard, and convince consumers that it is worth using. There simply isn’t time to deal with excessive competition. That seems to be the main reason why Sprint and Clearwire have decided to keep out of each others’ way, even if only for the time being." |
