Well what a shocker we have here today! We all knew that Clearwire has been struggling to keep WiMax working properly; and we also knew that they were testing LTE technology at one point in Arizona. But what we did not expect to see was this! Clearwire says that this fall they are going to be releasing LTE-Advanced!
Dan Hesse did say we would have something “spectacular” coming this fall. This could be it. Clearwire is going to stop building out WiMax and start switching to LTE- Advanced. LTE-Advanced is the next step up from LTE, and could deliver download speeds of 120Mbps! Now don’t worry Evo, Epic, Evo 3D lovers – Clearwire will be keeping WiMax around – but will soon be switching it out it sounds like. They are going to start in areas that are already deployed with WiMax but has high demand of 4G.
Dr. John Saw, Clearwire’s Cheif Technolog Officer, confesses:
“This is the future of mobile broadband. Our extensive trial has clearly shown that our ‘LTE Advanced-ready’ network design, which leverages our deep spectrum with wide channels, can achieve far greater speeds and capacity than any other network that exists today. Clearwire is the only carrier with the unencumbered spectrum portfolio required to achieve this level of speed and capacity in the United States. In addition, the 2.5GHz spectrum band in which we operate is widely allocated worldwide for 4G deployments, enabling a potentially robust, cost effective and global ecosystem that could serve billions of devices. And, since we currently support millions of customers in the 2.5 GHz band, we know that our LTE network won’t present harmful interference issues with GPS or other sensitive spectrum bands.”
This is no doubt why we have not seen any WiMax roll outs planned for Clearwire this year (2011). They did go on to say that they have to wait for additional funding to make their LTE-Advanced fantacy come true. Then they stated that they will be using multicarrier, or multichannel, wideband radios that will be carrier aggregation capable. This sounds like they are going to market to the masses of carriers – not just Sprint.
Now you might be saying “Jason – Sprint just signed a partnership deal with Lightsquared – how is this love triangle going to work?” Well all I have to say is it will be tricky but I bet we see that this love triangle will fester and bloom into a oozing pot of LTE goodness for all of us. Remember that Lightsquared is still face with issues regarding GPS – so this gives Sprint that one way out.
You tell me PPCGeeks, what do you think of this news? Does this spell “Love” for Sprint, or does it put a nail in their casket? Tell me below!
Source: Engadget