2010 Prediction No. 1: WiMAX takes off in the U.S.

After reading announcements and debates on WiMAX for 2 years, we still don't see good business metrics. If CLRW provides coverage to 120 M people in the US by year-end, does that mean "WiMAX takes off?" It's time to see target #s of subscribers. We need to see if WiMAX is a rural, or highly local, phenomenon. Will people who rely on smart phones for voice and data, locally, and while traveling, sign up for WiMAX? I do not mean to be confrontational. I really want to understand how WiMAX will work.

Contrary to popular belief, Sprint purchase of Nextel was not in vain, what they acquired was a whole load of 2.5Ghz spectrum which is being utilized for their next generation platform, Wimax 4G. If you believe, like I do, that the next spurt of growth in the wireless world is in Data, then it would be safe to say that Sprint with its affiliate, Clearwire, is sitting on a whole load of gold. It is my understanding that they have as much as 150 in most metropolitan areas in the USA. On another note, the Verizon spin-masters, out of lack of 4G, would like you to believe that their LTE 4G is superior to Sprint's Wimax. Well lets put it straight, Sprint's Wimax is here and it kills the competition because their is none. When Verizon does complete its LTE 4G, Sprint will be in the process of upgrading its Wimax (IEEE 802.16e) to Wimax 2 (IEEE 802.16m), which has clocked data download speeds as high as 1Gbs. Three years ago Sprint had nothing to counter the iPhone, two years ago they had nothing to counter the iPhone, a year ago they still had nothing to counter the iPhone and it wasn't until they introduced the Palm Pre that they were able to make a legitimate claim that they had a smartphone that could emulate the iPhone. Today, Sprint has a repertoire of smartphones that can claim technologies that are superior on their phones to that of the iPhone and thanks to their new Wimax platform they will have far superior phones to match anything the Apple and ATT duo have to offer. Next quarter Sprint will be introducing the HTC Supersonic, which is a Android based Wimax 4G phone, catapulting it way ahead of anything Apple will be able to do for any carrier, unless Apple decides to introduce a 4G Wimax version for Sprint. On another note, even if Verizon is able to deploy their LTE 4G by 2011, their LTE eco-system, unlike that of Wimax's eco-system, is far from being tested anywhere in the world. Wimax on the other hand is deployed in at least 146 countries with over 500 carriers. Its eco-system is well developed and its deployments are growing exponentially. Last but not least, Sprint mgmt. has taken the drastic steps necessary to keep the company solvent. As of last quarter the company had $5.9 billion in Cash, $2.1 billion in Free Cash Flow for the year. In the Q4 period they completed their purchase of Virgin Mobile and iPCS, which added over 5 million Pre Paid users and eliminated a costly lawsuit with iPCS that had hamstrung Sprint in its deployments of necessary upgrades, which included Wimax deployments, in iPCS areas. Sprint's Q1 2010 will be the first quarter that Sprint starts with a selection of smart phones that can match ATT and Verizon. They now have WebOS, Android and Windows based phones in their portfolio and soon will be the only carrier to carry a repertoire of 4G phones from HTC, Palm and Samsung. I have been a Sprint customer for many years and you could call me a Road Warrior for my heavy use of their services. I pay $42.50/month for each of my four phones and I carry two of their 3G/4G data card for $50/month. I get my fare share of dropped calls, but as any expert will tell you that is the nature of wireless service, you are going to get dropped call once in a while regardless of how good your service provider is. I have a Palm Pre, two HTC heros and a Samsung Moment. Each of these phones can claim superiority over the iPhone in that they all have multi functioning and battery change abilities. The moment has better battery life and an Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AM-OLED) screen with an excellent qwerty keyboard. The Pre comes with a better user Interface, a Flash with its camera and a qwerty keyboard. The HTC has a 5MP camera. My data cards have the best download speeds of any carrier even when they were 3G however now that they are 3G/4G all doubts by anyone should be removed. The conclusion is that I pay $270/m for unlimited everything on six devices, Voice/Data/Text/GPS/e-mail/NFL etc., that includes two 3G/4G data cards. As a Sprint premier customer I can also upgrade my cell phone once a year without paying any premiums. If anyone can even come close to giving me the same coverage and service I would be happy to consider them but I do not see that happening. Besides I am eagerly waiting to upgrade my phones to 4G versions next quarter. ATT and VZ are still years away from producing a 4G phone. Finally, as of November 2009 Clearwire was able to complete its scheduled launch of Wimax, which left it with over 30 million POPS. They were also able to raise enough funds plus some to complete their 2010 scheduled Wimax launches that would leave them with over 120 million POPS before the year is over.

With the introduction of Wimax 2 all the doubts that have surrounded Wimax's ability to match LTE will be laid to rest. The major telcos chose another route only to keep their grip on the last mile so they could charge companies like Sprint a premium for their survices, however Sprint's foray into Wimax will eliminate billions of dollars in fees once their Wimax platform is completed. Doubts about the lack of funding for Wimax have also been put to rest with the recent round of funding that was completed by Clearwire. Owing to this we can rest assured that the Wimax syndicate in the U.S., Sprint, Google, Comcast, Time Warner, Brighthouse Networks, Clearwire and company will have the nation covered with Wimax before the year is over.

Besides metropolitan cities, are rural area covered in the WiMax rollout plan for this year?

Next time the Verizon spin machines begin their hyperbole about the advantages of LTE over Wimax just make sure you counter with Wimax 2 that is to be ratified by the ITU in June of 2010. Wimax 2 clearly shows that LTE is far from being a superior platform. In fact Wimax 2 is unequivocally better than LTE and much faster. Wimax is here, LTE is coming and so is Wimax 2, nevertheless Wimax 2 will be available when LTE is deployed and Wimax 2, aka 802.16m, is backwardly compatible.