Clearwire Expands WiMAX Coverage, Speed

Clearwire announced yesterday that it will expand its Clear WiMAX service to seven additional cities in 2010: Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

By the end of this year, the company also will be rolling out its service to the previously announced cities of New York, Houston, Boston, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. Clearwire’s Clear WiMAX service already is available in 27 markets across the United States. The company plans to cover up to 120 million people by the end of 2010.

In addition to expanding its footprint, the company outlined a series of advancements in network architecture that it says will increase capacity, enhance data speeds, and help reduce the environmental impact of the company’s growing wireless data network.

Clearwire plans to expand its cell site capacities by doubling the number of transmitters and receivers per site, thereby boosting potential end user speeds by approximately 20-30%. Upgrades will be made on a rolling basis across Clearwire’s 4G network and have already been completed in some of the company’s existing markets, including Seattle, Honolulu and Maui.

Clearwire is enhancing its microwave backhaul network for an expected 250% increase in total backhaul capacity. Backhaul, of course, is key to supporting the rapid growth in mobile data traffic. Clearwire also announced that it has begun trials in Chicago of “green,” high-efficiency base station cabinets, capable of achieving up to 90% reduction in electrical operating expenses. Following completion of the trials, the new base station designs are expected to be introduced throughout the network.

On the device front, Clearwire said that starting April 1 the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with embedded 4G technology will be available at Clear retail locations and online for $249.99 (after rebate). Clearwire also highlighted that its battery-powered Clear Spot portable WiMAX WiFi hotspot will let users run Apple’s upcoming iPad on Clearwire’s 4G network. Clear Spot, which sells for $139.99, actually can operate with any off-the-shelf Wi-Fi device, not just the iPad, but when coupled with the Clear USB modem, it will create a WiFi hotspot for up to eight users in a Clearwire service area.

Related posts:

1. Clearwire Launches Pay-as-you-go WiMAX Service
2. Clearwire to Launch WiMAX in 10 Markets September 1
3. Clearwire and Sprint to Launch WiMAX Service in Big Cities
4. Sprint Nextel and Clearwire Partner on WiMAX Network
5. Clearwire to Conduct LTE Trials