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This is not at all unexpected. In fact, the only way this is news is that the subject has evolved from speculation on the part of wireless observers to confirmation by the CEO and COO.
I personally like the fact that we currently have a handful of competing network technologies. I think it drives the carriers to build faster and better networks, and provides a real, quantifiable market pressure to correct flaws. I'm therefore a little sad to see this happening. If Clear's future involves building their own LTE network (and/or sharing with Sprint), as opposed to just piggybacking off another carrier's, then that's not as bad.
We could see a future where AT&T and Verizon compete for nationwide coverage footprint, Sprint competes on price, and Clear competes on urban data-only services at reduced cost.
This is good news in general, imo. Unfortunately it creates a concern for my next phone as I was going o get the EVO 3D. Chances are that it might make little difference for the next year anyways.
Not to worry....what happening is the WiMax build out is done, everything from here on out will be LTE, markets with WiMax will also recieve LTE and they'll be run concurrent for sometime, Sprint and Clear have plenty of spectrum to do so.
Also good news is Phones are now being prep with dual WiMax/LTE chips...So Sprint 4G handsets will be compatible with LTE starting with the Nexus S 4G...EVO, EPIC users are out of luck those phones only have WiMax..Cannot get confirmation on the Shift 4G, I would suspect not.
Also Sprint will be buying out Clearwire and managing the network themselves.
Yeah, this in no way harms current or near-future phone purchases. If you want an Evo, by all means get one. Even if Clear announced today that they were switching to LTE, it would still take several years for the WiMax network to be shuttered. They'd have to get the LTE infrastructure purchased, develop a deployment plan, train their engineers, touch each cell site, do testing and mitigation ... and finally, there would be a substantial period of simultaneous LTE and WiMax operation.
So there's no harm in going WiMax. It's very unlikely that your WiMax device would become useless within the timeframe of your contract.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212
Also Sprint will be buying out Clearwire and managing the network themselves.
Has this been confirmed? I've been hearing rumors since Clear almost went under earlier this year, but have not yet seen anything more substantial than pundit speculation.
WiMax 2, aka 802.16m, is the second revision of WiMax. In theory, it can deliver average throughput roughly 20x that of WiMax. Clear was planning to deploy WiMax 2 in 2012, but with their announced transition to LTE, it's unlikely that will happen. Because of the interesting marriage between Sprint and Clear, it is therefore unlikely that Sprint will progress to WiMax 2, and will instead switch to LTE as well.
Nobody really "owns" WiMax 2. It's a standard, like WiFi (802.11).
Has this been confirmed? I've been hearing rumors since Clear almost went under earlier this year, but have not yet seen anything more substantial than pundit speculation.
Nope - no confirmation, but alls one has to do is follow the yellow brick road, or in this case Clear recent movements.
1 - They take the Sale of Spectrum off the table. of course makes sense once Sprint buys them out they'll need that spectrum to complete Network Vision. Plus a majority of Clears spectrum was Sprint's to begin with which they picked up in the Nextel buy.
2 - They're outsourcing Network management to Ericsson the same company managing Sprint's Network.
3 - Clear was adamant on maintaining WiMax as it's 4G path, even with the long ago announcement that the world is moving toward LTE...why all of sudden the submission to LTE? as Sprint know it has to in order to maintain its Roaming agreements, and to land and maintain the iPhone they too will need to have LTE.
4 - Clear botched the Build out of WiMax greatly, and Sprint was not too happy nor was any of the cable companies that partnered in Clear. But Sprint was the only company recently to sink even more capital into Clear for what reason? I mean Sprint was planning all along to go LTE.
5 - Sprint already own the majority of Clear and even more of it now with the latest cash infusion. Sprint also is 90% of Clears Business. Why pay this company for your 4G network, when you practically are the company and probably will save more money bringing it all inhouse. Sprint plan all along was to buyout Clear, problem was they were trying to starve Clear into Bankruptcy to get the Network on the cheap, Sprint's already the Majority shareholder in Clear so they (Clear) couldn't just sell the network to anyone without Sprint approval, which leave Sprint to approve itself buying the company for pennies in bankruptcy. Where this all fell apart is Clear was able to hold out longer than Sprint could afford (notice the WiMax buildout stopped while Verizon's LTE is going gangbusters with Buildout) before Sprint started to fall way behind in 4G coverage to the competitors. So basically Sprint needs to move now, it can't wait any longer.
6 - And one last thing, and this is the most telling of them all. My source inside Corporate Sprint says look for a big announcement from Sprint and Clear about the future of their relationship in the coming months.
It's clear as crystal....Sprint is buying out Clear.
Last edited by Blackbeauty212; 05-30-2011 at 03:15 AM..
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
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Well I have an EVO and will keep sprint for my phone service, however I dropped my sprint 4g hotspot device and am switching to Verizon LTE mobile hotspot because it's a good 2-3 times faster than sprint/wimax.
If Clear had LTE now I would have definitely considered it.
I also plan on getting the EVO 3D when it comes out, but I never use 4G on the phone because battery and coverage (it goes in and out of 3g/4g) is bad.
thanks floor9 and bb. if you ever do a window chat with a clear sales rep, if you mention sprint, their tone quickly changes from bubbly to deadpan official
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