Sidecut Reports

Here we go again with another completely unscientific, off-the-cuff, single-moment test of Clearwire’s WiMAX wireless broadband service against free Wi-Fi services from AT&T and Starbucks, this time in Las Vegas where Clearwire has been operating WiMAX commercially for more than a year. If you didn’t see our first test of WiMAX vs. Wi-Fi you missed a lot of spirited conversation (most of it over at MuniWireless, where some of our content gets re-posted through an agreement between Sidecut and MW), most of which I thought (and still do) missed the point by trying to convince me that the test wasn’t a fair match of technologies, the results inconclusive, etc., etc.

While I agree that the tests are unscientific — I even said so, like I am doing again here — that doesn’t mean I think they are useless. Instead I look at them as not just isolated events but instead as the seeds of what I hope will be a groundswell of regular folks testing the services they pay for or use for free, to provide as many data points as possible for all of us to make better, more informed broadband purchasing decisions. Sure, it’d be way better to test every Starbucks in existence or every place where you might want to use WiMAX from Clearwire. But I am only one guy with a beat-up old laptop. You gotta start somewhere, and for this post somewhere is just west of the Vegas Strip, at a Starbucks on Flamingo right next to the Palms casino/hotel complex.



That big white building behind the Starbucks is the Palms Place hotel, the new Sidecut Preferred place to stay while in Sin City, for its non-casino lobby, its mini-kitchen suites and close/easy/free parking. And just past the Loose Caboose local casino in the Arville Plaza is this strip-mall Starbucks, where unlike casino-based outlets you can actually get a cup of joe in the morning without waiting in hundreds-long lines. This is a slice of the real world, a fairly normal Starbucks like anywhere else in the USA, with lots of folks camping out on the free Wi-Fi. So how did that AT&T wireless link perform, even though all the tables were crammed with online customers during my entire half-hour visit? Pretty stable, at around 1.35 Mbps on the download.

LAS VEGAS ARVILLE PLAZA AT&T/STARBUCKS WI-FI TEST

In my (completely unscientific!) tests so far it seems like ~1.5 Mbps is about the best or worst you can expect from a Starbucks/AT&T connection, which in my mind is pretty darn good — if you can rely on those speeds everywhere you go, the FREE FREE FREE (did I mention it was FREE?) Starbucks/AT&T service may be all you ever need, along with one tall drip coffee ($1.50 to $1.85) that you can nurse ever so slooooooowly. You might also try one of the old-fashioned donuts. We did. So how did the WiMAX service perform in the same locale?

LAS VEGAS ARVILLE PLAZA CLEARWIRE WIMAX USB TEST



The Clearwire service, which costs $55 for 3G/4G hybrid service (like I get on my USB modem loaned to me by Clearwire) or $40 for just WiMAX, was essentially twice as fast as the “free” Wi-Fi on the download, and a bit slower on the upload. If you drill down for a close-up of this area on the Clearwire coverage maps you see it designated as a lighter green or not “the best” area for coverage, perhaps due to the proximity of the Palms complex (correct me if I’m wrong but it is my general understanding that big, metallic buildings can wreak RF havoc). Either way, WiMAX still “doubles down” on Wi-Fi in this single-epsiode test on one machine at roughly a little past noon. It’s not a big-stick whooping like our first test in Mountain View but still a pretty good real-world result, especially indoors.

What about my other 4G toy, the Clear Spot 4G+ portable modem? This device has a 4G antenna to connect to WiMAX on the back end and then broadcasts a local Wi-Fi signal that you can share between up to 5 devices. I was just using my laptop to make a Wi-Fi connection to the Clear Spot 4G+, which then linked to the Clearwire network. The result:

LAS VEGAS ARVILLE PLAZA CLEARWIRE WIMAX 4G+ CLEAR SPOT TEST



To sum up and perhaps address complaints before they happen, here’s what the test was NOT: It was not an rigorously engineered bakeoff of wireless technologies in a lab; it was not an attempt to say “WiMAX is better than Wi-Fi;” it was not an attempt to find the best wireless value or the best place to connect in Las Vegas in one roll of the online dice. Instead — it’s just a single glimpse at the data we were able to collect, on our own dime and time (along with the free/loaner services provided by Clearwire). The conclusion? Commercial WiMAX seems to be delivering pretty much as advertised, supporting download speeds that can easily double the Wi-Fi signal found inside a Starbucks. Use the results as you wish, but remember since we are a California concern: No wagering.

We’ve long been fans of Clearwire’s extraordinary honesty in its network coverage maps — and it appears the nascent national provider of WiMAX wireless broadband services has taken another step recently, adding radio tower locations to its coverage maps.

While the new feature (which only seems to show up if you zoom way in on the maps, to street levels) may seem uber-geeky to some, for potential consumers it’s a rare bit of honesty from a wireless carrier, giving customers yet more data from which they can make an honest, informed purchasing decision.


Clearwire Las Vegas coverage map with actual tower locations

We first noticed the new (UPDATE: Clearwire says it has been live since Aug. 31) feature last week while scrolling around the Las Vegas coverage map in order to corroborate some network field tests we conducted last week (more on that in a later post). In one area of town we were surprised to get a low (under 2 Mbps) download test of the Clearwire network but with the new “see the towers” data we were able to determine that the place we were testing from (a Starbucks store in a brand-new ghost-town corner strip mall on Vegas’s west side) was actually almost perfectly located as far away as possible from the Clearwire towers in that part of town.


(Clearwire coverage map close-up of west Las Vegas; we were measuring data at a Starbucks at the corner of Jones and Badura, near the left of this map, which was far away from the closest tower, to the far right.)

No idea if Verizon and AT&T will follow suit when they launch 4G services, but judging from the companies’ current “coverage maps” for 3G, there won’t be any street-level detail like Clearwire’s network clouds and now, actual tower locations. In the past, we’ve heard carriers say that publishing such information would put them at a competitive disadvantage — which is really a bunch of hooey because in cities like Vegas you can basically drive around and see all the towers anyway, plus most companies are all co-located on the same sites so they and their competitors already know where all the antennas are.

What Clearwire is saying — to potential customers — is that it’s willing to give up some important information before any sale is made. Is that a trust that should be rewarded? With nothing really to lose and everything to gain, it’s a good gamble for Clearwire and another win for the wireless consumer.

While it’s certainly fun to focus on the where, when and how much details for Verizon’s forthcoming Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in Las Vegas this week it was clear that Big Red is already taking a long-term view of its pending 4G network, putting in place the monetary, business and technical-assistance pieces to help build LTE devices that go way far beyond smartphones or USB modems.

The big question for Verizon’s internal device-developer help center — an entity called the LTE Innovation Center, which has its own physical office space just outside Boston — is whether or not Verizon can effectively team with device entrepreneurs to build cutting-edge electronics that are not only revolutionary, but also business successes as well. After sitting through several LTE-related presentations (where Verizon didn’t reveal anything it already hasn’t said) we sat down with Verizon’s Brian Higgins, general manager of the LTE Innovation Center, for some deeper-dive details.

Basically, here’s how the LTE Innovation Center will work: Companies or entrepreneurs who have networked-product ideas can pitch their plan to Verizon, which will use internal business-case and technical advisory teams to gague the probable success, much like venture capital partners screening funding applicants. Selected companies will then be invited inside the center where there is lab space for testing and development, with Verizon networking engineers on hand to provide assistance and guidance. By next summer, Higgins said Verizon hopes to have several applicants ready to “showcase” at the Innovation Center as well as at industry trade shows.

Unlike a VC fund, however, Verizon won’t require companies who join the program to pay or give up any equity for the development assistance. This is not an insignificant benefit, since VCs or investors almost always want a big piece of the startup pie, if and when you can get them to invest. Device and hardware startups are currently among the least attractive for private investment, due to the large upfront cash outlay needed for prototyping and development, and the long lag time between idea inception and an equity event, typically several years or longer for those whose devices actually make it to the marketplace. What Verizon wants to do, Higgins said, is help defray some of those expenses and winnow out the ideas with the best chance of success — without requiring the entrepreneurs to give away big chunks of their company in return.

“Whatever intellectual property you bring in the door is yours to keep,” Higgins said. What kinds of projects is Verizon looking for? If your plan is just another tweak on a smartphone or pad device, best look elsewhere. What Verizon wants — and needs, if the company is going to get to its stated goal of “500 percent” device penetration (meaning that most people will have at least five devices that connect to a network, instead of just one phone or laptop) — is a slew of devices that probably haven’t even made it off the PowerPoint. “Viable, meaningful and non-traditional” is how Higgins described the ideal applicant idea.

Though LTE-future powerpoints and dream-scenario videos often guess at future devices like in-car infotainment systems, or pad devices that synchronize seamlessly with tabletop computers, in reality the network devices of the future are more likely to be highly specialized and single-purpose, adding networking to something that didn’t have it before (like cameras). To help such devices succeed, Verizon already seems to know that it will have to have multiple, flexible network-access pricing plans — “you’re not going to pay $60 per month to connect your refrigerator to the Internet,” Higgins noted.

Due for launch later this year, Verizon’s LTE network will begin with the most boring of network connectivity devices, a USB modem. LTE phones and maybe tablet devices are slated for unspecified delivery in the latter parts of 2011 — “The sexy things will come out later next year,” said Lindsay Notwell, Verizon’s executive director of 4G implementation. And on beyond that, if Higgins and others do their job, more and more sexy and maybe non-sexy things that connect us to the network in ways not currently thought of.