4G World: Clearwire paving way for 100 Mb/s

Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) chief commercial officer Mike Sievert flexed his company’s spectrum muscles today at 4G World, detailing in his keynote address long-term evolution trials producing downlink speeds near 100 Mb/s. Clearwire was able to squeeze such huge bandwidths out of its network by leveraging its massive spectrum resources, creating a trial network with 20 MHz by 20 MHz split spectrum channels.

Given that Clearwire has more than 100 MHz in most of its markets, Clearwire could not only deploy such a network, it could deploy two such networks in all of its markets, creating an enormously high-capacity footprint. Meanwhile, few if any of Clearwire’s competitors have the 40 MHz of free contiguous spectrum to replicate such a feat.

Sievert likened LTE to an expressway that Clearwire can continuously add lanes too, allowing more users to travel at information superhighway speeds. Even though few users would have use for 100 Mb/s on a smartphone, the overall capacity boost would allow multiple users to enjoy multiple tens of megabytes without straining the network and pave the way for a new class of mobile applications that could never be supported over 3G or the first generation of 4G networks. He cited as an example-augmented reality, an application that could extend virtual data into the real world. A two-player game, for instance, could be projected from phones onto a flat surface, rendering 3D shapes in a real environment rather than the virtual environment behind the phones’ screens.

The keynote could almost be viewed as a taunt to Clearwire’s competitors. Though Clearwire has built the LTE trial networks, it has no plans—yet—of deploying it commercially or to switch from its chosen WiMax technology to the LTE standard. “It’s not something we’ve decided on, but it’s something we’re actively testing,” Sievert said.

Clearwire’s spectrum strength, however, depends on it holding onto its licenses. Recent reports have stated that Clearwire is actively engaged in auction with major wireless operators to sell off 40 MHz of its spectrum to help cover its 2011 and 2012 nationwide WiMax rollout. While parting with 40 MHz would still leave Clearwire a large license portfolio 60 MHz to 80 MHz in most markets, it would impede Clearwire from launching such high-bandwidth LTE networks to a certain degree. Clearwire already uses at least 30 MHz of spectrum in all of its markets, meaning it would have to start shutting down WiMax carriers in some places to deploy a 20 MHz by 20 MHz LTE network. Also--assuming Clearwire awards the winner of the purported auction 40 MHz that could be divided into 20 MHz channels--Clearwire would be handing its competitor the capability of launching just such a high-bandwidth network of its own.

Clearwire’s own national rollout will get a huge boost in the coming months as it launches three of its largest WiMax markets. New York will officially go live on Nov. 1, though many Clear users are already accessing the pre-launch network there today. Los Angeles will follow on Dec. 1, and San Francisco will go live by the end of the year. Those three markets will get Clearwire almost to the 120 million pops footprint it has promised by year end, necessitating only a few additional market launches.

4G WORLD TECHNOLOGY ROUNDUP
· MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS) has launched LTE in Detroit, the third market in its gradual rollout of 4G to its current CDMA footprint. Metro launched in Las Vegas and Dallas last month, offering the first LTE services—though not 4G—in those markets. Metro’s 4G launch is a bit different than its competitors. Rather than launch extremely high-bandwidth networks over new, the regional operator is rationing its AWS and PCS spectrum to support smaller 4G carriers, which will stand in for the 3G networks MetroPCS never built. Metro will therefore use LTE as a smartphone technology rather than a broadband technology.
· Motorola (NYSE:MOT) unveiled its first LTE device, a USB card configured for global frequency division duplexing networks. The device will be a stand-alone LTE modem, and Moto didn’t say if it will support the 700 MHz band, which would make it a likely candidate for Verizon Wireless’ (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) LTE launch later this year. Though VZW may launch with an LTE only device, it plans to offer dual-mode CDMA-LTE devices as quickly as possible so it can leverage its nationwide 3G network.
· AT&T (NYSE:T) has partnered with open-source hardware pioneer Bug Labs to support its software development kit. Bug Labs make device modules that hardware developers can easily snap together to create unique devices. By supporting Bug’s GSM/3G wireless module, a hardware developer can make a network ready device without having to certify it on the AT&T network.