Clearwire To Turn Up Las Vegas, Looks to Chicago, Dallas

WiMAX protagonist clwr is ready to turn up its fourth market.  Las Vegas will soon sit alongside Baltimore, Portland, and Atlanta.  Of course, this market has been under construction and testing for a long time, and Clearwire has been selling the service quietly since last month, but the launch won’t be official until July 21 when the full sales effort kicks off.

According to Telephony Online, the next two markets on tap are likely to be Chicago and Dallas, where Clearwire is apparently hiring sales staff.  These will complete early builds begun by Sprint for XOHM last year before the merger.   These market roll-outs will probably accelerate as the year goes on, one per month isn’t going to make the dent they hope to make.  Of course, it’s somewhat surreal watching Clearwire race LTE in the press.  Despite the fact that LTE doesn’t yet exist in any commercial form and won’t for a year, they’re always said to be losing.

While Clearwire’s own launch in each market must come first, it is best to keep an eye on their partners’ efforts.  It’s a lot easier to grow when one already has a customer relationship, that’s what happened with VoIP.  So Comcast’s entry into the Portland WiMAX market is critical, I wonder what sort of customer uptake they will have by the end of the year?

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Categories: Wireless