Clearwire Officially Hyped

Overhype

Well, I wanted to wait until it was officially official, and now it is. After all of the hype and rumors, Craig McCaw has now made the Clearwire hype plan official. As expected, they’ll be offering wireless broadband to tier 2 cities, but beyond that there aren’t many details. While the popular press is running happily with the story as if McCaw has suddenly jumped to the front of the market, at least a few folks are a bit skeptical of Clearwire’s chances. Derek adds: I’m in DC today at the WCA show where McCaw announced this in his keynote, and I think the solution will see limited success. As a cable or DSL competitor, this solution falls short. The thing about trying to beat those two on price is, they will drop theirs the minute a competitor enters. So you need to beat them on something else…mobility is a good angle, but the Clearwire modems are the size of a textbook, and require AC power – this kills the mobility play and limits McCaw to underserved areas that don’t have other broadband options.