According to Clearwire's latest quarterly earnings, the company now serves about 555,000 subscribers. About 173,000 of those are using Clearwire's new Clear Mobile WiMax service. The remainder are still using the old Clearwire fixed service, for which our user reviews have always been rather lackluster. The company added 44,000 net subscriber additions in the quarter, a number Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow told earnings conference call attendees would have been higher -- were older fixed WiMax customers not leaving the fold. Clearwire stopped marketing the older fixed service.

"We continue to believe that we are in the right place at the right time," said CEO Bill Morrow. "We will gain our fair share of this brand-new market opportunity." Investors weren't quite as optimistic, shares shedding up to 15% of their value on Wednesday.

Clearwire posted a loss of $82.42 million, wider than the loss of $7.2 million one year earlier. Revenue increased 13 percent to $68.8 million. The company continues to insist that they'll be able to deliver the service to 120 million potential subscribers in the U.S. by the end of next year. As such, they just got another round of funding from partners totalling roughly 1.5 billion dollars.

While Morrow is optimistic (as all CEOs are), Clearwire's future remains murky. Early customers don't seem blown away by the service, and Clearwire's window to make a good impression ahead of LTE launches by AT&T and Verizon won't stay open forever.