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Clearwire Will Conduct LTE Trial This Fall
Will work with Huawei Technologies on Phoenix tests

Clearwire has repeatedly stated they want to leave the option open to migrate to LTE should they see that the Mobile WiMax future isn't particularly bright, something that's a very real possibility given significant, global incumbent support for the LTE platform. So it's not too surprising to see the company today announce that they'll be running an LTE trial this fall.

According to Clearwire, the trials will "test multiple coexistence scenarios between LTE and WiMAX radio technologies" in concert with hardware vendor Huawei Technologies, and a number of so far unnamed "large wireless operators" (read: Sprint, probably T-Mobile). Arizona will be the first trial location:
quote:
Other participating vendors for Clearwire's technical trials are expected to be named at a later date. In addition, due to the global dominance of the 2.5 GHz - 2.6 GHz spectrum band, a number of large wireless operators are expected to participate with Clearwire on these tests. Additional details about those companies are also expected to be disclosed at a later date. The tests will be conducted in the fall and throughout early 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona.
According to previous statements by Clearwire, Wimax and LTE have 80 percent overlap when it comes to the physical hardware deployed to the field. The problem of course is that Sprint and Clearwire are already burning through money, and any migration and conversion will still pose some significant additional costs. On the other hand, there's no shortage of deep-pocketed Clearwire sugar daddies ready to foot part of the bill -- including the cable industry.
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Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Good

Atleast we know they are getting prepared if they got to make the switch from wimax to LTE.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

Re: Good

Yeah, good that they are prepared to switch if they need to (or consider dual networks), but I'd rather see Clear stick with WiMAX in 2.5Ghz space and Sprint eventually convert 1.9Ghz CDMA to LTE.

Would like to see WiMAX survive for the cable industry and consumer electronics space and LTE get standardized in the telcom industry space.

WiMAX also has a much better chance of global roaming than LTE as WiMAX is mostly deployed on 3 bands globally. LTE is being deployed on over a dozen.

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

Matt3

Premium Member

Interference

They need to work on the interference issues first, if it's even possible to do anything about it. I wonder if LTE in the 2.5 - 2.6GHz band would perform any better?
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Interference

To be honest, probably not.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

Re: Interference

I've read in RF engineer rags that there is more interference at 700Mhz than over 1.5Ghz when attempting to do high speed data. Am not an RF engineer to explain why but there are apparently more challenges for high speed data at lower bands. When VZW was rolling out EVDO, they started in cities that had 1900 bands (as well as 800). They didn't rollout in cities with 800 only bands til much later.

We'll find out when VZW LTE comes out in the 700 band. Intelligent antennas are supposed to help.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Interference

Yes, lower freq airwaves travel farther. Which means that they more readily interfere with each other. Which is partially why 900MHz (unlicensed) wireless internet is hard to do right.

The advantage to 2500 is you have a lot of spectrum and signal falls off pretty quickly so interference issues aren't too bad. The disadvantage is that...well...2500MHz signal falls off pretty quickly.

That said, right now we (managed services outfit starting ISP service) are using 5GHz-area (around 5.5 GHz for subscribers, may go up to 5.8GHz at some point, especially for long-range backhauls) wireless. With decent gain antennas (one foot dish and such) you can make multi-mile links with no problem...on unlicensed spectrum, no less...that makes 3G look like dialup. Now *that's* pretty cool

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Re: Interference

Its not cool when they tell you "oh, you shouldnt be getting service in the first place, you are more then 4 miles away!".

They are testing a modem with ext antenna port in washtington right now. Hope it gets good results. Gona suck going back to dial up. Might just have to jailbreak the ol iphone to tether.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: Interference

2GB doesn't go too far...:/

Hopefully you don't have to go back to dialup. Maybe the folks on your street can convince a friend within GVTC fiber territory to get a 40/10 connection and beam it to y'all

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Re: Interference

Grandfathered unlimited plan ftw. also been bugging twc vp of communication and our county commisoner. See what happens with that.

I was thinking of beaming from a place like 2 miles away. They get twc and I can always call and see if they can put another box outside and I connect somehow to a antenna and point my direction.
Duramax08

2 edits

Duramax08 to iansltx

Premium Member

to iansltx
now I saw that your parent got dsl when they are like 20k feet away. Now if you read my sig, you see what att told me. Does AT&T and verizon have different hardware? The 15k rule sounds like shit.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: Interference

T won't go over 14.5k don't ask why though it's just a rule of theirs. VZ is about the same.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to Duramax08

Member

to Duramax08
Parents are 60,610 feet according to an MLT. Not the most stable connection...sometimes resyncs at 1000-1200k instead of 1500, but we're on heavy-gauge telephone wire and I was able to pester the VZ CO tech enough to get it installed

Then again, we're right off the highway so it's pretty much ideal conditions. Your lines may not be so great :/

K3SGM
- -... ...- -
Premium Member
join:2006-01-17
Columbia, PA

K3SGM to Matt3

Premium Member

to Matt3
said by Matt3:

They need to work on the interference issues first, if it's even possible to do anything about it. I wonder if LTE in the 2.5 - 2.6GHz band would perform any better?
I think it will work far better, but at a cost.

Many more towers will be needed.

But at this point, the cell towers can become utillity pole mounted sites, at far less regulatory cost, and placed much closer to the end users.

Above 2GHz, frequency reuse will be a real advantage to total system capacity.

At 700MHz, frequency reuse is going to really suck.

Consider re-using a 2.5GHz channel at every 3rd tower, but at 700MHz being only able to be reused at every 9-12th tower.

Figuring also that Clear is building an extensive Fiber/Microwave backhaul system from the start, and AT&T and VZ will either have to roll out their own fiber overlay, or lease multiple expensive T-3 or OC-3 lines to support their own 4G backhaul.

However, I am still waiting for T-Mobile to upgrade their HSPA 21+ network to HSPA42+.

Long live 3G.99, and maybe the inception of 5G will eventually pull everything together.
glinc
join:2009-04-07
New York, NY

glinc

Member

mmmm

It would make no sense if they dump WiMax after spending so much money and jump ship on LTE.

Also imagine how annoying it would be for a Sprint phone that will have CDMA, WiMax and LTE.....that would be a battery killer right there!! lets just say having all 3 radios on and when you move to places where there's no coverage on one and the phone keeps on searching for that signal... or even having to turn on/off each radio every time u want to use it or not.

Just make one radio frequency standard already.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: mmmm

It's called LTE, apparently.

Also, LTE and WIMAX are pretty similar tech wise. Also, since both WiMAX and LTE are IP protocols only the radios on the towers need to be upgraded, and maybe a few of them can do LTE already.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

Clear plans to eventually cover 270 million pops

...according to WSJ.

»online.wsj.com/article/B ··· 620.html

They'll need a massive cash infusion to get there. Could be a while. Once you get past the 100 or so largest metro areas (about 170 million) it takes a lot more sites to cover each additional million as density decreases.

Probably more reasonable they'll hit 80-100 metros in next year or so (if they get more cash) and spatterings of smaller towns where they can get cheap backhaul or where the logistics to rollout are a no brainer.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: Clear plans to eventually cover 270 million pops

MSOs and Google have some spare cash laying around. They'll give some more just to keep the network being built. After all the MSOs are going to depend on this network.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

Re: Clear plans to eventually cover 270 million pops

I wonder if Google still sees a future return on their investment in Clear, enough to pump in more. It doesn't seem Google is doing any tie-ins with Clear.
vlad1000
join:2005-05-19
Brooklyn, NY

vlad1000

Member

surprise surprise!!

they're following yota's steps already...hmm
i guess wimax isnt that stable of a technology after all
but i think when whitespace really takes off...well
then all the other wireless broadband technologies will hit the dust
DarnellP
join:2004-10-12
Las Vegas, NV

DarnellP

Member

Re: surprise surprise!!

said by vlad1000:

they're following yota's steps already...hmm
Yeah, about Yota and LTE... »www.fiercebroadbandwirel ··· 10-08-02
i guess wimax isnt that stable of a technology after all
That's a rather dubious conclusion to draw. For one, a portion of their testing is to determine how they can use LTE along with WiMAX. Additionally, I sincerely doubt that this has to do with the stability or performance of WiMAX as a technology, but rather economies of scale as well as roaming ability.
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

Sammer to vlad1000

Member

to vlad1000
said by vlad1000:

i guess wimax isnt that stable of a technology after all
but i think when whitespace really takes off...well
then all the other wireless broadband technologies will hit the dust
If the cell phone carriers get their way another 120 MHz of the TV Band (channels 31-51) as well as another 380 MHz outside the TV band will be auctioned to them. That will probably kill free TV so they will end up with channels 21-30 as well. IOW the cellphone carriers with the help of an FCC chairman who is already IMHO in their pocket are going to try to kill both your white space and ATSC mobile / handheld before either ever gets a chance to really take off.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

TMO

TMO would be smart and just jump to WiMax here and start building out with Clear. Do a joint venture as far as building out. Where TMO doesn't have coverage they could roam on Clear's network and where Clear doesn't have coverage they could roam on TMO. They could get Cricket to join in to help foot the bill. That'd be one awsome network. Especially if any other smaller companies joined in.

TMO did it once before with Cingular/T so why not do it again?
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

Sammer

Member

Re: TMO

Why doesn't Deutsche Telekom just do a joint venture to merge Sprint Nextel with T-Mobile USA? Then they could effectively control Clear and enough potential 4G spectrum to make both AT&T and Verizon worry.
LineNoise
join:2006-06-25
Downers Grove, IL
(Software) pfSense

LineNoise

Member

I'm beginning to dislike clearwire more and more

Initial Tests Expected to Demonstrate Real-World Download Speeds Ranging from 20-70 Mbps, Significantly Faster than the 5-12 Mbps Expected from Other Operators in the U.S.

Is this for real? Seriously, did they put that into a press release? THAT'S THEIR FUCKING SPEEDS NOW.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4

Member

Re: I'm beginning to dislike clearwire more and more

they don't give you the 20-70Mbps to use. They give you 5-12Mbps to use.

The network i expected to do 20-70Mbps. Also most providers only issue 2-12Mbps speeds to customers.