Yesterday Clearwire Corporation, the major WiMAX provider in the US, announced an alliance with Cisco to enhance and expand the CLEAR WiMAX service. The crux of the alliance is that Clearwire will use Cisco products to build their infrastructure and Cisco will develop new but unspecified WiMAX "devices." The infrastructure equipment Clearwire is buying includes Cisco 7600 Series Internet routers, Cisco ONS 15454 and Cisco ONS 15310 optical network platforms, Cisco ASA Firewalls, and the Cisco Service and Application Module for IP (SAMI) Home Agent.At the moment, Clearwire's CLEAR service is available only in Portland and Baltimore; the Baltimore network was built by Sprint before they merged their WiMAX business with Clearwire in 2008. Over the summer they plan to roll out service in Las Vegas and Atlanta (there were reports last week that the Atlanta network is already in test), with Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas-Fort Worth coming on line by the end of the year. They also plan to upgrade their existing pre-WiMAX networks in Seattle, Honolulu and Charlotte, N.C. The master plan is to have service in more than 80 markets across the United States by the end of 2010, either with new installations or by upgrading the balance of Clearwire's existing pre-WiMAX installations.
Cisco is doing the development in the Linksys group and targeting consumer, small office or home office (SOHO), and small- and medium-sized business (SMB) markets. Whatever they come out with will clearly have an impact on what sort of applications that WiMAX service can be used for.
I have seen speculation regarding WiMAX-equipped video devices based on the Flip Video Camera Cisco recently acquired or a WiMAX-capable VoIP phone derived from their 79xx series Wi-Fi phones, but I think that's a stretch. WiMAX is developing primarily as a network for laptop access, so it's more likely they stick to what works. My guess is a Wi-Fi router with WiMAX backhaul capability similar to the Wi-Fi/3G MiFi router Verizon announced earlier this month.
Given the investment required to build a new nationwide wireless network, we don't get to witness this type of a launch very often. Clearly, the shifting fates of the WiMAX providers over the past few years more than testifies to the challenges involved. In this case you essentially have a start-up who is going up against multi-billion dollar competitors with tens of millions of subscribers. While the WiMAX service has a speed advantage today, that's temporary. The cellular carriers will be catching up starting in 2010 when they begin deploying their 4G alternative, LTE, in earnest, so their only problem is keeping existing customers from defecting prior to that.
So how is this going to work out? Does Clearwire think they can pilfer enough of those cellular customers to make a go of it? Are they going to support voice--the majority of the wireless spend today--or stick with their existing data service? Will mobile voice services migrate to VoIP quickly enough that they will be able to beat the cellular carriers to that all mobile IP network vision? Can they really pioneer a new set of consumer applications and beat the incumbents that way? And how do they intend to support them when they wander outside that relatively small physical footprint where they will have networks deployed (the current plan is to package WiMAX and cellular EV-DO capability in the same device)?
When Cisco made their first foray into this area, buying WiMAX equipment manufacturer Navini Networks in late 2007, they identified fixed location services in developing countries as the key target for WiMAX. Maybe they've changed their minds.
