Clearwire Venture Aims To Wire Nation
By CECILIA KANG and KIM HART,
WASHINGTON — If the $12 billion venture formed by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire this week works out, your cellphone may turn into a far more powerful, versatile, and perhaps costlier mobile device.
The new company, called Clearwire, wants its customers to be able to use mobile phones and laptops nearly anywhere in the country to watch movies while waiting for the bus, turn on "Dancing with the Stars" while waiting for the soccer game, surf the Web and hold video conferences on laptops while riding along the Interstate.
But don't cancel that home Internet service over cable or DSL just yet. Although the new wireless connection, called WiMax, should be much faster than what's available on today's cellphones, it won't be as fast or as reliable as the pipes that bring cable television, Internet, and phone service into houses from the street. And though it is being tested now, expanded service is about two years away.
The companies aren't saying how much the service will cost. A few analysts estimate it at between $40 and $60 a month. At first, at least, it would most likely be an extra rather than a substitute for the monthly phone, Internet, and paid television services that cost many customers $150 to $200 a month now.
An analyst at Farpoint Group, Craig Mathias, said the technology will be picked up first by business users who want to be able to access their office network from remote locations and send large e-mails over cellphones on the road.
Sprint sees WiMax as an opportunity to set out on a path toward recovery after a subscriber exodus and since its troubled merger with Nextel Communications in 2005. Consumer advocates hope WiMax will help simplify various telecommunications and television subscription plans. Eventually, broadband wireless should allow consumers to cancel other subscription-based Internet and phone services, the senior counsel of Consumers Union, Chris Murray, said. Free Internet phone services like eBay's Skype along with Web-based video should be used over the network, he said.
"The reason we've always been excited by broadband via wireless is not because it gives consumers the possibility to do a lot of new nifty things, but because it has the possibility of saving people a lot of money," Mr. Murray said.
