Excited Intel
Intel is certainly pleased at the way Clear 4G is rolling out. "Our long history of innovation with WiMAX, including our development efforts in Portland, OR, allowed Intel to be among the first in the U.S. to have access to this exciting, next-generation 4G environment," said Sriram Viswanathan, VP of Intel Capital and GM of the WiMAX program office at Intel.
"As the network builds out and we start to get apps coming in from the developer community, it will be cool to see what they do," Intel spokeswoman Suzy Ramirez added, noting: "Ideally, we'd [like to] see applications (maybe the next "killer" app) that really push the limits of the 4G network."
Clearwire is already boasting that its Clear 4G WIMAX can reach maximum download speeds of a whopping 10Mbps, but the firm does admit that, on average, that number is actually closer to a much more ordinary three to six Mbps. That's still streets ahead of the 600 kbps to 1.4 Mbps attained by today's 3G networks, however.
The firm has plans to launch its wireless broadband service in 80 markets, reaching 120 million people by the end of 2010. At the conclusion of 2009, nine major US cities - including Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Seattle, Honolulu and Charlotte, North Carolina - will have the service, and Clearwire plans to launch a commercial WiMax service in the San Francisco Bay area next year as well as in New York, Boston, and Houston.
But whether or not WIMAX ultimately succeeds in the face of competing LTE technology is the question. For now, LTE remains a no more proven proposition than WiMAX. But if and when it pans out, it will be interesting to see whether Clearwire's "sandbox" becomes more of a sandcastle in the sky.
