MuniWireless

When searching for a competitive threat to Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMax services, most observers end up looking at Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation cellular technology publicly favored by AT&T and Verizon. But as recent news has shown, the big telcos aren’t waiting for LTE to start heating up the competition. Instead, they’re pushing harder on 3G-based options and greater Wi-Fi access as perhaps a way to keep customers from ever finding out what the WiMax consumer experience can be.

While…

Even though he’s busy managing day-to-day operations for the “old” Clearwire as he also works on integration issues for the “new” Clearwire and its planned nationwide WiMax network, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff still found time to talk to Sidecut Reports for a mid-summer update this week. In this edited transcript of our phone interview, Wolff talks about what is tops on his priority list, including Clearwire’s coming launch of Mobile WiMax services in Portland, Ore., along with an ongoing process…

Esme Vos expressed surprise to read in the Wall Street Journal on June 11 that Nortel will focus its R&D and sales efforts on LTE instead of WiMAX. The company claims that demand for LTE equipment outstrips that for WiMAX  and, as a result, they are putting their money into LTE. They are not abandoning the WiMAX market altogether, but instead have entered into a deal with Alvarion to combine their technology with Alvarion’s.  Anyone care to speculate what’s going…

I was surprised to read in the Wall Street Journal today that Nortel will focus its R&D and sales efforts on LTE instead of WiMAX. The company claims that demand for LTE equipment outstrips that for WiMAX as a result, they are putting their money into LTE. They’re not abandoning the WiMAX market altogether, instead they have entered into a deal with Alvarion to combine their technology with Alvarion’s. Anyone care to speculate what’s going on?

Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal broke the news on Monday’s big WiMax announcement, about a “patent pool” spearheaded by Cisco, Intel, Samsung and others, aimed at reducing the amounts developers (especially device developers) might have to pay for WiMax-related patents.

For Clearwire, Sprint and other service providers, having a group with Cisco and Alcatel/Lucent in it can’t hurt, since both those companies can probably bring big patent portfolios to bear. But until the real heavyweights of the wireless world…