Sidecut Reports

Want to try Clearwire’s WiMAX wireless broadband service while you’re in Vegas for CTIA? Move now and reserve yourself a modem or modem-and-pocketspot combo from local provider Cheetah, which is teaming up with Clearwire to offer WiMAX rentals for as little as $13.99 a day, or $34 for 3 days, a program that lots of folks took advantage of during CES.

So instead of paying exorbitant hotel fees for slow, shared DSL or clogged Wi-Fi — or taking a crapshoot on what will likely be mega-crowded 3G airwaves — you can instead have a mobile connection of between 3 to 6 Mbps on the download side, pretty much anywhere in Las Vegas.

In addition to renting both USB modems (for laptops and netbooks) and desktop modems, Cheetah will also be renting a combo of a modem and Clearwire’s Clear Spot portable WiMAX/Wi-Fi router, which will let you connect a small workgroup of Wi-Fi devices.

Single-day prices, according to the Cheetah site, are $12.50 a day for a USB WiMAX modem, $18.99 a day for a desktop modem, and $18.99 for a modem/portable router combo. Costs per day go down with multiple days, with a 4-day basic modem total hitting $44.59, about $11.15 a day for fast broadband access.

Two afternoon panels Tuesday at the 4GWE conference here in Los Angeles made it clear that software developers, and not carriers, will drive innovation when it comes to 4G wireless applications of the future. The big, unanswered question is if, how and when two very different camps — developers and service providers — will work together in a fashion profitable for both camps.

There was more than a little animosity on display during the panel talks, and perhaps it was a good idea to keep developers on one panel, and service provders (and their large-equipment vendor partners) on another. Francisco Kattan, who is newly signed on at Alcatel-Lucent as senior director of the company’s developer ecosystem, said that while in the past developers “had to beg” to get on any provider’s mobile application “deck,” with the iPhone and its revolutionary App Store, “the tables have now turned and competition for developers is at an all-time high.”

But while device manufacturers (Nokia, RIM) and large service providers (Verizon) are trying to catch up to Apple by establishing developer programs and appliction stores, developers aren’t so sure that the old guard are the best leaders for the 4G app development future. “Maybe operators shouldn’t be running an apps store,” said Shai Berger, CEO of Fonolo, which builds applications that allow users to bypass automated dialing systems. “It’s not really in their core competency.”

Operators and their providers, however, seemed more willing than ever to work with software developers, including talking about plans to open APIs into network knowledge (billing, presence, location) that developers might use to build even more useful 4G applications. But Kittur Nagesh, Cisco’s director for service provider marketing, said that developers have to remember that partnerships can be much more successful than attempts to build products that only work over the top of provider services.

“Operators are not used to thinking that application developers can be part of a new revenue stream,” Nagesh said. Developers and providers, he said, “should jointly develop over the top services and share the revenues.”

Like Esme, I think next week’s eComm show in Burlingame will be one of the more interesting communications-related events of the year. Unlike the so-called “big vendor” shows eComm to me means an intelligent discussion and review of all aspects of communications, from people who aren’t uncomfortable shedding labels and “old ways” of doing things.

In addition to hearing from and catching up with some friends of mine in the communications space, a list that includes Martin “Telepocalypse” Geddes and Stuart Henshall, among others, it’s a chance to hear smart folks like Doc Searls give their take on where communications needs to go. I am also looking forward to (finally!) meeting and hearing Sascha Meinrath, who has done all kinds of interesting things and is therefore someone to listen to when it comes to the future of wireless.

Looking over the schedule some more I see presentations on tap from Google’s Rick Whitt, Digium’s Mark Spencer and the EFF’s Brad Templeton. That’s a handful of disruptors right there. And Sidecut Reports readers get a 20 percent discount either by clicking right here to register, or by entering “SideCutReports09″ in the coupon field when registering. So you can’t lose.

Take it from Lee Dryburgh, host of the event, on why it is important to attend:

It’s clear that the mammoth sized telecom industry - including cellular - is in the process of being re-written. As such you either stand on the side to be written into the past or instead join with the growing community to write the future. Opportunities have never been so great to profit from the radical restructuring or in accelerating how humanity connects, communicates and collaborates.