Sidecut Reports

Welcome to the first in a planned series of video “snacks” — call ‘em Sidecut Snacks — short, tasty bits of information for your viewing pleasure. In our first snack we highlight a couple quick takes from Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse and Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow from their back-to-back keynote appearances at the CTIA 2010 show in Las Vegas on March 24. The topic: WiMAX networks, and the ecosystem that Sprint and Clearwire are building around their nascent national network. Enjoy!

LAS VEGAS, NEV. — CTIA — When it comes to LTE devices, Verizon says it won’t be shipping any big fat bricks. But that was about the only definitive thing company exec Tony Melone would say about Verizon’s Long Term Evolution market plans in a appearance here at CTIA Tuesday morning.

Kicking off the Fierce Wireless Path to 4G sessions, Melone (Verizon’s executive VP and CTO for wireless operations) didn’t offer much beyond what the company had previously said about LTE, except to add that the company would stage “friendly user trials in a handful of markets” during the summer, with real market launches following “later in the year.”

After his prepared remarks, Melone had to quickly face up to the Fat Brick question — which he laughed off, adding that he was confident Verizon would ship quality LTE phone-type devices by mid-2011, and not mixtures of sand and cement. (We’ll try to get the exact quotes and some bad Internet video posted later tonight so check back)

LAS VEGAS, NEV. — CTIA — In two completely news-free keynote presentations here at CTIA Tuesday morning, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega and CEO Randall Stephenson both made a call for additional wireless spectrum — so that future mobile networks in the U.S. don’t run out of breathing room before they even get off the ground.

De la Vega, the incoming chairman of the wireless industry association, identified additional wireless spectrum as one of the necessary pillars to continue the growth of wireless broadband, an industry that he said increased by 28 percent in 2009 to $41.3 billion in overall revenue. His boss Stephenson followed by praising the FCC’s recent call in its National Broadband Plan to free up as much as 500 MHz of new spectrum over the next decade, introducing a video visit from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who — guess what? — said he would do all he could to make more spectrum available.

While both de la Vega and Stephenson talked about the need to build a robust infrastructure to support the expected wireless growth, neither presented any specifics about AT&T’s plans to make its own networks more reliable — perhaps missing the chance to tell wireless industry insiders that Ma Bell was leading by example.

Clearwire, the owner of the largest amount of wireless spectrum for broadband use, kicked off CTIA by announcing additional markets for its WiMAX services in 2010, including Los Angeles and Miami. As our most recent report details, Clearwire is the one provider who isn’t facing a spectrum shortage. Stay tuned for more CTIA updates throughout the week!

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.

We haven’t seen the rumored WiMAX smartphone that will reportedly be announced by Sprint next week at CTIA, but someone who has told us recently that it’s a beauty, with a big screen tailored for on-the-go video. “It’s the new trophy phone,” our informant gushed. “Pretty darn amazing.”

It’s also probably not going to be available until sometime later this summer, so don’t go flushing those iPhones and Droids down the loo just yet. If you are looking for new wireless devices that might actually be closer to shipment at CTIA, you can join us in a hunt for end-user devices that do a better job of pulling in a WiMAX signal than your standard, naked USB dongle.

We’ve already shown you pictures of Cradlepoint’s version of a portable WiMAX/Wi-Fi router that fits into a home dock with big rabbit-ear antennas to boost signal strength; expect to hear more about that home modem as well as some others from new suppliers that try to improve a problem all wireless networks face: Getting through walls. We’ll be on the lookout for one Clearwire-ready device we’ve heard is in development that is designed for businesses, with strong outdoor antennas to grab the WiMAX signal and a built-in Wi-Fi router to run the LAN inside. Any guesses to the supplier? We should know more next week.

In our recent network report on Clearwire, the company’s chief technical officer Dr. John Saw told us that Clearwire was seeing most of its network use coming from folks who were sitting inside a building, rather than on the go. And in an interview for the same report, Motorola’s WiMAX/LTE guru Bruce Brda predicted that 2010 would see multiple new entrants in the Clearwire CPE game, as the company’s open network started to attract more players than the initial contracted suppliers. Another good guess is more home modems that include integrated support for VoIP, as Clearwire and its partners look to increase the value proposition by adding services.

With a big Sprint event scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, and a joint Sprint/Clearwire keynote on the schedule for Wednesday morning, it could be a big week for WiMAX in Las Vegas, so much different than the scene just two short years ago. Stay tuned here for more news and analysis before, at and after the show.