Sidecut Reports

By now, the omnipresent television commercials have drummed Verizon’s 3G message into all our heads: big red map good, splotchy blue map bad. But nascent national WiMAX provider Clearwire has taken the “maps” battle to a whole new level, in a way that potential wireless users might find more useful than anything offered by Verizon or AT&T: How about coverage maps that use real network data to show actual expected performance on a block-by-block level?

The new maps are live on the Clear.com website, and they marry Clearwire engineering network-performance graphs on top of a Google Map, giving you a much more detailed and granular look at Clearwire’s WiMAX deployments in each of its live markets, warts and all. Unlike the big telcos, whose “coverage” maps are somewhat akin to abstract works of art, Clearwire’s new coverage maps show not just well-covered areas but also spots where Clearwire doesn’t yet have towers in place. Honesty from a service provider? Hey Verizon, you got a map like that?

While Clearwire has nowhere near the national buildout of the 3G networks from the big providers, its willingness to expose where exactly is has coverage and where it doesn’t could go a long way toward winning the trust of potential customers who have been historically conditioned to get exactly zero help on predicting wireless coverage strength. “We’re striving to provide more clarity to customers so they know what to expect with our coverage,” said Susan Johnston, Clearwire’s vice president for communications, in an email reply to our question about the maps.

Because you can use the normal Google Maps function to drill way down to street level, it’s easy to see (especially on the outside fringes of Clearwire coverage areas) the telltale three-clover “bloom” of an isolated cell site, leading to a new Google Map game of “find the Clearwire tower.” It didn’t take more than a couple minutes for us to go from Clearwire map to Google Street view to find this lonely Clearwire tower in the far-north (albeit quite tony) Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Ill.

(Clearwire map showing single-tower “bloom” of coverage using three channels)

(Google Map street view of Lake Forest, Ill., with Clearwire tower in the middle)

AT&T and Verizon, meanwhile, do let you drill down with interactive maps, but all you get when you do so is a deeper shade of the color used to convey “coverage” — and in AT&T’s case, its wondrous all-blue status for 3G service in downtown San Francisco might draw some different opinions from folks who suffer trying to use their iPhones there. Verizon’s map of Lake Forest is offered as a comparison to Clearwire’s — which would you, as a potential wireless broadband user, find more helpful?

(AT&T 3G coverage map for San Francisco… insert iPhone dropped-call joke here)

(Verizon 3G coverage map for Lake Forest, Ill… included to compare and contrast with Clearwire’s)

If you follow telecom politics at all, you know that coverage maps are a big deal of late, with greater transparency being a key part of the proposed national broadband plan. Instead of waiting for Congress to require such transparency (which may take awhile given various senatorial agendas), we’ve been waiting to see whether or not some of the service provider upstarts, like Clearwire, would use such clarity as a marketing tool since it stands in such rich contrast to the insulting “trust us” maps that passed for coverage guides from traditional providers. Looks like that is starting to happen, which is only good news for broadband consumers. Let the real map games begin!

Been jonesing for a Sidecut fix, loyal readers? We promise a few more posts this week as we all ramp up our expectations and predictions for Clearwire’s Q1 earnings call next week. In the meantime, some Sidecut Reports “road game” appearances might interest you: Our first post over with the good folks at PC World, giving some 4G love with a basic whassup-with-4G-missive; and then our regular opinion showpiece over at Light Reading Mobile, where this week we look a little closer at interconnected devices, something we may hear more about from Clearwire on May 4.

Our thanks to the fine editors at both publications, for giving us an editorial soapbox away from the friendly blue confines of this site. Like we said, more this week (including a new report that we are busy putting the finishing touches on). So stay tuned for more WiMAX, LTE and 4G goodness!

Verizon chief technical officer Dick Lynch is an excited guy, and why not: Thursday he helped announce the groundbreaking for a new Long Term Evolution (LTE) Innovation center in the Boston area, while also confirming that the company is still on track to launch LTE services in 25 to 30 markets, sometime in the last three months of 2010.

In a quick phone conversation from the innovation center launch festivities in Waltham, Mass., Lynch said that Verizon’s LTE testing in Boston and Seattle is now complete, and that the company will test systems with friendly users (usually company employees and other partners) during the third quarter of 2010. “In the fourth quarter, we’ll be turning on [commercial] markets as planned,” Lynch said, confirming that the stated goal of 25 to 30 markets covering a population of 100 million people is still the target Verizon intends to hit. To our knowledge, this is the first time Verizon has publicly stated exactly when LTE services might be available.

The innovation center, a 60,000-square foot three-story planned addition to Verizon’s existing facilities in Waltham, will help Verizon help potential LTE startups, Lynch said, by allowing them to learn and collaborate with Verizon’s telecom engineers and software experts.

“When you look at the capabilities of LTE, there are a lot of non-traditional applications and devices that might want to be part of the network,” Lynch said. The innovation center, he said, could “be a catalyst to help people who have never been in the [wireless] business.”

The innovation center (artist rendering below) is expected to be completed in 2011, according to Verizon. For interested application and device developers, it might be a good place to go to learn some tips and tricks about wireless networking, like how to write your application so it doesn’t completely drain the wireless network, a problem that AT&T had with some Apple iPhone uses.

(Artist image of planned LTE Innovation Center; credit: Verizon Wireless)