Sidecut Reports

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from our most recent Sidecut Report, The Mobile Data Explosion, an in-depth look at the reasons behind the recent surge in wireless data usage, and where devices, networks and service plan charges are headed in the near future. The following excerpt takes a look at the reasons behind the recent surge of data usage, and why it caught even the biggest service providers by surprise. (To download your free copy of the report, click here.)

WHY IT HAPPENED NOW

How did such a shift in data usage catch an experienced provider like AT&T so unaware? Part of the blame might be the fact that there was a sort of perfect storm hitting the mobile data arena the past few years, radical shifts that might have been manageable had they happened alone — but hard to predict or plan for when they happened all at once. The introduction of “superphones” like the iPhone, combined with faster wireless broadband speeds and new addictive applications like Facebook and Twitter gave people the ability and reason to increase data use rapidly — far beyond than what had ever been seen before.

“AT&T is managing [wireless data] volumes no one else has experienced,” CTO John Donovan told the Wall Street Journal in an interview regarding the stress caused by the iPhone.

Why did the iPhone change the wireless data game so radically? When it was first made available to the public in June of 2007, the most paradigm-shifting thing about the iPhone was its touchscreen interface, an innovation that eliminated keyboard buttons in favor of a screen that was immediately much larger and sharper than that of any previous handheld device.

While the touchscreen was in and of itself a cool toy — making its users easily identifiable as iPhone owners with their telltale finger swipes — the combination of a larger screen size and an advanced browser was the real game-changer, providing for the first time an interface that could mimic a full-page website with enough clarity to make iPhone-version applications immediately understandable.

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Our 20 Questions on 4G piece for our friends at PC World is getting a lot of exposure — just saw this version over at MSNBC. Watch for some more Sidecut “road game” specials soon!

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!

After a year of aggressive market launches across the U.S., Clearwire Corp. is becoming fairly well recognized for its pioneering use of the wireless broadband technology known as WiMAX, the “Wi-Fi on steroids” technology that allows providers like Clearwire to build “hotspots the size of a city.”

While WiMAX’s ability to provide broadband Internet access with cellular-like mobility is certainly the most recognizable attribute of Clearwire’s deployments, there is a lesser-known but just as important level of innovation taking place inside the company’s network, from the connections to the Internet’s core out through the radio towers and down to the end-user devices.

Those internal-network achievements, including Clearwire’s primary use of microwave for traffic “backhaul” and its open, Internet Protocol-based core infrastructure, are not only providing Clearwire with an instant competitive advantage, but are perhaps part of a burgeoning blueprint for next-generation service providers looking for ways to cut costs while providing bandwidth to a user base that is more demanding and more mobile with every passing day.

There’s no way to explain all the details of Clearwire’s network innovations in a simple blog post — but for the amazing cost of FREE, you can download our latest report, titled Inside Clearwire: A Network Report. Our latest deep-dive research and analysis provides a thorough explanation of the design of Clearwire’s internal networks, how different technologies affect its deployment, and how cost savings can be achieved by adhering to an open-Internet idea. Click here to download your free copy today!

What’s inside the “Inside Clearwire” report? Glad you asked. Here are some handy bullet points of what kind of info you will find inside:

– How Clearwire’s emphasis on using microwave backhaul gives it a cost-savings and flexibility of deployment edge over traditional wireline systems

– Why using an open-standards approach to infrastructure allows Clearwire to select “best of breed” suppliers and avoid monopoly lock-ins

– How Clearwire’s spectrum portfolio gives it room for future bandwidth demands while keeping tower-site expenditures to a minimum

– How Clearwire’s current network infrastructure decisions might lead to a more open environment for device and application development in the future

Click here to download your copy today!

When we reduced the price of our research reports to $4.95 earlier this year, many folks told me I was crazy — crazy to give away good, thorough research, crazy to devalue work that was possibly worth hundreds of dollars, especially to those interested in the focused areas we cover.

Well — call it an epiphany, but over the past few months I have lost count of the number of times I have seen people reading things on their iPhones, either while traveling, commuting, or just during down times of life in general. Apparently it is somewhat of a trend, even though it’s a pain to scroll through long texts and the screen isn’t very big. But — when you have some time to kill, what else are you going to do? How many levels of Peggle can you play before you feel like a fool for wasting time on a game?

Better, perhaps, to get some work done — or at the very least, catch up on some reading. That is why we here at Sidecut Reports are trying to make it easier for you to get the very latest of our deep-dive research and analysis on all things 4G, starting with our Clearwire NTK (need to know) series, quarterly reports that are just about at 3,000 words each, priced at $4.95. So — for about the price of a Venti Latte, you get an update on all things WiMAX that you can carry around in your laptop, or on your iPhone. We have a bunch of our stuff up on Amazon now, with more coming soon.

To me, it’s all about giving people as many ways as we can for them to consume our content. Ideas, suggestions for improvement, or offers of a way to make Sidecut Reports the next iPhone app — we’re all ears here!