Sprint Rescues Clearwire From Digital Oblivion New $1.6 Billion Deal Builds New LTE Foundation Just as concerns were mounting that Clearwire was going to default on an interest payment due today, Sprint today announced they'd be saving the struggling wireless operator's bacon. According to the official press statement, the new deal is worth up to $1.6 billion over the next four years, including payments for WiMAX services, possible pre-payments for LTE services and potential equity investments. Though Sprint had been pretending otherwise and attempting leverage through LightSquared, the deal is necessary for both companies. Sprint can't seriously complete their LTE network build (finally made official last October) without Clearwire's ample spectrum assets -- especially if LightSquared continues to suffer regulatory delays due to GPS interference. Clearwire, meanwhile, can't be the sleek, neutral, " Switzerland of Broadband" wholesale operator they envision without Sprint's cash. Wimax: The announcement notes that Sprint will pay Clearwire $926 million to continue to access Clearwire's Mobile WiMax network until the end of 2015, as Sprint has said they'll continue to support WiMax devices as they transition to LTE. Sprint says they'll continue selling WiMax devices through "at least 2012," supporting WiMax devices through the life of the contract. LTE: The deal involves Sprint paying Clearwire up to $350 million in a series of prepayments over a period of up to two years for LTE capacity if Clearwire achieves certain build-out targets and network specifications by June of 2013. Clearwire, which stated they need about $600 million for their own LTE transition, will get a cash infusion from Sprint, LightSquared and Clearwire all cooperating on an LTE Advanced build -- something we'd been saying since March. Sprint says the company expects to launch laptop cards and phones supporting Clearwire's TDD-LTE network sometime in 2013. There's still a lot of moving pieces at play here, but the LightSquared, Clearwire, Sprint supergroup everyone predicted has officially hit the ground running. Whether they can collectively survive remains to be seen, but huddling together under the shadow of the growing AT&T/Verizon duopoly is really their only option.
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  n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
 ·Optimum Online
| Buy a WiMAX Device? Why would one buy a WiMAX device now knowing it will be an orphan at some point? Also, as WiMAX is running on 2500MHz, IIRC, how will this spectrum be of use for LTE which appears to be destined for 700MHz by AT&T and VZW? It makes me wonder if device support will be as limited as that for T-Mobile's AWS spectrum.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
|  |  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? said by n2jtx:Why would one buy a WiMAX device now knowing it will be an orphan at some point? Also, as WiMAX is running on 2500MHz, IIRC, how will this spectrum be of use for LTE which appears to be destined for 700MHz by AT&T and VZW? It makes me wonder if device support will be as limited as that for T-Mobile's AWS spectrum.
AT&T, Verizon, & Sprint, & maybe TMO if the AT&T merger dies, will all be using LTE devices that won't port over to a competitor. Of course, there will be some LTE devices that can roam between carriers, but bet your bottom dollar that they won't be the ones subsidized by the carrier.
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The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
»www.politico.com/rss/2012-election-blog.xml
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 ·Callcentric
1 edit | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? Of course they (conveniently) will not roam onto one another.
That's the way the cookie crumbles in the US, typically because folks like yourself refuse to comprehend the role of government in a civilized society.
Whereas, this is not an issue in most significantly big government type nations, where competition ironically thrives. | |
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|  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Clear Wireless
| said by n2jtx:Why would one buy a WiMAX device now knowing it will be an orphan at some point? Because the cost of the device is inconsequential if you need the service now?
The USB sticks start at $40, the "home" wired network adapters start at $50, and the wifi hotspots are $100. In relation to a service that costs $35-$50/mo per device, that's not really a huge upfront capital outlay to worry about the long term usability of the device. | |
| | | | Good question. Most of us buy devices through a specific contract period. So it doesn't matter what the future of the technology is as long as it is functional during the agreed upon contract period. | |
| | | | Clearwire I believe intends to skip LTE and go right to LTE-Advanced.
Yes, "LTE" is 700/800MHz, but LTE-Advanced is going to be 1700MHz - 2600MHz depending on country/implementation.
Personally, I am glad Clearwire is still kicking. I am a "CLEAR" home user. Unlimited (at 3 Mbps+ which is all I need) internet and phone for $60 including all of my taxes rocks. | |
| | | | | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? said by CLEAR User :Clearwire I believe intends to skip LTE and go right to LTE-Advanced.
Yes, "LTE" is 700/800MHz, but LTE-Advanced is going to be 1700MHz - 2600MHz depending on country/implementation.
Personally, I am glad Clearwire is still kicking. I am a "CLEAR" home user. Unlimited (at 3 Mbps+ which is all I need) internet and phone for $60 including all of my taxes rocks.
LTE Advanced is run on whatever freq. the carrier chooses, Verizon and AT&T will run LTE advanced on their 700mhz and AWS holdings. | |
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|  dib22
join:2002-01-27
Kansas City, MO
kudos:2 | LTE will be dead even faster than WiMax. Recent breakthroughs will see to that. | |
| | | | | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? That's interesting but we'll see how it plays out in the real world. The nice thing about what Sprint is rolling out with a new infrastructure (Sprint Vision), they can swapout the card in a chassis for any other kind of protocol in the future. Of course antenna design might have to be changed too. | |
| | | | dib22
join:2002-01-27
Kansas City, MO
kudos:2 | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? Agreed. In fact some of the tower systems can even be re-programed with out hardware exchanges. It is good to see them getting their act together after 10 years of treating towers like a 4 letter word  | |
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| Reviews:
 ·MSN
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| said by n2jtx:Why would one buy a WiMAX device now knowing it will be an orphan at some point? Also, as WiMAX is running on 2500MHz, IIRC, how will this spectrum be of use for LTE which appears to be destined for 700MHz by AT&T and VZW? It makes me wonder if device support will be as limited as that for T-Mobile's AWS spectrum.
LTE will work fine on 2500 mHz, perhaps even better then on 700 simply because Clear has much more spectrum at 2500 then AT&T has at 700, so as things begin to fill up, Sprint will have a bigger 'yard' to accommodate the new people. | |
| | | | | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? said by qworster:said by n2jtx:Why would one buy a WiMAX device now knowing it will be an orphan at some point? Also, as WiMAX is running on 2500MHz, IIRC, how will this spectrum be of use for LTE which appears to be destined for 700MHz by AT&T and VZW? It makes me wonder if device support will be as limited as that for T-Mobile's AWS spectrum.
LTE will work fine on 2500 mHz, perhaps even better then on 700 simply because Clear has much more spectrum at 2500 then AT&T has at 700, so as things begin to fill up, Sprint will have a bigger 'yard' to accommodate the new people. More spectrum doesn't mean jack if you don't have money to support the infrastructure and bring in better IP backhaul instead of legacy TDM microwave and T1 backhaul. | |
| | | | | | Re: Buy a WiMAX Device? Actually LTE requires fiber directly to the e node-b, so it is not possible to have an LTE network running on T1's or legacy microwave. The cell site must at least have Ethernet Over Microwave or be on EBH. | |
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| | 2 sinking ships. Trying to save each other, now that's funny. | |
| zefie
join:2007-07-18
Hudson, NY | Translation... Translation: Your Sprint bill is going to increase, AGAIN. | |
| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: Translation... ...and possibly an even quicker-than-predicted death of the Sprint "unlimited" differentiator despite the iPhone "why would you want to limit this device" ads. | |
| | NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | and they'll blame it on ATT and that they can't compete. | |
| | | | | Re: Translation... said by NWOhio:and they'll blame it on ATT and that they can't compete.
Accurately so. The anti competitive duopoly of VZW and AT&T is the primary reason why Sprint and T-Mobile alike struggle. The VZW and AT&T acquisition sprees and iPhone exclusivity have done harm to the domestic wireless industry that we consumers will have to live with for years to come.
AJ | |
| | | | NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | Re: Translation... Sprint brought a LOT of their problems on their own. Well before CellCo and ATT Mobility mergers. Sprint went down hill as soon as they spent the money on Nextel's iDEN network and tried to migrate customers and lost a shit load of money. They'll never recover. And instead of actually trying to compete; they raise their prices! How can you compete with that? Sprint would be better off as a wholesale network for providers.
And TMO- is just TMO. They compete and have their niche markets and they know it. by having NOT having the iPhone doesn't really hurt them. They compete on price and they're doing a good job at it. They're only bleeding customers right now because people don't understand that if ATT Mobility would take over TMO- T STILL has to honor the contract of TMO's customers. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Translation... said by NWOhio:Sprint brought a LOT of their problems on their own. Well before CellCo and ATT Mobility mergers. Sprint went down hill as soon as they spent the money on Nextel's iDEN network and tried to migrate customers and lost a shit load of money.
Well, the BAM-AirTouch-GTE-PrimeCo merger (that formed VZW), the VoiceStream-Aerial-Powertel merger (that formed T-Mobile), and the Cingular-AT&TWS merger all occurred before the Sprint-Nextel merger. And that merger formed largely due to those previous mergers. So, Sprint may have made some questionable decisions, but it did not do so in a vacuum. Rather, it did so as it faced increasing anti competitive pressures from the VZW and AT&T former Ma Bell duopoly.
I liken the situation to Major League Baseball. Why do the New York Yankees almost always make the post season, but the Kansas City Royals have never done so in the last 25 years? Is it really because the people running the Yankees are that much smarter and/or that the Royals have made consistently bad decisions? Or is it because the Yankees are the big market team with the money to hoard resources away from other teams and easily live down any mistakes?
The danger that we face with VZW and AT&T dominating the market is that the duopoly puts such anti competitive pressures on other carriers that those carriers can nary afford to take risks and innovate/experiment, lest they make costly mistakes and be subject to failure or acquisition. Yet, paradoxically, those other carriers also cannot afford not to take risks; otherwise, VZW and AT&T hegemony completely overshadow them. Other carriers are basically damned if they do, damned if they don't.
So, are we as consumers (and as the true owners of wireless spectrum) content with primarily two choices: VZW and AT&T? That is the direction that we are headed.
AJ | |
| | | | | | Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Translation... said by WiWavelength:I liken the situation to Major League Baseball. Why do the New York Yankees almost always make the post season, but the Kansas City Royals have never done so in the last 25 years? Is it really because the people running the Yankees are that much smarter and/or that the Royals have made consistently bad decisions? Or is it because the Yankees are the big market team with the money to hoard resources away from other teams and easily live down any mistakes?
I agree with that analogy. AT&T has made numerous mistakes and is typically rated the worst out of any carrier, yet, people still flock that direction due to items such as the iPhone. Similar to your analogy, AT&T and VZW have been able to 'buy' their way out of their issues. Sprint has always been a 'me first' carrier when it comes to deploying something new (4G, EVDO, Vision, etc.). In my opinion (for what its worth), Sprint's issues have typically been timing. They have typically deployed too early for adoption of process. VZW has had its timing demand (in the past decade) about right, and AT&T has been late to the game.
In Sprint's own defense, they don't have a ton of PCS spectrum, so EVDO and WiMAX were probably a high priority to keep their network for being overloaded. | |
| | | | | |  DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:70
·AT&T Southwest
 ·DIRECTV
·AT&T Midwest
·Google Voice
| said by WiWavelength:So, are we as consumers (and as the true owners of wireless spectrum) content with primarily two choices: VZW and AT&T? That is the direction that we are headed.
AJ
Note as me and the brother in law (don) talk quite frequently. I quote this from him.
said by Don:
I think the Wavelength guy's last statement is correct. As much as we hate to admit it, we are headed the same way the sattelite radio companies headed. Both were pretty weak and not very appealing on their own. Frankly, if Sprint did purchase T-Mobile, what would it have done with it? Essentially fail at merging it (which sprint is known for, and shouldn't be a surprise to no one) T-mobile customers would still be out. Only difference is for a chance of their smart phones working again would be AT&T. Sprint would of course keep the spectrum and laugh all the way to the bank. Maybe this is what they were interested in, a spectrum hostage negotiation, where AT&T would have to either pay up or shut up. That would raise consumer rates for sure and sprint would be laughing again all the way to the bank. AT&T was smart not settling for that. The joint venture is probably what they should have done in the beginning. Has far less goverment requirements, and AT&T can joint venture and help tmobile. If DT wants out, they can just sell it piece by piece to AT&T. Tmobile has been in trouble for a while, with European cash demands not going away anytime soon, I can see why DT wants out. They can't spend money on it, just sell it.
Anyone on Tmobile still has their days numbered. Granted while not going away overnight, is going away unless the problems in europe and in the U.S. just up and vanish. DT knows they have a cash problem in europe. It's why they took AT&T's bid, they were not stupid. Look at it this way I have a 2003 surburban that you and another guy wants. If you offer me 10k and another guy offers me 12k, who do you think I will take? That still equals a sale of another provider none the less. Sure give it to MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular, who? They wouldn't get 39 billion from those two players alone. The chinese is an interesting choice considering we owe them so much, but would you want the chinese in control of your wireless, when you already owe them enough? That's just insult adding to injury. Granted I am for a global economy but not when it could up and slaughter me faster than a pig to a slaughterhouse.
Sprint, they were looking at this as opportunity for hostage negotiation where the other players would have to pay up. Verizon didn't need it but AT&T did.
So sad that Sprint didn't get their "hostage negotiation rates" as they wanted. Boo Hoo!
Finally there is clearwire, anyone who doesn't think that Sprint isnt just stringing them along really needs a clue. It's only a matter of time when they stop paying their interest payments.
If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!
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|  GeekJediRF is Good For YouPremium
join:2001-06-21
Mukwonago, WI | I've had Sprint for a few years now, and my bill hasn't gone up at all. | |
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 knightmbEverybody Lies
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN | Another Victory for small WISP Another victory for small WISP. I've had to compete against Clear in a few markets, we continue to take their customers so they being the 800 lb gorilla in the industry doesn't make up for a bad business plan they use.  | |
| | |  Clearwire Sucks
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| | NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | Re: Clearwire Sucks and it sucks because it sends jobs overseas? You do realize that more and more companies do this. | |
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ricep5Premium
join:2000-08-07
Jacksonville, FL | Dysfunctional Group Clearwire is the 24 year old college graduate who comes back home with his car, but doesn't have any money for the gas. He has his college loans and credit cards to pay, but can't get a job. So he parks his car behind his dad and squats and won't move until dad gives him some cash to get out of the way.
Such is the life with Clearwire and Sprint. | |
| | | | Re: Dysfunctional Group I signed my dad up with Clear early last year. He has a iPad and Macbook Pro and he travels the st louis area quite often and my mom has a iMac at home. He pays $60 for a hotspot and home modem unlimited.
Overall at that price it's a steal. I know it's about $100/month for it now which makes it a crappy deal but hopefully they'll keep him at the price for the near future | |
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Reviews:
·MSN
·Brand X Internet
·DSL EXTREME
| My Clear WiMax works quite well. I pay 20 dollars a month for my WiMax from Clear and last night when I ran a speed test from inside my car I was getting 10 megs down and 2 megs up. I hope that EVERYONE goes to LTE and loads them down to a crawl-I'll stick with WiMax for these kinds of speeds. | |
| | NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | Re: My Clear WiMax works quite well. I had service in Cleveland and service worked GREAT! Never any problems! Always 10/2 as well and never had any capping issues either. | |
| | pkorx8
join:2003-06-19
San Francisco, CA | My Sprint EVO 4G is rocking 8M down/1.5M up in the car and I can't be happier. Great that sprint's iphone is non-Wimax. | |
| | |  Jovi
join:2000-02-24
Mount Joy, PA | Re: My Clear WiMax works quite well. said by pkorx8:My Sprint EVO 4G is rocking 8M down/1.5M up in the car and I can't be happier. Great that sprint's iphone is non-Wimax.
Just switched to Sprint from T-mobile after 6 years. My coverage is a lot better(have solid 3G at home now) and 4G at work gets me a consistent 4-12M/1.5. Love the new Samsung Galaxy S2.
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"Some people have no respect for logic."  | |
| | | | | | Re: My Clear WiMax works quite well. My Sprint SGII sometimes hits 12-15M but is usually 4-10Mbps. | |
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| | | | | |  jimi419Dadof4
join:2002-03-14
Round Lake, IL | Re: My Clear WiMax works quite well. Well Winnetka is 1 of those cherry picked places as there is a lot of money along the north shore from Lake Bluff to Chicago | |
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| | For those that aren't aware... Sprint is maneuvering to takeover Clearwire fully and own their assets (including all their brand new towers with 100mbit connections) for a song. They are already the largest shareholder, these debt deals give them priority to own Clearwire with almost no additional outlay in the future.
Sprint sold all their old towers to a company a few years ago for a big chunk of money, from appearances they'll get 90% of it back for half the cost of the sale when they take over Clearwire for defaulting on debt payments (which seems inevitable to me). Not only that but they get brand new tower infrastructure with high quality 4G capable connections to wired networks.
Some of you question it but the moves are brilliant, with an equipment swap (which is what this loan to clearwire is for!) they will have a modern LTE network for a song. They are going to get a 6 billion dollar tower network for a 2 billion dollar investment and until clearwire fails they get their network usage at cost to boot. | |
| | | | Re: For those that aren't aware... You're probably off a bit with the numbers but I do agree Sprint is setting up Clear to fail in order to take over the assets on the cheap. | |
| | | | said by rahvin112:Sprint sold all their old towers to a company a few years ago for a big chunk of money, from appearances they'll get 90% of it back for half the cost of the sale when they take over Clearwire for defaulting on debt payments (which seems inevitable to me). Not only that but they get brand new tower infrastructure with high quality 4G capable connections to wired networks.
Are you talking about "towers" or "base stations"? The first are just structures; the second are actual wireless network infrastructure.
A few years ago, Sprint sold the towers that it owned, not the base stations.
AJ | |
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| | Google I find it hilarious Google spent $10 billion to buy worthless Motorola, but chose not to spend $3 billion buying up a wireless company with the largest swath of spectrum in the country. | |
| Skipig
join:2011-11-22
Parker, CO | Clear's internal explanation of its LTE path John Saw, of Clearwire sent the following e-mail to the Clear staff. Makes for interesting reading.
Team –
Erik Prusch and Ron Marquardt recently attended the Global TDD-LTE Initiative Summit in Hong Kong to discuss our plans for LTE, and there has been a lot of coverage in the press recently on the topic, so I thought I’d share with you some background on the type of LTE technology we plan to deploy (pending funding) and why.
LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and as you know it’s behind some of the most advanced 4G networks in the world today. LTE-Advanced is a new standard currently in development and many of our competitors have announced future deployment plans for LTE-Advanced. We refer to our future network as LTE-Advanced Ready, because we plan to deploy our LTE network in such a way that once LTE-Advanced mobile devices are available, we could simply flip the switch to LTE-Advanced.
There has been discussion in the press about the two variants of LTE, known as FDD-LTE (Frequency Division Duplexing LTE) and TDD-LTE (Time Division Duplexing LTE). Historically, global spectrum has been allocated in both paired (FDD) and unpaired (TDD) configurations. Older 1G, 2G and 3G wireless technologies were all rooted in voice services, which required paired spectrum. Newer generations of wireless technologies, which focus exclusively on packet data services, tend to used unpaired spectrum. LTE was designed from inception to converge FDD/TDD into a single technology solution for 4G and beyond. The LTE network architecture, protocol stack, radio management, and MAC layers are 100% identical. There are minor differences in about 15% of the physical layer 1 and all of the key features of LTE and LTE-Advanced are identical for both FDD/TDD.
For most operators, the decision on whether to use FDD-LTE or TDD-LTE is simply a function of the regulatory rules associated with their spectrum, and what legacy technologies they are already supporting in their network. Since most operators around the world are evolving to 4G by migrating their existing networks which have supported 2G and 3G using FDD spectrum and technologies, FDD-LTE is the natural and only choice for them. In contrast, newer operators who may be deploying greenfield 4G networks, or evolving from earlier 3G/4G technologies which used TDD spectrum, they will naturally gravitate to TDD-LTE. Clearwire is a very unique situation, because the FCC rules for our 2.5 GHz spectrum support both FDD and TDD operations. As you know, Clearwire conducted extensive trials in Phoenix to characterize both TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE performance, and to best determine the optimal evolution strategy for our current WiMAX network. Pending receipt of funding, our plan is to use TDD-LTE. This decision was driven by some distinct technology and network migration cost advantages, as well as the fact that over time, TDD-LTE mobile devices in higher frequency spectrum such as our 2.5 GHz band will be used by the world’s largest operators, serving the most dense population centers.
TDD-LTE is scalable and future proofed. Clearwire’s wideband, multicarrier radios which we use today for WiMAX can support multiple channels, including LTE - in the same box. This gives us a lot of flexibility to add capacity efficiently without the need for additional hardware or tower climbs. Incumbent operators are deploying 4G using basic LTE radios which only have 2 transceivers, and they have no prior experience base with MIMO deployments. Unlike our competitors, Clearwire’s radios are equipped with 4 transceivers, and we have 5+ years of experience developing and deploying advanced MIMO technologies. This means our networks will have a leg up on coverage and capacity, even though we are using the same technology. In addition, we can also use some advanced antenna processing techniques to deliver unsurpassed data rates and capacity. When LTE Advanced (Rel-10) standards and devices become available, these same radios will have the added capability to aggregate large swaths of spectrum to generate even higher data rates and capacity.
A key advantage of TDD, and reason why TDD has always been the preferred approach for nearly all Internet centric wireless technologies (WiFi, WiMAX, WiBro, Expedience, 802.20, PHS, IP-Wireless, Flarion, iBurst, Navini), is that TDD offers the flexibility to configure channel capacity where it is most needed, with respect to asymmetric downlink or uplink traffic. Additionally, these configurations can be changed over time. FDD systems use a fixed, symmetric DL/UL ratio of 50/50 which is often sub-optimal and cannot be changed over time. As such, a key benefit which TDD-LTE provides is the ability for us to dynamically dedicate more of our spectrum to downlink traffic to better serve the heavily downlink-biased mobile Internet, and, unlike other LTE networks, we will be able to alter this downlink/uplink ratio in the future depending on how usage evolves.
Also, due to our spectrum depth, and with the help of the multichannel radios, we could easily and cost-effectively add additional capacity carriers to our cell sites. We think we can support up to 10x more devices on a cell site than another 4G carrier with only 20 MHz of spectrum in a large Top 100 market. In fact, LTE-Advanced will enable us to deploy multiple 40 MHz carriers. We currently have more than 100 MHz of 2.5 GHz of spectrum in all of our markets, but in our largest markets we hold up to 160 MHz. That means in some of the largest, densest markets in the country we could deploy four 40 MHz carriers. For context, AT&T’s proposed network that would result from combining with T-Mobile would total 40 MHz, while Verizon’s current LTE network runs off of 20 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum.
The high performance of both LTE and LTE-Advanced are fundamentally enabled by wide channels and advanced MIMO. Because of Clearwire’s spectrum, practical background with WiMAX, and high capacity backhaul, our baseline LTE network will come out of the gate with 20 MHz channels, and support for advanced MIMO. 2.5 GHz, TDD, and our spectrum depth enable all these features, and set us very far apart from what any other carrier can do with LTE, or LTE-Advanced in the U.S. The best analogy is WiFi 11n, which has supported 3x2 MIMO using 40 MHz channels in 2.4 GHz for quite a few years now. There are fundamental laws of physics which allow higher frequency spectrum to offer distinct capacity advantages, and we are able to reap this with LTE and LTE-Advanced, while operators with limited spectrum depth and lower frequencies cannot.
The real situation with other carries in the U.S. suddenly making rather unsubstantiated claims of “LTE-Advanced” on aggressive schedules is as follows. The reality is no carrier in the U.S. has anything larger than a 10 MHz channel in any frequency band, and will not in the foreseeable future. Several operators don’t have anything larger than a 5 MHz channel in any band. So, in order for any of these carriers to reach any true wide bandwidth, they must put their hopes entirely into an LTE-Advanced feature known as “Carrier Aggregation”. I asked Pete Gelbman, our director of systems research and development, to explain this feature.
“Carrier aggregation allows an operator to stitch together disparate pieces of narrow band spectrum in different bands to reach a 10 or 20 MHz channel. This requires a great deal of radio complexity in both base stations and devices, and will not be properly supported until Rel-11 specifications, which are still in development and frankly are mired up with lots of operator specific band nuances, which has become a real problem for those developing the standard to deal with,” said Pete Gelbman. “For example, for the major North American deployments who wish to support LTE-Advanced in the future, base stations and devices will have to aggregate various combinations of 700, 800, 1900, and AWS channels, which creates a lot of multi-band radio RF and system design challenges. All of this is on top of the fact that LTE devices already have to support an incredible amount of baseline LTE bands to start with because there is no harmonized global bands for LTE, unlike 2G/GSM or 3G/UMTS. In addition, inter band radio systems have never been deployed before, and true behavior of inter-band CA devices is not well understood.
Contrast this to the fact that Clearwire can deploy 20 MHz channels today, using vanilla baseline LTE Release8. LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation for us is simply the pairing up of the simple 20 MHz channels today within our same 2.5 GHz band, which is emerging to be one of the most viable candidates for global LTE adoption, based on very large scale deployments in Asia. We have a very simple approach to 40 MHz and advanced MIMO which our base stations support today, and which is fundamentally the same technology approach which 11n has provided for years now,” added Pete.
The standards bodies are still working on the technical specifications for LTE-Advanced, in particular the key carrier-aggregation feature. Our R&D teams are leading some of the work streams in this space, and based on a large amount of quality contributions in a short period of time, Clearwire is now viewed as a highly respected entity in the development of LTE-Advanced technology.
In addition to standards, Clearwire’s technology team has been busy developing the TDD-LTE ecosystem to support our business case. Low cost, multi-mode, multi-band devices which can support LTE are central to true adoption of mobile broadband. 4G/LTE market economics will be driven towards supporting the RF spectrum which has the highest populations of paying consumers who need 4G service and can pay for it. The world has ~7 Bn people in 2011. The highest urban POP densities are in China, Japan, India, other parts of Asia, and the U.S. These areas are widely understood to be key drivers of the 4G/LTE era. These same areas of the globe are primarily serviced with spectrum within the 2.3-2.7 GHz range, which can be accommodated by a simple, low cost device architecture, which can become accepted as a leading global band for LTE. Clearwire has provided innovative technical leadership around the design of such devices as well as promoted its acceptance into the industry. This design has now been accepted as a major project by the key industry consortiums comprising the largest operators in the world, all of whom are driving cutting edge requirements into the standards development and to equipment vendors.
In February of this year, Global TDD-LTE Initiative (GTI) was established at Mobile World Congress by China Mobile, Vodafone, Bharti-Airtel, Softbank, and Clearwire. GTI currently includes more than 31 members. These operators serve over 1B subscribers. For the past year, the International Wireless Industry Consortium (IWPC) has been conducting industry surveys and workshops to study operator requirements, and availability and performance of electronic components for various RF bands for LTE. Particular attention was given to LTE-Advanced features, such as carrier aggregation, and their implications to RF front-end designs. Results of these surveys concluded the following:
- Sub 2GHz bands for 4G are fragmented.
- Some of the largest LTE deployments are occurring in 2.3-2.7 GHz bands.
- 25% percent of the world's 4G LTE deployments are using 2.3-2.7GHz bands.
- The combination of Band 7 (FDD) & Band 38/40/41 (TDD) constitutes a single frequency range for 4G worldwide roaming and mass market opportunity.
- RF front-end-modules (FEMs) of multi-mode-multi-band (MMMB) devices are facing large technical challenges related to supporting so many fragmented RF bands. The problem is significantly exacerbated by LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation feature for interband FDD bands in the sub 2 GHz spectrum.
- FEM designs for unified common 2.3-2.7GHz are supported by a very large majority of RF component vendors.
- 2.3 to 2.7GHz is the only global band for 4G.
Clearwire’s TDD-LTE Band 41 is poised to be at the sweet spot of the largest, most unified ecosystem for LTE, ideally positioned to support 20 MHz channels in Rel-8 today. Other operators in sub 2Ghz spectrum are increasingly pinning their hopes on LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation features to simply aggregate disjointed bits of legacy narrowband FDD spectrum.
Meanwhile, the technology and network teams at Clearwire are working hard on our LTE plans. We are fortunate to have the very best in wireless -- the first team in the U.S. to build a 4G network from the ground up -- preparing us for our future. Thanks | |
| Reviews:
·MSN
·Brand X Internet
·DSL EXTREME
| Like I said earlier.... Clear has MUCH more spectrum then all the others-and has it in a continuous swath. This not only insures superior 4G then the other carriers, but it greatly simplifies the RF portion of both the base stations and phones. They also had the ability to choose their type of LTE (TDD), unlike some of the other carriers who are forced to use the inferior FDD. FDD's biggest problem is that it is symmetric (think T1 circuits), while TDD can be set to have more download speeds then upload. Fact is, most of download a LOT more then we upload and our home Internet has been asymmetric from the beginning of the Internet. Unless you are uploading hi def video in real time, who needs upload speeds speeds over 5 mbps anyway? I'd much rather have most of the RF used for downloads-which insures high speeds even when in congested areas. | |
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