Monday, January 18, 2010

In Wireless News

Clearwire is going to take its WiMax 4G to Spain. Apparently, not doing well in the US means moving to a 3rd world country to give it a try. At $40 USD I don't know how well that will sell in Spain, a country in serious economic stress.

Clearwire is looking at more than WiMax. It may move to LTE because the gear will be cheaper. With the 2 largest cellcos buying LTE, it will make the gear cheaper.

Also, Clear is hinting of an Android WiMax handset in 2010. Likely because Google, Sprint and the cablecos own a piece of Clear. For WiMax to take off, there has to be devices that can take advantage of it like Netbooks, handsets, USB gear.

On to Clear parent Sprint, who says that this is the year for WiMax and SmartGrid. (See article here.) I'm off to ITEXPO tomorrow and one of the co-branded conferences under the TMC umbrella is SmartGrid. I'll see what they think.

"Sprint, which already has around 100 utility customers using its cellular networks in various capacities, says it’s in discussions with a good portion of those utilities about the possibilities of using WiMAX (or fourth-generation, 4G, as Sprint calls it). Sprint has responded to several smart grid utility bids that have called for a portion of the network to come from 4G, Gustin says. And Sprint is already in discussions with smart grid WiMAX players like GE, which makes a WiMAX-based smart meter, and startup Grid-Net, which makes WiMAX-based smart grid software." [earth2tech]

On to MagicJack who is releasing a device with a GSM chip. "The upcoming device for cellular phones will also use the broadband connection of a PC to make calls." [source]

Finally, Dragonwave to sell gear to RBOC cellcos.

No comments: