The recent announcement by Sprint and Clearwire of their joint collaboration to build out their combined spectrum assets with a WiMAX network seems to have not caught on with very much buzz it seems. I am more optimistic than some about this. Certainly, there have been criticisms of Sprint of late, which has taken hits for the loss of customers and other setbacks in its bid to digest the Nextel merger.

However, in speaking to Sprint just yesterday I got the sense that the company has excitement about what this collaboration can do for them. They pointed out that WiMAX will offer a lot of opportunities for new revenue streams that did not exist before combined with significant cost savings over 3G deployments.

The details are that the two companies will trade some spectrum, pick out areas to deploy in and begin deployments independently, while offering customers a cross-roaming functionality AND develop a combined CDMA/WiMAX service that really manages the downside in case WiMAX doesn't pan out. The two companies plan to jointly cover 100 million customers by the end of next year, which is about what Sprint initially planned to deploy alone. So some detractors may pick at this because of that. For my part, I think there are more net positives for the industry and consumers that this is a minor issue. Deploying to anything close 100 million consumers is a gargantuan task. If involving Clearwire can get that done faster all the better. Ultimately Sprint intends to deploy to about 185 million consumers and Clearwire will pass about 115 million. Neither goal will be simple to accomplish.

I feel this will quiet restive investors on both sides for the companies and maybe allay fears of the expense of deploying a network of this scale. The cost factor seems to have a lot of both pundits and detractors who feel it will cost more. But I can't help but wonder if some analysts are looking at more traditional 3G cost models when parsing the information they are getting. In any event, I think this will answer a lot of Wall Street questions. I also think it will measurably speed the deployment of both networks especially as we move into 2008.

All well and good, but what does it mean for the industry? I see several positives. Getting deployments started will be a watershed (certainly Clearwire already is heavily engaged in this). But having Sprint actually begin deployments will be a bellwether moment. It ups the visibility for everybody. Also, I suspect that more institutional money, and investment money in general, will be drawn into the BWA marketplace as a whole. This type of rising tide could lift all boats. And make no mistake there is still tremendous opportunity for smaller carriers to make a mark in this space. To learn more about this and who some of those carriers are, stay tuned for my WiMAX report in September where we will reveal what we have found.

Ultimately, I view this collaboration as a positive step for the industry as a whole.

tim@thefinalmile.net   www.thefinalmile.net   www.wimaxglobalnews.com

     You may be wondering why I am harping so on this search technology. It doesn't have that much daily direct impact on broadband wireless for me. But search to me is what has driven the web for a long time. Google has been the only real rock star (in my mind) to survive the dotcom fallout. I read in Friday's Wall Street Journay where eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo are collaborating because they fear Google might cannibalize their business. So really innovative new search technology is a big deal I think. It could impact wireless, especially cellular in a big way. People have no patience, if they could get useful info in one click on a phone, suddenly the Internet makes sense in that application. This is a huge deal for WiMax, especially mobile WiMax. So let me catch you up. You will recall I have blogged on a company called Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. a couple of times already. Well, there are a lot of people at MIT who have been working on wireless technologies of all sorts. And this one I found is just one of them. Well, here is another along the same lines. It appears that Nokia is partnering with MIT on this new type of search in a big, big way. Are they possibly the firm who bought 5th Dimension? I don't know. As a public company it and Google would have to disclose a purchase I would assume. I didn't see anything on either. Maybe a purchase through a subsidiary would be harder to find? Not my specialty and I don't have that much free time. I did "Google" (and what is the irony of that huh?) some of the other papers cited in Fuller's Thesis and that is some interesting stuff. One paper by Wesley Chan is based on GIS locates of APs (as I understand it from a quick browse). I am not certain if this is his personal website or not. But it does reference him writing one of the most downloaded client applications ever (his words). Can you say the Google Toolbar? I have one at the top of my screen. So is all of this coincidence? Maybe. Heck, even probably. The MIT genius community can't be that big after all. Most likely Fuller drew on Chan's research as others have since probably drawn on theirs. The Nokia project may have no relationship to either and then again it might be influenced by it. What do I know conclusively from all this? Not a whole lot. Just supposition. A Thesis is public domain. Patents however mean a bit more. I am getting the sense that we might be on the cusp of some really radical new technologies that will draw on wireless very heavily to really affect change in our lives. One was the tunable RF chip that a 5th Dimension advisor's company is working on. Others are these search technologies. I've been reading Fuller's thesis a bit more and I think I have a grasp of what it is a bit better. It seems the first main goal is to reduce clicks to consistently under 3. That sounds about right to me for a portable handheld device holder. Much more and they give up or find a phone book to look for ads. I recently saw where one search engine (Yahoo I think) offers actual video driving directions from one site to another. Cool, cool stuff. That all REQUIRES broadband to work well. And especially wireless broadband. I think this will really impact WiMax a lot. If I hear more I will let you know. Maybe the company will call me back or drop me a note. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    If you will recall Monday I blogged about this stealth (sort of anyway) search company called Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. Well the company's site says it was sold anonymously (one supposes privately). If you will recall too I thought the technology was really innovative. First, it is optimized for wireless networks—a big plus. Also, it kind of operates like Google in reverse: instead of the end user looking for information, the information acts to find the end-user. Cool stuff. I think it could revolutionize the Broadband Wireless business especially on the advertising side. And more importantly the handset side for WiMax and Cellular providers. I mean people haven't used the Internet a whole lot with handsets because it is slow and takes a lot of time to get anything. Plus search takes a bunch of clicks usually. So this stuff seems an attempt to take a form of AI and get a useful answer in one click based on where you are at what time. Well, all very interesting.    In the company overview one of the advisors is with Wilson Sonsini, which is the big Silicon Valley law firm that took Apple and Google public. Okaaaayyyyy. Most of the rest are pretty prominent people too. Another advisor, a Carnegie Mellon Professor Anind Dey, previously worked for Intel. Dr. James White of CalTech founded a company called Active Spectrum that is developing an RF chip that can apparently tune as needed to most any radio spectrum. All very interesting stuff. So did Google buy this company? Or was it someone else trying to keep the technology quiet? I have no idea. But I read something today that makes that question even murkier. I will blog on that later in the week. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I am always looking for something new that is useful for Broadband Wireless. And mapping technology is a huge part of the business. Well, I stumbled on something fascinating. It is a new type of location specific search technology at its most basic. But that is just part of it. I had seen a blurb about a big WiFi project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that talked about location based mapping of APs. I thought that was kinda neat. Well, this led me to a Thesis that a researcher there (by the name of Napier Fuller) wrote. You have to pay to download the thesis so I started searching for him. It appears he has started a company. Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking is a pretty bare bones site. The Silicon Valley company does not go out of its way to tell you all that much about itself. Fuller is listed as the Founder and President. It has filed at least one patent and that and the Thesis paper is linked on its site.  The website also says it was sold this year to an anonymous buyer. I only got voice mail when I called. Well, now I am starting to wonder why all the secrecy about who bought them out.  Well, I love a mystery. And they were making it just hard enough for me to intrigue me, so I looked up the patent application. Now that turned out to be pretty easy. And guess what? Both the patent and paper are in the filing there. The paper is under the Documents tab. Turns out that this patent heavily references this research Thesis, which is based on something called Context Aware Search. Folks this is no less than an application of Artificial Intelligence to location (and I mean Access Point) specific searching. I won't try to describe it all in this blog. But it impressed the dickens out of me. Basically its a search engine that's designed from the ground up for wireless networks. Imagine a search engine that understands what hotspot you are at and can filter every search query you make based on that. BUT which also takes into account the time of day and day of the week you are searching as well as parsing commonsense knowledge people in the area should have. Driving directions are not take street so and so. They are instead go West two blocks from the Big Dome, turn right and look for Tang Hall. If you type in "shows tonight" it might give you times of nearby shows that are not sold out (if such info is available) and that you have time to get to from your location (at least supposedly). Now if this is not just smoke and mirrors (and the company is going a bit out of its way to not claim anything from what I can tell) this is a radical search innovation. I am going to dig a bit more into this and post more later. I don't know how far along this is or even if it is even close to a product phase, but… I am especially curious who bought them and why it is being kept so quiet. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com