Monday, October 25, 2004
Pretty soon your going to be able to get Internet like FM radio.
Intel invests in McCaw's Clearwire: "Intel invests in McCaw's Clearwire
Telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw is getting a financial boost from Intel. (As if a billionaire needed any more money)
The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant yesterday said it was investing an undisclosed amount in Clearwire, the Kirkland wireless Internet startup that McCaw introduced earlier this year.
The deal, which was announced yesterday morning at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment conference in San Francisco, calls for Clearwire to roll out powerful new networks that use the 802.16e WiMax standard. Those networks could create a broadband cloud that covers an entire city or county, allowing users to make Internet-based phone calls or conduct e-commerce anywhere they wander within a geographic area. Unlike Wi-Fi, which covers an area of a few hundred feet, WiMax networks are said to extend over several square miles.
Clearwire uses a similar technology in Jacksonville, Fla., where the company this summer launched a high-speed network that covers a 100-square-mile area. Clearwire will deliver service to Abilene, Texas, and St. Cloud, Minn., next month, with the company planning to enter 20 additional markets in the United States in the next year. It is also building wireless networks in Mexico and Canada.
As WiMax evolves, Clearwire and its subsidiary, NextNet Wireless, will work with Intel to deploy the networks both nationally and internationally, McCaw said.
'We have been talking for nine months and trying to mold thinking on WiMax to make sure it doesn't fall into the pitfalls that we have seen in precursor's technologies, both in the cellular world and other parts of the world,' said McCaw, who sold McCaw Cellular to AT&T Corp. for $11.5 billion in 1994. '... There is a transition that will occur when WiMax is available and we have worked very carefully with Intel in that thought process to say how can this work and how can it transition."
Analysts who cover the mobile communications sector called the partnership between Clearwire and Intel a significant development that could help jump-start the WiMax technology.
"It was one of the more important deals at this conference," said Gerry Purdy, who attended yesterday's news conference. "This was the surprise announcement of the event."
Purdy, an analyst with MobileTrax, said Intel is trying to build the market for WiMax much in the same way it did with Wi-Fi. He expects Intel to make new investments in WiMax technology companies in the coming months, though the alliance between McCaw and Intel is an especially important one.
"You don't make an investment in Craig McCaw as a side deal -- it's something that is meant to have major long-term implications," he said.
Shiv Bakhshi, director of wireless infrastructure at IDC, called the deal "significant."
"Intel is a very, very big name and Craig McCaw is a big name, so when the two get together, people should pay attention, don't you think?" Bakhshi said.
What makes the partnership interesting to Bakhshi is that Intel is attempting "to create the conditions for the success of the technology that it is backing."
Intel is not the first to invest in Clearwire. In August, the company received $160 million from a group of 23 undisclosed investors.
McCaw, who serves as chairman and CEO of Clearwire, has some experience when it comes to rolling out high-speed wireless networks. At McCaw Cellular, he bankrolled the multimillion-dollar fixed wireless network known as "Project Angel." That technology did not prove to be a commercial success, with the assets being sold by AT&T Wireless for about $40 million in 2002.
"We are, of course, tempered by the fact that everybody who has done it has failed, including AT&T when they took on our technology," said McCaw. "But we are crossing the river on the backs of the pioneers."
Sean Maloney, general manager of the Intel Communications Group, said wireless networks have been around for two decades. But he said proprietary technologies are disappearing, with the industry rallying around WiMax.
"One of the (reasons) that we are delighted about working with (Clearwire) is to ... learn from some of the things that have gone wrong in the past or some of the things that weren't as optimal as in the past," he said.
Telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw is getting a financial boost from Intel. (As if a billionaire needed any more money)
The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant yesterday said it was investing an undisclosed amount in Clearwire, the Kirkland wireless Internet startup that McCaw introduced earlier this year.
The deal, which was announced yesterday morning at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment conference in San Francisco, calls for Clearwire to roll out powerful new networks that use the 802.16e WiMax standard. Those networks could create a broadband cloud that covers an entire city or county, allowing users to make Internet-based phone calls or conduct e-commerce anywhere they wander within a geographic area. Unlike Wi-Fi, which covers an area of a few hundred feet, WiMax networks are said to extend over several square miles.
Clearwire uses a similar technology in Jacksonville, Fla., where the company this summer launched a high-speed network that covers a 100-square-mile area. Clearwire will deliver service to Abilene, Texas, and St. Cloud, Minn., next month, with the company planning to enter 20 additional markets in the United States in the next year. It is also building wireless networks in Mexico and Canada.
As WiMax evolves, Clearwire and its subsidiary, NextNet Wireless, will work with Intel to deploy the networks both nationally and internationally, McCaw said.
'We have been talking for nine months and trying to mold thinking on WiMax to make sure it doesn't fall into the pitfalls that we have seen in precursor's technologies, both in the cellular world and other parts of the world,' said McCaw, who sold McCaw Cellular to AT&T Corp. for $11.5 billion in 1994. '... There is a transition that will occur when WiMax is available and we have worked very carefully with Intel in that thought process to say how can this work and how can it transition."
Analysts who cover the mobile communications sector called the partnership between Clearwire and Intel a significant development that could help jump-start the WiMax technology.
"It was one of the more important deals at this conference," said Gerry Purdy, who attended yesterday's news conference. "This was the surprise announcement of the event."
Purdy, an analyst with MobileTrax, said Intel is trying to build the market for WiMax much in the same way it did with Wi-Fi. He expects Intel to make new investments in WiMax technology companies in the coming months, though the alliance between McCaw and Intel is an especially important one.
"You don't make an investment in Craig McCaw as a side deal -- it's something that is meant to have major long-term implications," he said.
Shiv Bakhshi, director of wireless infrastructure at IDC, called the deal "significant."
"Intel is a very, very big name and Craig McCaw is a big name, so when the two get together, people should pay attention, don't you think?" Bakhshi said.
What makes the partnership interesting to Bakhshi is that Intel is attempting "to create the conditions for the success of the technology that it is backing."
Intel is not the first to invest in Clearwire. In August, the company received $160 million from a group of 23 undisclosed investors.
McCaw, who serves as chairman and CEO of Clearwire, has some experience when it comes to rolling out high-speed wireless networks. At McCaw Cellular, he bankrolled the multimillion-dollar fixed wireless network known as "Project Angel." That technology did not prove to be a commercial success, with the assets being sold by AT&T Wireless for about $40 million in 2002.
"We are, of course, tempered by the fact that everybody who has done it has failed, including AT&T when they took on our technology," said McCaw. "But we are crossing the river on the backs of the pioneers."
Sean Maloney, general manager of the Intel Communications Group, said wireless networks have been around for two decades. But he said proprietary technologies are disappearing, with the industry rallying around WiMax.
"One of the (reasons) that we are delighted about working with (Clearwire) is to ... learn from some of the things that have gone wrong in the past or some of the things that weren't as optimal as in the past," he said.
