‘Clear’ R.I. rollout is in doubt

WiMax for consumers was supposed to be coming to Providence this year. Now, maybe not.
In March, Clearwire Corp. released lists of communities where the company planned to roll out its fourth-generation – or 4G – mobile broadband network in 2009 and in 2010.
Providence wasn’t on either list.
The arrival of WiMax had looked like a certainty last fall when Sprint Nextel Corp. announced plans to launch Xohm, its WiMax network, in Providence some time this year. At the time, Clearwire and Sprint Nextel were planning to join forces in a spinoff that would eventually build a single network nationwide.
The Sprint announcement had some techies eagerly awaiting WiMax, the fourth-generation wireless technology that can beam broadband wireless data over longer distances and at faster speeds than a conventional Wi-Fi hotspot. The service got good reviews when it was rolled out first in Baltimore in September.
Then the Clearwire-Sprint spinoff was finalized in December. While the new company retained the name Clearwire, the partners decided to change the name of the WiMax brand from “Xohm” to “Clear.” And apparently that’s not all that changed.
Clearwire now says its WiMax service will be deployed in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu and Philadelphia this year.
Next year, Clear is scheduled to appear in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and San Francisco, according to Clearwire.
The company said it expected to spend $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion in 2009 alone building out its network.
Clearwire spokesman Michael DiGioia said that just because Providence isn’t on the list doesn’t mean the service won’t be coming. Some sites have not been publicly announced yet, but DiGioia added that he couldn’t say whether Providence was one of those sites.
Nevertheless, the WiMax rollout plans have undergone a change from when Sprint Nextel last November announced Providence as a location for early WiMax deployment. Was there reason for the revision, other than the creation of a spinoff? DiGioia said last week that he did not know. And a spokesperson for Sprint Nextel didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
As a 4G technology, WiMax is a successor to the 3G networks, which have an average speed of 400 to 700 kilobits per second. WiMax is said to have an average speed of two to four megabits per second.
While WiMax is in wide use in countries such as India, Pakistan and South Korea, it remains uncommon in the United States.
Still, WiMax is already available in Providence but only to businesses, through Middletown-based Towersteam, which has offered service to companies in Providence and Newport for several years, as well as other major cities across the country.
WiMax is not the only option for creating a 4G mobile broadband network, however. Other companies, including Cox Communications and Verizon, are betting on a rival system called Long Term Evolution (LTE). Clearwire had said it might consider adding support for LTE to its technology in the future.
(A Cox spokeswoman in Rhode Island said the company is still moving forward with plans to launch cell phone service in some markets, including Rhode Island, but she declined to give a timeline when that might happen.)
Meanwhile, backers of WiMax say it’s gaining momentum.
Companies such as Intel, Google, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have agreed to invest in the technology. Intel has said it plans to work with computer manufacturers to embed certain models of laptops with WiMax chips.
Clearwire has said it expects there be about 100 models of mobile devices with WiMax chips in them – from laptops to cell phones – available by year’s end.
The company said it expects to launch a dual-mode 3G/4G wireless modem this summer that will give customers using “Clear” the ability to automatically switch between WiMax service and Sprint’s 3G network. •