Clearwire in no rush to move to next-gen WiMAX Release 2
By Chris Ziegler 
posted January 20th 2010 6:58AM
posted January 20th 2010 6:58AM
If consistently pulling down a fistful of megabits per second isn't causing the hair on the back of your neck to stand on end... well, first, we strongly recommend you get that looked at by a professional. Secondly, though, you might have a bit of a wait before you get another hair-raising boost in throughput, because Clearwire -- you know, the company that runs the WiMAX network shared by Clear and Sprint -- is looking to take a laid-back approach on the migration to WiMAX Release 2. The underlying standard, 802.16m, looks destined for IEEE approval some time this year with the promise of 120Mbps down and 60Mbps up in an effort to wage 4G war with LTE Advanced, but Clearwire's CTO is saying that he's not looking to trial the tech this year -- even though Russian carrier Yota is on track to make it happen using Samsung hardware. Instead, 2011 is a "much more likely" target for these guys, apparently, with commercial deployment plausible by '12. With the updated standard capable of speeds that put even high-end cable and fiber broadband connections to shame, you've got to wonder if backhaul isn't the real concern here -- or, even juicier, if they're not just trying to keep all the options on the table for a little while longer.
I live in an apartment complex in a rural west Texas town, and Clear is literally the only broadband provider that I have access to. While it's generally...adequate...I would love to see a boost in the bandwidth, especially in the upload side of things. But noooooo, you guys have to come along and crush my dreams. Jerks.
@kevout
Read that last portion of the article: "you've got to wonder if backhaul isn't the real concern here".
I'd rather have a more-consistent 6Mbps than to have the variability between 3Mbps and 7Mbps.
@gerrrg
Ditto that. Backhaul is Clear's problem. I've got the 6 Mbps plan, never even come close to that for more than a few minutes, often about 1/10th of that during busy hours. And I thought Comcast sucked...
There's no way Clear's backhaul can support a faster delivery network. No way at all. I'm wondering if they can't pay the bills sometimes...
They've spent billions on their current network, which is rather limited in scope. As much as a faster internet is appealing, I'd rather have greater capacity and a wider network. Like, I'm not going to want to spend the money to get that 120Mbps speed, anyway.
in Lubbock we get some reasonable speeds with Clear service. im not doing extensive torrenting or anything like that and the most extensive use of speed for me is watching hulu videos, xbox live, and netflix streaming and i can do all of those perfectly fine - the netflix i even get at full quality.
would i like a 120Mb/s connection? Hell ya! but is the timeline concerning for me? not especially.
Network coverage > Six times the speed of my home internet connection
Who cares if you're the fastest if you're not available?
@Smurf
Exactly. Clear is in what, a handful or two of cities?
And it *still* isn't 4G yet - more or less pre-4G - it's not a defined standard by the ITU-R, yet it's overly hyped as being "full 4G".
it's 802.16m not 802.11m :)
Yeah I'd imagine its a concern of having to do even more network backhaul as well as them evaluating sticking with WiMAX or migrating to LTE some day.
Clear is honestly a joke. Four years later and the majority of America is still waiting. Once LTE is fired up in major cities (take note clear) by Verizon, their advantage and network is as good as useless. Heck, once T-mobile fires up their 21mb HSDPA+, their network is useless.
To add insult to injury, they brush off any potential speed increases.
@JKL let's not forget that tmobile's 3G coverage is pretty lackluster. I live in milwaukee and there's no tmobile 3G coverage. I just don't understand why tmobile gets a pass, yet people tear into sprint like rabid beavers, even though their coverage and call quality is superior. I know tmobile is thoght to have the best customer service, hell I used to work there. but is not having a signal good customer service?
@krosref
I think you're seeing what you want to see.
Half the comments in any post about T-mob are complaining about their 3G coverage. In fact, in another post I was downranked all to hell for pointing out that Clear's coverage area made T-mob's 3G look like Verizon's map.
@krosref compared to clear's coverage, tmobile's 3G is years ahead. That is the whole issue with Clear. The Majority of major cities are still waiting for at least a tower. This has been one big screw up for both sprint and clear. Which company in their right mind builds coverage in a handful of small cities first and leaves the $$$ generating large metro areas last? Areas where people are most likely to use 4G too might I add. Verizon on the other hand is not stupid, hence their profits. Large cities are the places they are going to switch on first.
@JKL
From what I read is that they launched it in metro areas that are very dense and not spread out cus it's easier that way and places like LA where it's spread out won't get it for a while.
Probably a good idea. That Samsung gear they hang on the tower was first to market, but isn't very good. It's better to let the current investment in network share mature as well the gear, and then upgrade the network.
Good! They should be focusing on initial build-out rather than increasing speeds. Their footprint is tiny.
how ironic..
shouldnt iphone 4g go to sprint ?
no.. they go to verizon with less than half sprint coverage and no lte yet.
@jayminho Why would apple bother with a 4G Wimax iPhone when it will work in a total of what, 5 Cities?
The rest of the planet is going LTE.
And don't think it wont take more than 3 months for Verizon to light up 700mhz LTE and make a joke out of Clear/Sprints coverage map.
@jayminho Less than half Sprint's coverage.. Where did you get this information from? Half of sprint's coverage is due to roaming. I have never seen [R] pop up on my Verizon handset. Whereas, this was quite common when using my old Sprint handset.
Only a bunch of clueless fools would leave their Iden network running and not have, at the very least, converted it all to CDMA. If they had any clue, they would have outmaneuvered Verizon and switched it to WCDMA.
Sprint has failed on so many fronts that it's no longer funny. First off, they have a good portion of the bargain basement customers, who pay almost nothing using Sero's and a range of other discounts. Neither Verizon nor AT&T want these sort of customers. Furthermore, they have chosen poorly and have squandered every opportunity they had, including a good 4 year head start over Verizon and AT&T regarding 4G.
@PeterB
i respect your argument, but falling into the lte vs wimax debate, is not only endless as it has already been discussed over, and over and overrrr again. it doesnt get anywhere. time will tell. thats the truth.
what I stated and I still remain on it, is that, sprint would be a better choice than verizon. acctually verizon and sprint would be better choices than att. its everywhere the overusage problem of data on att network.
@JKL Keep in mind that, although you don't see the "R" for roaming, you may still be roaming with Verizon. Verizon locks their phones up with "Verizon-specific" software whereas Sprint uses the stock CDMA software with Sprint branding and applications on their phones. If you have ever seen "Verizon Extended" for your network, you are roaming.
First off the frequency is 802.16m...not 802.11m. second, these speeds that are touted "21 mbps HSDPA, 160 mbps 802.16m" etc are THEORETICAL peak speeds. meaning, in a lab with the source base and receiver sitting right next to each other or within a few hundred feet of each other. here in Philly AT&T has their "7.2 hsdpa" deployed, yet my vzw evdo coverage ALWAYS gets better speeds using speedtest app....my 1.4, 1.5mbps vs att REAL WORLD 1.0, 1.2, etc. CLEARwire cant worry about boosting speeds now, they MUST build out to cover as many pops as possible - it MUST be a nationally recognized brand for them to survive.
Right now in the Internet using Yota, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
Costs: 900rub per month (30$).
Speed: up: 3,3 mb/s, down 0,61mb/s
Pretty good for an person like me, who doesn't have a working place and doing it where ever i want to...
I think this is good for sprint, fuck up the deployment, bank your entire company on the promises of a technology and never fulfill those ambitions, then get a kick ass phone and boom, instant success with little bitches willing to take it up the ass and talk about how great you are, of course they'll have to find their own Luke Wilson.
@meeit Why do they need Luke Wilson when they have Dan Hesse for commercials? Remember the older Sprint commercials announcing their one-on-one in-store phone training?
..that's the store in Chicago on Michigan Ave...
For the "LTE Vs. WiMax" folks, Clear has already said they could change their towers to LTE without too much effort. I'll honestly be pretty surprised if T-Mob, AT&T and VZ do opt to all build out their own networks for LTE. As Clear has demonstrated, the costs are enormous even with big backers. I could see Clear changing to LTE and with the backing of t-mob or AT&T or VZ, or even t-mob deciding to back a WiMax standard to save the cost of building out a network. I really don't see those three all building out their own 4g network.
Clear obviously aren't worried about WiMax 2 because...there is currently no competition in the mobile broadband space. As several comments pointed out above, they're probably more concerned with opening new cities(SF and NY this year) than they are with increasing bandwidth in their current cities where they have no competition.