I say, Billy, what’s the use in playing croquet when you’re doomed?
He says, Frankie, what’s the use of not playing croquet when you’re doomed?
– Angela’s Ashes
Time Warner Cable (15 million basic cable subs), the second largest U.S. cable operator after Comcast (25 million basic cable subs), will roll out its first Mobile WiMAX service in Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina, starting Dec 1st. Prices for the Road Runner 4G mobile network will start at $39.95 a month for those who have at least one other Time Warner Cable service.
Time-Warner Cable, like Comcast and cellular provider Sprint, is an investor in Mobile WiMAX provider Clear. TWC invested $550 million in Clearwire back in 2008, with Comcast putting up over $1 billion.
Comcast’s High-Speed 2go” brand is now available in Atlanta and Portland, with Dallas, Chicago and its hometown Philadelphia markets expected to be available soon. Bright House Networks, the remaining cable partner of Clearwire, has yet to debut its private label WiMax service, reports Unstrung.
Road Runner 4G will offer customers three service packages:
- National Elite (an unlimited 3G/4G wireless package for $79.95 (with Sprint) for customers that bundle their double or triple play package)
- Mobile Elite (unlimited mobile WiMAX access for $49.95 that is also available for customers who buy their cable modem service)
- Mobile 4G Choice (a $39.95 service that caps service at 2 Gigabytes a month for customers that take one other cable service).
TWC says that the service will also enable subscribers to remotely program their DVRs with a mobile device and store and view video.
To date, Clearwire has launched its 4G WiMAX service in 16 markets while Comcast currently offers its brand of the service in three markets.
I get 3-10 Mbps with my Clear Mobile WiMAX service in Portland (above). Cellular has a 5 Gig monthly cap, which makes it impractical as a DSL replacement, and costs $60/month with a 2 year contract.
In PC World’s 13 city 3G test, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon averaged around 800 Kbps. Sprint’s combo 4G/3G data plans (below) cost $69.99 per month, $10 more than comparable 3G-only plans.
Sprint is expected to track Clearwire’s launches closely with its own 3G-to-4G roaming service. When you roam outside WiMAX coverage, Sprint automatically switches to their 3G data service.
By the end of 2009, Clearwire’s 4G network is expected to be available in more than 25 markets covering over 30 million people in places such as Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle. Some of the additional markets planned to launch in 2010 include New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to a recent report from analyst firm Ovum WiMAX will be a niche service, with two thirds of the 300+ WiMax networks currently in the emerging markets of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Latin America.
WiMAX advocates say OFDMA with scalable subchannels (pdf) use only one channel and can be deployed across various frequency bands. FDD-based cellular uses half their channel capacity “listening” and is restricted to a few licensed bands. In addition, LTE is not available anywhere.
According to Ovum, Russian operator Scartel was the first WiMax player to have hit the 100,000 subscriber mark (this August), ahead of Packet One in Malaysia with 80,000.
Yota, the first Russian Mobile WiMAX system, covers Moscow, St. Petersburg and Ufa regions, with populations of over 20 million people, using the 2.5-2.7 GHz band and HTC’s WiMAX phone (right).
Korean wireless provider KT will offer the Samsung M8400 WiBro phone which also supports CDMA and WiFi, while competitor SK Telecom has been offering the Samsung SCH-M8300 since May, but the earlier handset does not have a Wi-Fi connection.
Motorola will supply WiMax gear for the Irish Imagine Communication Group. Imagine is the No. 2 business telecoms company in Ireland and provides services to 17,000 businesses. Meanwhile, Clearwire International is expanding into Spain. Clearwire will sell 3.5 GHz WiMAX in selected cities, under the same CLEAR brand. Intel acquired 50MHz of TDD spectrum in Sweden this summer and will likely look for local partners to build and operate a mobile WiMAX network in Nokia’s backyard.
EU countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom are preparing auctions in the 2500-2690 MHz band, but cellular-based LTE will likely be the dominate technology used there. CEPT generally divides the 200MHz of spectrum available in the 2.6Ghz band into a 140 MHz block dedicated to FDD systems and a 50 MHz TDD block.
In the United States, Clear has one thing that cellular operators don’t have (besides a working “4G” system); 120 Mhz of greenfield spectrum. Here’s a Google Fight between LTE and WiMAX.
