Friday, May 18, 2007

Clearwire at Morgan Stanley 12th Annual Communications Conference

Notes on Clearwire's discussion at the conference.

Obviously, I am very keen to learn more details about the following. If anybody has more information on these, please let me know.

1. Intel, Motorola & Clearwire have a joint Mobile WiMAX trial in the Portland, Oregon area
2. Clearwire will soon release results of their WiMAX trials
3. Sales Channels: Direct sales reps, Clearwire stores, BestBuy partnership, website.
3-6 months to get the channels going in a new market. Direct at first and then lower cost indirect channels.
4. Competitive Advantage in 5 years: Quality of service, low latency, quality equivalent to wireline broadband, advertised data rates today versus actual rates. Better experience in the local market. Cost structure is fundamentally different, $/bit is better. Spectrum limitations will limit competitors.
5. AOL agreement: previously in 4 early markets, now that ease of use with AOL & Clearwire being expanded to all Clearwire markets (US & International). AOL is now a distribution channel.
6. Chipset in laptops will not be unique to Clearwire, open to all WiMAX carriers => roaming. How will CLWR work with laptop makers (in terms of software) to enable ease of usage.
7. Intel will make WiFi-WiMAX chipset available by middle of 2008. CLWR will have a co-branded service/mktg with Intel. Some (undisclosed) volume agreements/commitments by Intel.
8. Not clear data, yet, on how many are using CLWR as substitute or complement to existing broadband services like DSL & cable.
9. CLWR being used often as a portable service, for some kind of business service.
10. Debt & equity both expected to be needed.
11. Mobile WiMAX developments: 2.5GHz in US (also Canada & Mexico), 3.5GHz in Europe. CLWR has licenses in both of these in the respective markets. Motorola eqiupment is available for both, not in roaming mode yet.
12. CLWR & Sprint both commited to stds based networks, no roaming agreement yet.
13. Must optimize VoIP on their network. Use additional hardware for this, right now in 13 mkts, in all domestic efforts by end of 2007. See 25% of customer base adopting this. ARPU of $30.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

HDoA - HD TV over Air

The mainstream media learns about HDTV over air. There's an article on CNN.com about use of antenna's to get local HD content. In the Los Angeles area I get the following HD (720p/1080i) channels:
- 2 PBS channels
- ABC
- NBC
- FOX
- KTLA
- Tube (Music videos channel)

In addition each of these have 1-2 SD channels that have local/weather information broadcast in digital. And they all have digital program/schedule guides.

The CEA website http://www.antennaweb.org/ and forums on HDTV's were critical for me in deciding to use HDoA. Hopefully, this post helps others decide what to do. The critical thing is ofcourse distance from the antenna station and a good antenna.