Sidecut Reports

Too late to call the company for more info, but we did want to note that San Francisco WiMax gear vendor Soma Networks announced Friday that it had secured a new $51 million round of financing, from investors including Daiwa Securities Group, Ridgeway Capital Partners and others.

Soma, whose executives we interviewed as part of our Sidecut Report on WiMax, had told us they would be seeking additional funding to help the company fulfill its big WiMax contract with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), India’s state-owned telecommunications company. The deal with BSNL was announced earlier this year.

For WiMax followers, Soma’s a pretty interesting company — they have been around almost 10 years, starting with wireless mesh technologies before finding their way to WiMax. Privately held, Soma had previously raised around $200 million in financing, but needed a boost to start fulfilling the big BSNL deal.

So what does the investment round say about WiMax? Here’s a quick excerpt from our Sidecut Report on WiMax that quotes company exec Tom Flak:

For several players in the WiMax market, the overnight sensation is something that has been years in the making. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this market to arrive,” said Tom Flak, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of operations at WiMax gear provider Soma Networks of San Francisco. Flak said that Soma, like other WiMax infrastructure players, is bullish on the near-term future, as standards firm up and production prices go down. End-user equipment, Flak said, is now about “half the price” of pre-standard WiMax gear, which should lead to a lot of WiMax activity in 2008. “With WiMax, you can stop wondering if the technology is viable,” Flak said. “It’s really market-share grabbing time.”

Sounds like the investors in Soma’s new round are doing some market-grabbing themselves. Not a surprise to anyone who has read our report, which offered the following as one of its conclusions:

If WiMax delivers on service providers’ plans of being cheap, easy and pervasive, then there are big opportunities today for venture investors, businesses, application and device developers, as well as infrastructure and service-provider players, who still have time to get in ahead of the mass-market adoption part of the curve.

Soma’s other interesting angle is that they are the equipment provider for AT&T’s hush-hush WiMax network in Pahrump, Nev. Want to know more WiMax inside stuff? Order the report.

Even though he’s busy managing day-to-day operations for the “old” Clearwire as he also works on integration issues for the “new” Clearwire and its planned nationwide WiMax network, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff still found time to talk to Sidecut Reports for a mid-summer update this week. In this edited transcript of our phone interview, Wolff talks about what is tops on his priority list, including Clearwire’s coming launch of Mobile WiMax services in Portland, Ore., along with an ongoing process of educating Wall Street on how and why Clearwire’s new services will be different from traditional cable, broadband or wireless offerings.

Sidecut Reports: Can you give us an update on where Clearwire stands right now? Does Clearwire have any access yet to the new investment capital, and have any integration efforts started with Sprint?

Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff: We won’t get access to the new capital until the deal closes [expected in Q4 2008]. Until we’re through with the FCC and DOJ processes, we can’t coordinate activities. We can do some planning on what the company will look like after the closing.

Sidecut Reports: Where does that leave Clearwire for the rest of 2008?

Ben Wolff: We’ll continue building out the markets we were going to build out in 2008 — Portland, Ore., Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Grand Rapids, Mich. Sprint continues to do the same thing with the markets they were targeting [Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C.]. The good thing is, they are different markets. What has become clear is that we and Sprint are building in a very similar architecture, in some cases using many of the same [infrastructure] vendors. So I don’t imagine there will be much complexity in integrating [after the deal closes].

Sidecut Reports: Will your new markets use Mobile WiMax?

Ben Wolff: Yes.

Sidecut Reports: What about your plans to upgrade your existing networks to Mobile WiMax? Is anything happening there yet?

Ben Wolff: Physically, nothing is happening yet. It’s certainly in the planning stages. Once we consolidate our spectrum with Sprint’s, that will give us enough spectrum depth to do a WiMax overlay [in Clearwire’s existing markets]. So we’ll have the ability to share infrastructure and run our legacy network side by side with a Mobile WiMax network. In Seattle, for instance, we are currently using all the spectrum currently available to us. With Sprint’s spectrum, it opens up the way for Mobile WiMax.

Sidecut Reports: What are your day to day responsibilities? It seems like there might be a split between running the “old” Clearwire and getting ready for the “new” Clearwire.

Ben Wolff: We need to continue to prove out the fact that this can be a profitable business, and that it can scale out. So I do pay close attention to operations and profits. I also spend a lot of time on the integration process — thinking about what the team will look like when we’re combined, getting all the things in place. We want to move toward Mobile WiMax and introduce the new Clearwire in one fell swoop.

Sidecut Reports: What about educating Wall Street analysts? How is that process going?

Ben Wolff: Education is important, especially in this financial climate. A lot of my job is to help Wall Street understand what is different — what the services are, what the revenue model is. It doesn’t fit into a neat convention or any one description.

Sidecut Reports: Is that a tough job?

Ben Wolff: Some analysts get it, and others just can’t get their heads around it. Some of the cable industry analysts want to compare it to residential broadband, to pigeonhole it. I think it’s a somewhat jaundiced view to say that if it doesn’t offer video, it’s going to be hard-pressed to get high enough ARPU. Then there are some wireless analysts who want to see only a national [coverage] footprint, all at once.

It’s getting some [analysts] out of their comfort level. For our new network, the overall cost structure [for infrastructure] is a lot different, and so is the idea that spectrum is what makes the [WiMax] world go around. That is an awful lot for people to try to get their arms around.

Sidecut Reports: Does the popularity of the iPhone and its 3G launch help or hurt your efforts?

Ben Wolff: I think it will help significantly in the long run. When Steve Jobs got on stage and showed the 3G iPhone downloading a National Geographic web page, they made a big deal about how it only took 21 seconds. We went out on our Portland network, using a small-screen device, and downloaded the same page in four seconds. As great as the iPhone is with its wonderful user interface and applications, it’s still dragged down by the speed of the network. It’s a great precursor, because it’s clear that customers want an Internet experience in their hand. What’s next is a network that can really support it.

Sidecut Reports: What is your take on the growing publicity around LTE, the 4G choice for AT&T and Verizon?

Ben Wolff: I want to make it clear that Clearwire is not in a technology holy war. That said, WiMax is here today and it’s our choice. But if you look at it closely, only the uplink [technology] of LTE is different from WiMax — 85 percent of the DNA is the same. I think the real [question] is what spectrum you are going to use to deploy technology. LTE is mainly a frequency division duplex (FDD) technology, and if you look globally, there’s not much FDD spectrum for use. What’s really available is time division duplex (TDD), which WiMax uses. In most of our U.S. markets we have about 150 MHz of spectrum, versus the 22 MHz of spectrum Verizon got in the 700 MHz auctions.

So technology is only half the equation. You’ve got to have a pipe that’s big enough. But really, the consumer doesn’t care if it’s LTE or WiMax. They just want a good experience at a good value.

Sidecut Reports: Speaking of value, can you talk at all about what WiMax pricing might look like?

Ben Wolff: We really can’t talk about pricing yet, but I will say that we will be able to offer a better value than 3G because we can make bits move at a better cost. What we really want is to give consumers a variety of different services — you’ll have residential broadband plans at different speeds and bandwidth, you’ll have day passes, and devices with [WiMax] chips embedded — so it’s hard to talk about what pricing is or will be.

Sidecut Reports: When will Clearwire offer those services?

Ben Wolff: We’re going to go with Portland first, and learn from there. We are looking at a soft launch before the end of the year, say early fourth quarter. We’ll see how that goes and then make a decision from a “grand opening” perspective and then make decisions about the other markets.

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

It was sort of a perfect storm of WiMax information Monday, as an Intel Centrino2 briefing followed our personal interview with Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff, the latter for an update on the progress of the new Clearwire national WiMax network. While it will take a day or two for us to process all the info from our call with Ben Wolff (we are still not up to Centrino speed around here), there were some nuggets from both interactions that are worthwhile to note:

Intel’s WiMax silicon is still not available. As the company has stated before, on Monday it reiterated that its dual Wi-Fi/WiMax silicon for notebooks will not be available to notebook OEMs until sometime in the second half of 2008. While Intel PR folks did confirm that the company’s promised reference design of a WiMax PC Card is now available to device manufacturers, the board-level silicon gap means that there won’t be WiMax-enabled PCs ready to ship when the first WiMax networks come online in the U.S. this fall. Is this a major problem? Probably not, since there won’t be much in the way of WiMax networks available until later in 2009 anyway. But it’s not a positive development, either.

Clearwire and Sprint must still operate separately until the “new” Clearwire deal closes in Q4. This has always been a somewhat murky question, but Clearwire CEO Wolff cleared it up — Clearwire will not have access to any of the new investment capital and cannot coordinate ongoing activities with Sprint until after the deal passes DOJ, FCC and shareholder approval. That means that for 2008, the “old” Clearwire will be looking to launch Mobile WiMax in Portland, Ore., while Sprint will keep its Xohm name around until at least January, with a September launch in Baltimore and later launches in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Sprint’s Xohm network is on schedule for September launch in Baltimore. Sprint Xohm guru Barry West was on stage at the Intel event Monday, and said the network will launch “between [September] 1st and the 30th,” and will have 150 cell sites offering “in-building coverage as well” in downtown Baltimore. “Despite what you’ve heard, WiMax is alive and well” and will launch in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C., West said.

Clearwire is already beta testing its Mobile WiMax network in Portland, Ore., and is pointing to a commercial “soft” launch by “early Q4.” “We’ve already started loading customers on the network in Portland,” said Wolff, who hopes to have a commercial “soft” launch by “early fourth quarter.” Clearwire will then take its learning experiences from Portland to its next scheduled launches, in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Grand Rapids, Mich. (ed. note: Better get that Vegas network ready by CES!) All Clearwire’s launches going forward will be Mobile WiMax, Wolff said. More on Clearwire from Ben Wolff in the next day or so! Promise!

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

After reading earlier this week about DigitalBridge’s launch of Mobile WiMax services in Jackson Hole, Wyo., we decided it’s a good time to give blog readers a taste of our Sidecut Report on WiMax, focusing on what service providers like DigitialBridge see as a total cost of operation, or TCO, advantage that WiMax gives them.

In the report excerpt below, DigitalBridge CEO Kelley Dunne says that using WiMax allows service providers to build broadband networks at a tenth of the price of traditional wireline operations. Enjoy the report excerpt, and if you want to read more, click here to order our full report via instant download.

(The following is an excerpt from our Sidecut Report on WiMax, titled “Game On, WiMax! Why the ‘New’ Clearwire gives WiMax its best chance at success in the U.S. marketplace.”)

WHAT MAKES WIMAX ATTRACTIVE: LOWER OPEX, CAPEX, AND DEVICE COSTS

When Clearwire executives want to make the point that WiMax networks are cheaper to operate than other cellular options, they point their audience to a picture of a tower site near Portland, Ore., where a WiMax cell site quite literally sits in the shadow of a much-bigger cellular tower installation. The Clearwire infrastructure for its WiMax tower consists of an off-the-shelf router, a small antenna and two microwave repeaters, all housed in an enclosure not much bigger than a stereo cabinet. The infrastructure for the cellular tower, meanwhile, requires a 10-by-20-foot building with air conditioning.

When you stand next to the two side-by-side installations, “you don’t have to know the costs to see the economies of scale,” said Barry Davis, executive director of product planning for Clearwire. According to Dan Coombes, senior vice president for wireless broadband networks at Motorola, improvements in chip technology have allowed WiMax equipment manufacturers “to do a lot more in software,” making the necessary hardware cheaper, faster and more energy efficient. Instead of using coax cables that can be as thick as a man’s arm, Coombes said most WiMax tower installations these days can use optical fiber, which is easier to support and install. WiMax gear provider Airspan Networks recently introduced base-station equipment so small that it can be installed outdoors, directly on a tower or rooftop, without an enclosed shelter.

Another important area of WiMax cost savings is at the customer premise, where the mobile standard is already producing equipment and installation savings. Manufacturers and operators are already looking at home-gateway CPEs with price points under $100, down from an average of $500 or more just two years ago. Improved antenna technology is also all but eliminating truck rolls, as end-users are able to self-install most newer WiMax customer access devices.

“If you’re not rolling trucks, the business is really scalable,” said Kelley Dunne, CEO of Digital Bridge, a startup CLEC operation that is rolling out WiMax networks in 15 different U.S. rural locations, with populations between 10,000 and 150,000 residents. Digital Bridge, which now has five WiMax networks up and running, recently secured a $20 million round of venture financing. According to Dunne, a telecom veteran who spent time both at Verizon and at a regional CLEC, Digital Bridge’s networks are being built “at one-tenth the cost of a traditional CLEC operation.”

Better — and cheaper — customer-premise equipment is a big part of that equation. Jeff Thompson, CEO of WiMax provider Towerstream (which sells Internet access to small businesses in large cities — Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, among others), described a new customer-premise device with multiple antennas that also has a signal bar display on its top. End users then twist or move the device’s position until the display shows it is getting an optimal signal.

“With no truck roll, we can now go into much smaller-end businesses, that may not have technical staff,” Thompson said. Towerstream, which had third-quarter 2007 revenues of almost $2 million, also benefits directly from cheaper equipment prices, Thompson said.

“For us, CPE cost is 50 percent of our capex,” Thompson said. “If we can cut those costs in half, that’s 25 percent off our bottom line.”

A further wave of cost savings for WiMax gear is expected near the end of 2008, as Intel rolls out its planned “Echo Peak” combination WiMax/Wi-Fi silicon, a key technology for devices that plan to offer dual-mode roaming capabilities. Sprint also plans to offer handheld devices that combine WiMax and 3G cellular communications, possibly before the end of 2008.

In March, Intel announced per-chip prices in the $43-to-$54 range for Echo Peak. According to Clearwire’s Davis, industry observers see WiMax silicon prices eventually “going to rock bottom,” something that is not happening on the cellular technology side. What that means, Davis said, “is that the cost of adding WiMax to a consumer product is no longer a barrier.”

Yet another allure of WiMax is its ability to bypass the copper local loop — and the leasing costs and controls that come with it. “WiMax is a great technology for us to avoid the phone companies,” said Towerstream’s Thompson. Digital Bridge’s Dunne concurred: “With WiMax, there’s nobody between us and the client — I cannot believe that is happening. I’m very passionate because for the first time, it feels like the last mile is solved.”

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

As I slowly catch up with email and messages, let me apologize for not noting ahead of time that Sidecut Reports was going to be MIA last week. Though I am now able to sit upright at the keyboard, there will probably be slow going for the next week or so as I continue to recover from some long-planned back surgery that took place last Monday.

For the scientists out there, the procedure I had done was a Posterior Lumbar Spinal Fusion — in simpler terms, I now have some sweet titanium screws and frames in my lower back to correct a congenital condition that was pinching nerves in my legs, making it difficult to stand or walk for long without pain. (Anyone who saw me hobbling down the jetway-landing strip hallways of NXTComm in Vegas last month could clearly see there was a problem that needed fixing.)

As we slowly ramp back up to speed here you can always order our WiMax report to get yourself up to speed on the expected impact of the “new” Clearwire deal and what its chances are for success.

Without having seen any full report, it’s perhaps not fair to take a shot at the analysts at Frost & Sullivan for having what looks like some weak takes on the WiMax market. But there are certainly some questions folks should be asking about the press release put out Wednesday by F&S that all but predicts Mobile WiMax’s death before the technology’s even out of the cradle.

Since we have just completed a rather thorough look at the U.S. WiMax market ourselves, we are wondering why the F&S press release got such wide play across the techno-newsosphere without too much questioning along the way. (At least our good pal Loring Wirbel over at EE Times did find some time to wonder if there was another viewpoint on the matter, and kudos to dailywireless.org for poking some holes.) Actually, we’re not wondering why the release got so much play, and we’ll explain why later. But first some questions for Frost & Sullivan “Programme Manager” Luke Thomas, who is quoted at length in the release as being the guy ready to stick a knife in WiMax:

1. Why do you think it makes sense to compare WiMax to Wi-Fi as an operator choice for metro networks? When you say that “In terms of indoor wireless broadband, Wi-Fi fits well in this space and with the emergence of 802.11n, which includes MIMO, throughputs would be far better than what Mobile WiMAX can deliver,” are you proposing that service providers will install wireless access points in buildings all across metro areas, providing for broadband backhaul to each spot, and then guarantee service in the unlicensed bands that Wi-Fi operates in? And that this is a better metro delivery choice than licensed-spectrum WiMax?

2. In terms of handing off to cellular networks when WiMax coverage isn’t complete, you argue that “With respect to outdoor mobile broadband environments, users would expect Mobile WiMAX to seamlessly hand off to cellular networks in the absence of WiMAX reception. In reality this is not possible as Mobile WiMAX is not backward compatible with existing cellular technologies.” Hmm, then why is Sprint already talking about a combined WiMax/3G phone (due out Q4)?

3. When you say that “any operator looking at Mobile WiMAX has to consider the current environment in which 97% of laptops are shipped with Wi-Fi technology,” are you at all aware that Intel — WiMax’s biggest backer and supplier of many core chips to those same laptops — will essentially be giving away WiMax connectivity with its planned WiMax/Wi-Fi chipset due out later this year? What do you say to operators when those chips start shipping?

4. Do you really believe the LTE assertions in your press release, which state: “LTE is expected to be a fully ratified standard by the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009 with deployments slated to occur in late 2009 or first months of 2010 offering peak data rates of up to 170Mbps.” And can we bet a pint or two on whether or not there is an operational, commercial 170 Mbps LTE network running by 2010? (You can guess which side of the wager we might take.)

To be fair, the Frost & Sullivan press release did state that “the work carried out on Mobile WiMAX has the potential to spur new ventures, which could potentially lead Mobile WiMAX to merge with 3G LTE.” But this info was in the second paragraph, buried beneath the linkbait headline of “Mobile WiMAX on the Way Out?” and the lead-graf conclusion that “the technology is facing a range of challenges that are likely to make it unfeasible as a mobile ‘access’ technology.”

In this day of short tech staffs and the pressure on bloggers and reporters to blindly turn copy around, it’s no surprise that such a powerful take from a known entity like F&S would be quickly turned into a Analysts Predict WiMax Death post or report. While some of the challenges F&S assert are certainly hurdles WiMax needs to overcome, the incompleteness and oranges-to-apples comparisons noted by our questions above should have raised more red flags than it apparently has.

(We do have a request in to Frost & Sullivan to see any full WiMax reports they have written; more as we hear more from them. UPDATE: Well, we did get to read through the full “report” from Frost & Sullivan, and it’s not much more than the press release and only raises more questions than it answers — for instance, why does the report not talk about the May 7 “new” Clearwire deal but instead state as fact that Sprint has “terminated its partnership with Clearwire”? Sounds like recycled hash to me. In the meantime, if you would like a 37-page deep look at the state of the WiMax market in the U.S., with complete analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal (based on real interviews and not outdated opinion), please order our report, available for instant download.)

Maybe I should have added a “fourth problem” to my previous post on GigaOM about the challenges facing Google’s Android open-source mobile OS: The inherent slowness of anything that touches the mobile carrier marketplace, a theory Om spells out in no uncertain terms with his post today about new delays for the launch of Android-based devices.

Since Sprint is mentioned in the WSJ story as one of the carriers asking for more features, it might mean that devices taking advantage of the new Clearwire WiMax network will be delayed as well. Readers of our WiMax report, of course, were already expecting this lag since our analysis of the situation sees the big-scale marketing push for WiMax taking place early in 2009, most likely with kickoffs at the CES show in Vegas.

So are Android slowdowns a minus for WiMax? Maybe, but with multiple delays in other parts of the infrastructure, it seems like Google and Android interfaces should arrive at pretty much the same time as other mobile devices being tailored for the Clearwire WiMax launch. We are hearing noise about a big, big, big marketing campaign fueled by more Intel dollars, so stay tuned for more on Android, WiMax and mobile broadband.

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

Well, we said it was Game On, WiMax, and now we know the when: According to Sprint/Clearwire WiMax guru Barry West, the “new” Clearwire network will officially launch this September in Baltimore, followed by Chicago and Washington D.C. in the fourth quarter.

As I told a reporter here at the NXTcomm show, nothing beats proof of concept and the sooner the better for the New Clearwire as its battle against the still-under-development technology LTE gets underway. More thoughts on WiMax when we get back from Viva Las Vegas and the resurgent NXTcomm show, which by all show-floor accounts was much more vibrant than last year’s event in Chicago.

After a week of all 3G iPhone all the time, it’s pretty clear that the performance hurdle is being set for the “new” Clearwire and its planned nationwide WiMax network: Devices will need to look and perform reasonably like an iPhone, at as-fast or faster speeds, for lower prices, to get any traction at all. Luckily for Clearwire and its partners, those barriers aren’t insurmountable, but there’s also not a lot of time or chances to get things right. As we say in our most recent revision of our WiMax report, it’s still Game On, WiMax. But Clearwire better hurry, before Apple and AT&T run the table.

On the device look-and-feel front, it seems like Clearwire should be safe — WiMax partner Samsung is already showing a touchscreen iPhoneClone, and Google’s Android interface looks sufficiently iPhone-enough to compete, should it arrive as scheduled. On the speeds front, Clearwire should be able to make the 3G iPhone look pokey, if the company actually delivers its promised speeds of between 2 and 6 Mbps on the download side. Since Clearwire claims in its official merger filing with the FCC that its networks will support mobile two-way video, it appears that the folks on the networking side are pretty confident. That leaves us with pricing plans as the place where Clearwire might stumble in its bid to unseat the iPhone.

With an upfront cost of $199 and monthly plans of $60-70 for voice and data, the 3G iPhone isn’t cheap, so Clearwire seems to have some breathing room, especially since Clearwire service plans are likely to include a bundle of home and mobile Internet service for the same customer. But since Clearwire doesn’t plan to subsidize device costs, it will have to do a lot of marketing to convince customers that it may be cheaper in the long run to buy a more-expensive device and pay less per month; it will then have to turn around and sell an opposite story to Wall Street, claiming it can make more in revenues by signing more customers to cheaper contracts, including those for ad hoc or daily use.

Hmmm.

Clearwire may get an additional break or boost if AT&T and Apple run into network congestion problems following the July 11 availability date for the 3G iPhone. (Wonder if we can get odds on the downtime next week at NXTcomm in Vegas?) Ideally, Clearwire would start some limited public tests as soon as possible to give users a taste of what a 4G device could look and feel like. Until then, all we’re likely to hear is how much the fanboys love their 3G iPhones. The louder that chorus gets, the harder it will be for Clearwire’s song to be heard.

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

According to Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal, Monday’s big WiMax announcement is going to be about a “patent pool” spearheaded by Cisco, Intel, Samsung and others, aimed at reducing the amounts developers (especially device developers) might have to pay for WiMax-related patents.

For Clearwire, Sprint and other service providers, having a group with Cisco and Alcatel/Lucent in it can’t hurt, since both those companies can probably bring big patent portfolios to bear. But until the real heavyweights of the wireless world sign up — as Clark notes in his story, neither Qualcomm nor Motorola is part of Monday’s pool party — the patent pool is somewhat on the shallow side.

Why is a patent pool important to WiMax’s development? While the “openness” of the planned Clearwire WiMax network may be attractive to independent device developers, the patent problem could be a bigger deterrent. Sure, it sounds great to think that you could build a device, and as long as it meets WiMax standards, you can sell it at Best Buy and customers could instantly connect to the Clearwire network. Sounds good.

But since that device isn’t subsidized or supported by Clearwire, don’t expect them to help out a lot should Qualcomm or say, Verizon’s lawyers come calling, asking for a piece of your profits should your device suddenly turn successful. Ask Jeff Citron how those battles end up.

Of course, Sprint is not shy when it comes to filing patent lawsuits, so at least the WiMax pool party will have someone around who knows how this game is played.

UPDATE: Cisco and Intel hosted a very disjointed press conference/webcast, with some speakers live in studio, some on the phone and some on webcast. Questions had to be submitted to a moderator, which meant that execs on the conference could dodge questions without complaint. (I asked the panel about what would happen if a non-alliance member sued an alliance member, and whether the alliance would help fight the lawsuit, and got a non-answer answer. Press release on the alliance is here on the Cisco site.)

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.