Sprint and Clearwire are joining forces to deploy a nationwide Wi-MAX wireless broadband network, with a little help from some well heeled friends: Intel, Google, Time Warner, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners. The announcement, which appears in several publications today, comes amid a number of recent twists and turns aimed at a wholesale rearranging of the US wireless picture.
Monday brought news that DT was considering a deal for Sprint Nextel, which combination conceivably would involve four different network technologies: CDMA, iDEN, GSM, and Wi-MAX, in creating the nation’s largest wireless carrier, jumping ahead of AT&T. Reports also surfaced that Sprint might spin off Nextel.
Meanwhile, the FCC is exploring options on what to do with the D-Block spectrum, and Google and Microsoft are pushing for unlicensed use of the so-called “white spaces” guard bands around television broadcast channels for broadband deployment. Aspects of this plan are opposed by the nation’s broadcasters.
This report, about the world's highest Wi-Fi “hotspot,” 17,000 feet up Mt. Everest, illustrates yet another notion of “white spaces:” nothing more than packed snow here. No further comment...
Wireless technologies have the potential for increasing the number of broadband providers available to a given set of users, including those in densely populated rural areas. But wireless is not the only technology available, as a number of initiatives in Vermont, the nation’s most rural state, illustrate.
Burlington, Vermont ran fiber-to-the-home to its citizens, using private money, and expects the venture to be profitable in a few years. The manager of that project, Dr. Tim Nulty, is now involved in expanding the scope of the next deployment to 27 towns in Vermont, and a number of articles have appeared about these efforts.
I was fortunate enough to listen to him speak at a recent conference, where he described some of the simple aspects of rural broadband, where rights-of-way may be easily obtained, provided that one owns the land.
For more information about Vermont's pursuit of ubiquitous broadband, click here.
