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Free report: A look inside Clearwire’s network

Paul Kapustka — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:56:17 +0000

After a year of aggressive market launches across the U.S., Clearwire Corp. is becoming fairly well recognized for its pioneering use of the wireless broadband technology known as WiMAX, the “Wi-Fi on steroids” technology that allows providers like Clearwire to build “hotspots the size of a city.”

While WiMAX’s ability to provide broadband Internet access with cellular-like mobility is certainly the most recognizable attribute of Clearwire’s deployments, there is a lesser-known but just as important level of innovation taking place inside the company’s network, from the connections to the Internet’s core out through the radio towers and down to the end-user devices.

Those internal-network achievements, including Clearwire’s primary use of microwave for traffic “backhaul” and its open, Internet Protocol-based core infrastructure, are not only providing Clearwire with an instant competitive advantage, but are perhaps part of a burgeoning blueprint for next-generation service providers looking for ways to cut costs while providing bandwidth to a user base that is more demanding and more mobile with every passing day.

There’s no way to explain all the details of Clearwire’s network innovations in a simple blog post — but for the amazing cost of FREE, you can download our latest report, titled Inside Clearwire: A Network Report. Our latest deep-dive research and analysis provides a thorough explanation of the design of Clearwire’s internal networks, how different technologies affect its deployment, and how cost savings can be achieved by adhering to an open-Internet idea. Click here to download your free copy today!

What’s inside the “Inside Clearwire” report? Glad you asked. Here are some handy bullet points of what kind of info you will find inside:

– How Clearwire’s emphasis on using microwave backhaul gives it a cost-savings and flexibility of deployment edge over traditional wireline systems

– Why using an open-standards approach to infrastructure allows Clearwire to select “best of breed” suppliers and avoid monopoly lock-ins

– How Clearwire’s spectrum portfolio gives it room for future bandwidth demands while keeping tower-site expenditures to a minimum

– How Clearwire’s current network infrastructure decisions might lead to a more open environment for device and application development in the future

Click here to download your copy today!

2010: Guidelines for Successful Large Scale Outdoor Wi-Fi Networks

Esme Vos — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:40:49 +0000

Novarum has just written an 8-page white paper titled “2010: Guidelines for Successful Large Scale Outdoor Wi-Fi Networks” which contains recommendations to service providers on what makes a successful large-scale outdoor Wi-Fi network today. These recommendations are based upon Novarum’s work between 2006 and 2009 testing over 175 wireless networks in 36 North American cities. Last April 2009, PC World published Novarum’s test results for 3G networks in the US. Earlier in February 2009, Ken Biba, one of Novarum’s founders, wrote an article on MuniWireless about how muni WiFi networks outperformed cellular and WiMAX networks.

According to the Novarum paper, service providers should deploy at least 2×2 MIMO 802.11n for both access and backhaul tiers, 60 nodes per square mile (at least), to ensure the best coverage and performance. Sufficient node density is critical. Measured radio frequency signals from Wi-Fi access points poorly predict performance an coverage:

“More bars does not necessarily mean better service. Rather it is the density of access nodes that is the best predictor of good performance since the uplink from client to base station is the limiting factor in performance, capacity and coverage . . . The improved coverage of 802.11n does NOT, however, replace node density. In combination with high access node density, 802.11n offers the promise of truly useable and high performance wireless networking with robust coverage . . . Citywide Wi-Fi networks should at the very least meet - and preferably exceed the performance of cellular.”

Here is a summary of the guidelines for wireless broadband success with Wi-Fi:

Modern wireless broadband networks should deliver a useful service with more than 90% coverage for 802.11n laptops at a performance that exceeds cellular data performance expected in 2012.

Deploy access network densely – more than 50 nodes per square mile for 2.4 GHz access. Novarum recommends 60 nodes per square mile based on our measurements of over 175 large scale networks.

Deploy 802.11n technology for infrastructure – both 2.4 GHz access and 5 GHz backhaul.

Different clients will have different coverage and different performance on the same network infrastructure. Base the network design and expectations on the typical client devices to be used in the next five years.

Deploy 802.11n technology for clients if at all possible. Avoid 802.11b – these ancient Wi-Fi clients will degrade network performance and every other user’s experience.

Expect very good networks to deliver outdoor 802.11n coverage between 90 and 95%.

Expect very good (and affordable) 802.11n Wi-Fi networks to deliver outdoor coverage between 50-75% for smartphones.

Expect legacy 802.11g based wireless broadband networks to deliver largely unacceptable service of 80% for laptops and below 50% for smartphones.

Download 2010: Guidelines For Successful Large Scale Outdoor Wi-Fi Networks

AT&T admits network problems, releases iPhone app

Esme Vos — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:15:46 +0000

AT&T has finally admitted to iPhone users that it has serious problems in New York City and San Francisco (oh, the pain of dropped calls), and released an iPhone app called Mark the Spot. The application lets users tell AT&T where and when they encountered network problems. See the screenshots below. AT&T also says that 3 percent of smartphone users are generating 40 percent of the data traffic. I wonder if AT&T will start metering use.

But Andy Abramson takes the company (and the US regulatory authorities) to task, reminding us that AT&T knew this was going to happen, but did nothing about it (excerpt from his excellent blog post):

“The revelation about San Francisco is only shocking if you never tried to get anything done in that city. Government moves like molasses. Planning takes years. AT&T could have leveraged the idea of WiFi very quickly in SF, but instead was more concerned about selling old style 1.0 era DSL . . . How could the AT&T veterans from PacBell not know how long it would take to wade through all the red tape to get better locations for bigger and faster cell sites? How could the AT&T engineers not realize that backhaul was going to be an issue . . . How can they as a company, who buys from Cisco and other giants in the technology plumbing business, not understand that they were going to have a capacity issue? They did and they went into self denial mode . . . These spin control statements at investor conferences are designed to shore up the confidence of the investors, and the analysts. But when you read between the lines you can clearly see that they royally screwed up. Misjudged the market by a country mile and are now asking their customers to pay for their mistakes . . . What I don’t understand is this though. Why can other nations’ operators who are all offered the same equipment, software, hardware, infrastructure components, and so forth, all build a working network without the hassles and AT&T can’t in the same number of years? To me, the answer is simple. As AT&T has rolled itself back into what it was before, one giant phone company, the vision of break up, divestiture and the future was erased. Instead of rabid competition, we have a limited choice of options. It’s time for the FCC to step in and become the playing field leveler. Take some things away from AT&T, create a hotbed of competition, and open up the airwaves. Start by trimming their lobbying efforts. Then, hold them accountable for their intentional misdeeds.”

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Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

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Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

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Softbank sees huge role for Wi-Fi in mobile networks and devices

Esme Vos — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:51:30 +0000

Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japan’s third largest telecoms and media company, Softbank, said at a recent conference that without Wi-Fi, mobile networks will not be able to cope with the demands placed by data-intensive applications on portable devices:

“Touching on the Japanese experience, he said that 50 percent of data traffic happens from home during peak periods which makes it ideal to harness WiFi technology. He added that 3G and 4G is the way to have blanket coverage but WiFi helps provide a richer experience. Saying that mobile, not the computer, will be the mainstay access the Internet, he declared that Softbank would invest aggressively in LTE but we ‘would need both WiFi and mobile’.”

The Softbank CEO directed his warning to those in the Japanese wireless industry who believe that LTE alone will satisfy the demand for bandwidth especially among smartphone users. Read more about the rollout of LTE in Japan.

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Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

* * * * * * * * *

Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Will Verizon’s LTE require you to buy a 3G contract?

Paul Kapustka — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:37:59 +0000

With one month to go in 2009, we still haven’t heard anything official about those live Long Term Evolution (LTE) trials that Verizon is supposed to be conducting in Seattle and Boston before the end of the year. But from repeat visits to the Verizon LTE informational website we are now learning that if and when Verizon does actually launch commercial LTE services, you will probably have to pony up for a “hybrid” 3G/4G plan that offers benefits both for potential users and for Verizon itself.

Before we get to the thinking that got us here, first the benefits: For the end-user, a hybrid plan is a smart deal, especially if you are a true road warrior who visits multiple markets, or if you only visit 4G-covered markets some of the time. We expect the current 3G/4G hybrid plans in the WiMAX world, offered now by partners Clearwire, Sprint and their cable pals, including Comcast, to expand during 2010 as more big cities get added to the WiMAX coverage list. It just makes sense — if you are truly mobile, staying connected is usually the prime objective, with speed a secondary factor. But if the hybrid plan doesn’t cost too much more (like the current WiMAX plans) and you might make use of the 4G connection, it seems like a no-brainer to go the combined route.

Why do we think Verizon will offer LTE in a similar fashion, perhaps without any option to just buy an LTE service plan? Two reasons — one, any company making a big stink about its “big map” network isn’t going to launch something that you can only use in a handful of markets; and two, if you parse the prose on the Verizon LTE site they are speaking as if a 3G/4G option was the only thing imaginable. To wit:

Verizon Wireless’ LTE network will co-exist and integrate with the current Evolution Data Optimized (EVDO) RevA network. It will also support handover to existing mobile networks, thereby providing seamless coverage to Verizon Wireless subscribers from the time of its deployment.

That is, of course, seamless in the sense of those subscribers having no other option but to also subscribe to that “existing mobile network” when they sign up for LTE. While we do think this is not a bad thing for users, it is also a bit of a sham by Verizon, since by making the combo necessary they won’t have any contracts that don’t offer “nation-wide” service. Remember this is all a guess because despite this wonderful LTE info site, when it comes to actual LTE plan details like when, where, and how much, Verizon is about as forthcoming as Tiger Woods these days.

And it may just be us, but has anyone else noticed some subtle adds, changes and deletes to this page over the last month since we first spotted it? Like the now-official backpedal of “mid-to late-2010″ as its launch timeframe for its first 25 to 30 LTE markets? (Bonus contest — see if you can find the extra typo period before Verizon’s copy editors re-clean the page!) Not sure that has been said anywhere publicly before, but this page bears watching over time since it seems to be a place for Big Red to sneak out LTE messages without too many people watching. Other than us, that is.

(Verizon LTE page screen grab below.)

* * * * * * * * * *

Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

* * * * * * * * *

Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Clearwire adds 49K new WiMAX users in Q3

Paul Kapustka — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:39:51 +0000

Apparently it’s no longer “premature” to break out mobile WiMAX subscriber numbers — at least now that there is an impressive number to talk about. According to its third-quarter financials press release, WiMAX provider Clearwire signed up 49,000 users for its new, mobile “4G” WiMAX service during the third fiscal quarter, a big, important leap from the embarrassing number of 12,000 net new adds for Q2.

Granted, Clearwire did have the helping hand of a lot of new markets in Q3 as well as the reseller power of Sprint and Comcast — no details on those numbers in the press release but maybe more “color” is coming in the conference call, which starts in 15 minutes. According to the release, Clearwire lost 5,000 subscribers from its pre-WiMAX service, putting the total net adds for Q3 at 44,000 — still a healthy jump. We’ll update this post afterwards.

UPDATE: From the conference call, Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow said “it’s still too early” to break out wholesale subscriber numbers, but at least this time he spun the reason as being too early to allow financial analysts to build stable, predictive models on any wholesale subscriber numbers. Fair enough. Of more import, Clearwire did announce a bond offering and debt restructuring that will roughly give the company another $200 million in usable capital. Clearwire said on the call that the $1.54 billion raised in its latest financing round (which was confirmed officially today as expected) and the cash from the bond offering will allow it to finance its current build-out plan for 2010 “without any hiccups.”

Report: Clearwire getting additional $1.5B in funding

Paul Kapustka — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:14:30 +0000

When we heard Clearwire’s Hope Cochran was a no-show at last week’s Open Mobile Summit due to a last-minute trip to New York, we knew something was up — and since Cochran is Clearwire’s senior VP for finance and treasury, it (apparently) had something to do with money talks, specifically the kind that helps you keep building those costly consumer wireless networks.

On Sunday the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Sprint, Intel, Comcast and others will soon be investing another $1.5 billion in the builder of a nascent national WiMAX wireless network, which recently launched services in Chicago, Dallas and Philadelphia. As Om notes, the cash infusion shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially since Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow has been pretty open about his company’s need for more working capital — and likewise, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been open about his company’s willingness to double down on its Clearwire investment.

If and when the deal goes through — remember Clearwire reports third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, so a good time to make such announcements — we’ll no doubt hear more about the state of Clearwire’s overall finances, cash burns, etc. While we think they may have more running room in the race against LTE than others do, from an investor standpoint it still looks from here like Clearwire is a safe venture, especially when looked at through a spectrum and core-network buildout point.

On the spectrum side, Clearwire’s holdings in the 2.5 GHz band currently dwarf the 700 MHz holdings of the big telcos, AT&T and Verizon — by about a factor of four to six times the spectrum depth, on average, in the biggest U.S. markets. While you can debate the merits of 700 MHz vs. 2.5 GHz, from a pure bandwith throughput perspective the Clearwire holdings are a bit of a wireless gold mine, one that may yet pay off handsomely for Craig McCaw and company. Whether Clearwire builds the network out itself and is a success financially — or whether it ends up renting out some spectrum to others, like T-Mobile — like Manhattan real estate, someone is going to pay for the bandwidth under Clearwire’s purview.

And from an acquisition standpoint, buying Clearwire could be an easy congestion-reliever for telcos who may find themselves out of running room in a few years. Even if a buyer wanted to rip and replace Clearwire’s WiMAX network with Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology on the radio end, that buyer would still be likely able to use Clearwire’s IP-based core network and backhaul without too many changes.

So is it bad money after good, or a good time to add to a winning bet? While we have long said that the spectrum makes Clearwire an even money bet, the problems for big telcos caused by the booming demand for mobile broadband seems to make Clearwire worth more, not less, these days.

Clearwire WiMAX live in Chicago, Dallas, Charlotte

Paul Kapustka — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:37:19 +0000

The long wait for WiMAX in the Windy City as well as the DFW Metroplex is over — as we expected, Clearwire is now selling services in both cities, keeping with the company’s strategy of “soft launching” markets online before staging an “official” market opening with all the attendant hoopla.

Since it’s Nov. 1, time for a new map — and the one on the Clear.com website now shows Chicago “in the green” of Clearwire services, while adding Dallas/Fort Worth to the list of cities with service in Texas.

In North Carolina, the cities of Charlotte, Raliegh and Greensboro are also now listed as "live," so it looks like Clearwire should be able to make good on its promise to step up subscriber numbers in Q4, simply by having lots more markets selling services.

The big ones, however, are Chicago and Dallas — two huge metro areas where Clearwire will see how it fares against existing service providers. In Chicago, Clearwire also has its first true “commuter” city, since thousands there ride the rails every day, to and from work, play, school and in just general getting-aroundness. Will WiMAX’s ability to connect while mobile make a big impression? We are only now just going to find out.

We’ll have some more thinking on Clearwire market launches later this week. And yes, the launches mean that Sprint’s 4G services are available there too. Meanwhile, more detail from the Chicago maps below.

Hesse: Sprint to subsidize WiMAX devices

Paul Kapustka — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:13:05 +0000

You had to look hard through the Sprint earnings call info to find any information on WiMAX services being offered by the company, but we did find a few nuggets worth highlighting here. One that sort of jumped out of the transcript of the call (thanks, Seeking Alpha!) was Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s pledge to subsidize hybrid 3G/4G devices, a marked departure from that of WiMAX partner Clearwire, which is adamant in its refusal to subsidize device costs. From the Sprint call Thursday, Hesse said:

Actually as we go into next year, when we expect to launch a number of multi-mode 3G/4G devices, which we think will be very hot, those will carry some significant subsidies as well. So I think it’s a trend that’s kind of with the industry to stay. But it’s not necessarily bad for the industry health, it just changes the economics in that the subsidy expenses will be higher.

Later on in the call, Hesse seemed optimistic that (like Clearwire), Sprint’s 4G sales would pick up toward the end of the year as bigger markets like Chicago and Dallas go live:

And also, very importantly, as I mentioned in my comments, it is too early for it to move the needle a lot but it’s going to give us momentum, we hope, into 2010 and that’s 4G. We have launched 17 markets but most of the POPs for 2009 will come near the end of the quarter, but that’s giving us some good lift in mobile broadband, in particular in those markets. And as we expand the device line up in 4G—dual-mode 4G/3G—it will really put us in a good position, going forward, kind of leaving 2009 and going into 2010. So we think 4G and dual-mode devices, as they come on board, will start to give us some lift going forward.

Hesse later noted that Sprint’s ability to resell WiMAX from Clearwire helps keep network capital expenditures (aka capex) off Sprint’s books (in case you forgot, that was one of the main reasons for Sprint to do the Clearwire merger):

The other thing I will say, is on for future in terms of capex, think of Clearwire, as well, as the next wave of capex requirements in the U.S., particularly on the post-paid side, is going to be building out 4G. And think of Clearwire as helping us almost cap, because we will still continue to improve coverage and increase capacity in our 3G network. But we can mitigate the amount of capital required for continued expansion of capacity in our 3G network with 4G. So as you are thinking about—it seemed like you thought our capex spending might be perhaps low going forward. A lot of that capex, the data capex, is being picked up on the Clearwire side.

Chicago, Dallas to get WiMAX in November

Paul Kapustka — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:16:58 +0000

If you were wondering just exactly when Clearwire was going to start selling WiMAX services in the remaining cities the provider promised would launch in 2009, wonder no more — today the company announced some more-firm plans for delivery, which include November launches for Chicago and Dallas, and a December launch for Seattle.

Here are the official company press releases, one which talks about companion services offered through both Sprint and Comcast, and another that details Sprint and Clearwire plans only. A quick list is below:

Markets Clearwire Will Launch in November:
– Philadelphia (actually already selling services there)
– Chicago
– Dallas/Fort Worth
– San Antonio
– Charlotte, N.C.
– Greensboro, N.C.
– Raleigh, N.C.

December Launches:
– Seattle
– Honolulu
– Maui, Hawaii

Let it be known that we will volunteer to test the Maui service when it launches… anyone willing to sponsor our “fact-finding” trip?

No word yet on when Clearwire will officially retire the Xohm operations in Baltimore and start selling Clear services there. But if it happens before the end of the year, then Clearwire will get to its planned 25 new markets for 2009.