Clearwire’s new message

Clearwire came out kicking at CTIA Wireless last week, showing that the upstart mobile broadband operator still has a lot of spunk despite its tiny WiMAX footprint. The operator launched two new devices at the show: Samsung’s new Mondi data tablet and the Clear Spot portable router, which allows a customer to distribute a WiMAX connection among multiple Wi-Fi devices. But perhaps most significantly, Ben Wolff, co-chairman of Clearwire, launched a new offensive against the operator’s future 4G rivals, outlining a strategy underpinned not by technological superiority, but rather by sheer capacity.

For the last year, Clearwire has fought back against increasing hostility from the long-term evolution (LTE) camp by pointing toward WiMAX’s faster time to market and its greater maturity as a technology — basically claiming WiMAX beats out LTE in any business or technical comparison. Wolff, however, abandoned that mantra at his keynote at CTIA. Instead he placed all 4G technologies on the same level and focused instead on Clearwire’s enviable spectrum position as the reason for its future success.

With as much as 120 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum in many major markets, Clearwire is in a position to deliver gobs of capacity to individual users. If Clearwire built its networks out to their fullest spectral extent, Wolff said, Clearwire theoretically could deliver as much as 540 MB/s in a single cell — enough bandwidth to deliver any imaginable broadband application to multiple customers simultaneously.

With that kind of reserve bandwidth under its belt, Clearwire seems genuinely unconcerned about customers overloading its network. It’s perhaps most telling that AT&T launched a 3G netbook access service at CTIA that limits data usage to its individual customers, while Clearwire unveiled a Wi-Fi router that opens up its WiMAX network to more devices and thus more data usage per customer. So far, Clearwire hasn’t limited consumption to individual subscribers, and Wolff seemed to be implying last week that it won’t have to.

While today Clearwire certainly has a lot more spectrum than its competitors to play with, it would be a mistake to assume that will always be the case. While it’s true Verizon has 22 MHz nationwide in the 700 MHz and AT&T has 12 MHz in most markets, both operators have several more bands they can look to expand their future LTE networks. Both have substantial holdings in the Advanced Wireless Services band, and as more data traffic moves from 3G to 4G — and particularly when LTE starts handling voice traffic — AT&T and Verizon will see their massive holdings in the PCS and cellular bands open up for LTE. AT&T already has started launching 3G carriers at 850 MHz; it isn’t that much of stretch to imagine them doing the same on that band with LTE.