Comments on: $3.2 Billion WiMax Deal Goes Through. Take Cover.

By: » What’s Next for the New Clearwire? Sidecut Reports

» What’s Next for the New Clearwire? Sidecut Reports — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:06:18 +0000

[…] have pledged toward the new Clearwire, and not listen to those would declare their deal already dead in the water, here is a quick primer on what the $3.2 billion cash infusion has done to the WiMax scene in the […]

By: Why it’s too early to call the WiMax deal a disaster » VentureBeat

Why it’s too early to call the WiMax deal a disaster » VentureBeat — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:17:22 +0000

[…] certainly isn’t pulling his punches. Last week, while most reporters (including me) were writing enthusiastically about the new partnership between Sprint and Clearwire, Schonfeld slammed the deal as “a disaster waiting to happen.” Then he followed up on […]

By: Terbaik.Net » Blog Archive » Schonfeld Talks About Clearwire/Sprint On Fox Business

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:02:41 +0000

[…] appeared on Fox Business last night to talk about the recent $3.2 billion WiMax deal between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that’s expected to go […]

By: Tech Moz - Tech News » Blog Archive » Why the WiMax Deal Is A Disaster, Part II (Or, How Craig McCaw Snookered Eric Schmidt)

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:54:37 +0000

[…] more I learn about the $3.2 billion deal announced earlier this week to salvage Clearwire’s and Sprint’s WiMax businesses by […]

By: Why the WiMax Deal Is A Disaster, Part II (Or, How Craig McCaw Snookered Eric Schmidt) | DougsTech.com - Tech News, Reviews, and Guides

Fri, 09 May 2008 21:09:35 +0000

[…] more I learn about the $3.2 billion deal announced earlier this week to salvage Clearwire’s and Sprint’s WiMax businesses by […]

By: Why the WiMax Deal Is A Disaster, Part II (Or, How Craig McCaw Snookered Eric Schmidt)

Fri, 09 May 2008 20:37:36 +0000

[…] more I learn about the $3.2 billion deal announced earlier this week to salvage Clearwire’s and Sprint’s WiMax businesses by […]

By: jmo

jmo — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:12:15 +0000

OK you tech geeks dont see beyond the techwall. here is whats up:
Craig McCaw built what is todays AT&T wireless network. He sold it for 10B and took some time off and now has built Cearwire. Comcast has been buying wireless from Sprint to compete againt AT&T and Verizon’s triple play. That business model (reselling wireless) is too expensive. Comcast needed to buy a stake in a wireless company to better compete. The Clearwire deal needs to happen before the demos take office. It is another brilliant move by McCaw to build a superior network and the sell it to Comcast once completed. The genius about this is that McCaw builds the network with other peoples money and then sell it to them.
No wonder the guy has everything.

By: Schonfeld Talks About Clearwire/Sprint On Fox Business | DougsTech.com - Tech News, Reviews, and Guides

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:09:56 +0000

[…] appeared on Fox Business last night to talk about the recent $3.2 billion WiMax deal between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that’s expected to go […]

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Schonfeld、Clearwire/SprintのWiMax事業についてFox Businessで語る

Fri, 09 May 2008 02:47:24 +0000

[…] Erickは昨夜、Fox Businessに登場して最近Sprint NextelとClearwireが進めている$3.2B(32億ドル)のWiMax事業が近々スタートしそうな件について話をした。 […]

By: Schonfeld Talks About Clearwire/Sprint On Fox Business

Schonfeld Talks About Clearwire/Sprint On Fox Business — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:26:00 +0000

[…] appeared on Fox Business last night to talk about the recent $3.2 billion WiMax deal between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that’s expected to go […]

By: Despite complexities, Sprint, Clearwire band together to build WiMax network | last100

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:03:20 +0000

[…] in all, as Erick Schonfeld notes at TechCrunch, AT&T and Verizon “have a huge head start and customer lock-in when it comes to cell phone […]

By: Affiliate17

Affiliate17 — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:07:03 +0000

great post

By: KwangErn

KwangErn — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:15:03 +0000

Imagine moving from one place to another and realised that the limitations of WiMax just cut your connection off while having an important chat over Skype, for instance.

By: Polle

Polle — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:05:49 +0000

Wimax is nothing more than one more wireless waveform. It is already a proven disaster compared to LTE, with one major deployment being abondoned to the scrap heap because it plain didn’t work. To quote” Non-line-of-sight performance was non-existent beyond 2km”.
The reason is that it was designed by people with NO mobile radio experience. They can’t even do link budgets to figure out how many kilowatts a mobile phone would have to transmit to make 30km range with Wimax.

Not only is the Wimax waveform standard ill-considered, there is no viable network mobility concept - again because the proponents have zilch experience in this area. What about Sprint? Well, don’t they have a history of making the wrong technical choices, and that is why their service is so awful now?

The third major parameter is capacity. Bandwidth per user is one thing, but how many simultaneous users per cell can it support with that bandwidth? The answer, for Wimax, is … a pathetic ONE.

No wonder Verizon, ATT-Cingular and the rest of the world is going with LTE.

By: Deal Journal - WSJ.com : Afternoon Reading: Sprint Nextel Venture, a Dream or Disaster?

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:39:19 +0000

[…] among those not so enthralled with the venture. “This is a disaster waiting to happen,” he writes. “Sprint and Clearwire need the deal to try to salvage the billions they�ve already sunk into […]

By: watch out

watch out — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:04:25 +0000

Keep an eye on this…while the consortium has some strong names don’t forget Clearwire brought over alot of folks from Amp’d Mobile including Peter Adderton (i.e., “how can we squander & blow $350MM in 12 months)…

By: WasA TC Reader

WasA TC Reader — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:00:12 +0000

Eric is full of sh*t

By: Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:09:03 +0000

Actually, grumbs, Comcast and Time Warner just care about competing with the telcos. They are happy with the game the way it is.

Look folks, I believe in the promise of WiMaz as much as the next guy. I just don’t believe in Clearwire. Like I said, I hope to be proven wrong and if I am I’ll be happy to write how great it turned out. But, um, richard @11, I can write articles from trade floor shows now (with my $60/month Sprint EVDO card).

There’s hype, and there’s reality. Any actual Clearwire customers other than George @14 who can tell us how WiMax stacks up against other broadband alternatives, both wired and fixed line?

By: It’s official: Sprint teams up with Clearwire for wireless partnership » VentureBeat

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:54:46 +0000

[…] has been struggling, and WiMax, which is competing with rival technology LTE. (Others, however, argue that the situation risks becoming a “too many cooks in the kitchen” […]

By: grumbs

grumbs — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:26:39 +0000

WiMax isn’t about competing with AT&T and Verizon by 2010. It’s about changing the game, as Derek Gathright put it, 5+ years from now.

We had this conversation in our office last week. We run a streaming music service that is nearly 100% dependent on high-speed broadband, 99.9% of it over fixed cables. In 5 years, we expect it to have a large percentage (half?) of that to become mobile-based. 5 years from now, 99% of media streaming will be functionally available, although not necessarily delivered, wirelessly. That’s why Comcast and Time Warner are investing.

By: Ferodynamics

Ferodynamics — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:47:27 +0000

All I can say is, my Ricochet modem on the beach was fun while it lasted.

By: Why Google Invested in Clearwire - KDI Media - Savannah, GA

Why Google Invested in Clearwire - KDI Media - Savannah, GA — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:44:47 +0000

[…] Google wants to usher in the world of wireless broadband so much that it is willing to spend vast sums to make it happen. It bid more than $4.6 billion in the recent FCC spectrum auctions (which it ended up not having to pay because it lost to Verizon), is backing the WiFi 2.0 initiative, and today it announced that it plunked down $500 million to shore up the new Clearwire-Sprint WiMax business. […]

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:28:55 +0000

“Take note: the planned network will only cover 120-140m pops by end of 2010. That’s less than 1/2 the US population and a tiny (less than 5%) of US land area. Why so little?”

Give it time. One reason the cable companies are involved in this is for the “last mile” customers that they can’t get internet too since it would be cost-prohibitive. They are banking on full coverage, way out in the boonies.

It’s not like LTE will have any more coverage in 2010. We’ll be lucky if it has even been brought to market by then.

By: jro

jro — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:17:43 +0000

“As I said before, this is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Erick - I’m playing devil’s advocate — what are the alternatives? I don’t see anyone else trying to build out anything. You have to start somewhere.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:27:33 +0000

Take note: the planned network will only cover 120-140m pops by end of 2010. That’s less than 1/2 the US population and a tiny (less than 5%) of US land area. Why so little? The spectrum has a lot of capacity but not as much range. Verizon’s LTE build will happen at 700 MHz. More range but less capacity. So we’ll see if people value coverage over speed or speed over coverage. [Roaming to Sprint’s 3G network at 1900 for rural coverage is a second-best option, for one thing it means all of the devices would need to have CDMA chipsets…doesn’t that ruin the point of WiMAX?]