Sidecut Reports

AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega at CTIA keynote. Credit: Sidecut Reports

Editor’s note: The following is the first in a series of major U.S. market cellular provider “status updates” from the recent CTIA Wireless show in Orlando, Fla. First up is Ma Bell, no surprise given the $39 billion headline-grabbing acquisition announcement AT&T made last Sunday.

So Now You Tell Us There’s A Spectrum Crisis?

It was just about a year ago — roughly the time that we put out our Sidecut Report about Clearwire’s spectrum advantage — that AT&T and Verizon participated in a very friendly press call together where they sang the praises of LTE and pooh-poohed any claims that the country’s two biggest cell service providers might be a bit hamstrung when it came to licensed wireless airwaves. Our favorite quote from that call came from AT&T senior VP of architecture Kris Rinne, who forcefully said that Clearwire didn’t have a spectrum advantage over AT&T, which would be able to, y’know, refarm its current cellular airwaves to take care of LTE. No worries, right?

“You need to make sure you count all of our spectrum when you make these comparisons,” Rinne said at the time. Though we openly asked for the chance to count the available spectrum, that plea fell on deaf ears.

Now fast forward to the T-Mobile acquisition announcement and all of a sudden, AT&T has a spectrum crisis. Everyone from top mobile honcho Ralph de la Vega to Chief Technology Officer John Donovan was stopping random strangers in Orlando, even the bike rickshaw guys, to tell them that Hey! We’ve Got a Spectrum Crisis! You’ve got to wonder, what exactly changed between last spring and now? Did AT&T go looking in the spectrum barrel only to find it empty? Or is it some other combination of factors, not the least of which is that by admitting to a spectrum shortage, AT&T can gain more regulatory favor for its market-consolidating purchase?

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Finally — Finally — we have the final piece of the puzzle when it comes to Verizon’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) smartphone strategy, namely the price of the LTE data plan. After dropping $249 on the HTC Thunderbolt device itself and signing up for a 2-year contract your data plan from Verizon is $29.99 a month for unlimited data downloads, a plan that Verizon says covers connections via both the 4G LTE network or the company’s 3G network when a 4G connection isn’t available.

With the mandatory nationwide voice contract (the lowest is a $39.99 plan for 450 minutes) that means it will take approximately $320 out of your wallet to get connected to what is arguably the quickest and certainly the least-used mobile broadband network in the country for now. While that price may be a bit steep for some, Verizon is offering a bit of a sweetener for those who move quickly, throwing in the mobile hotspot capability embedded in the Thunderbolt for free until May 15. After that date, all Thunderbolt customers old and new will pay an additional $20 for each 2 GB of data that they use via the hotspot function.

Our quick take on this pricing breakdown is that Verizon doesn’t see itself getting snowed under from users connecting to its LTE network via the handsets themselves, but it is protecting itself from the potentially huge data downloads that could come by using the phone as a mobile hotspot, since it can connect to up to eight additional devices. For right now, Verizon is holding still on its 4G LTE USB modem data plan pricing, charging $50 for 5 GB per month and $80 for 10 GB per month of data downloads; prices on the devices, however, have fallen to $69.99 with an online discount. Potential customers however might do well to peruse the reviews on the Verizon website and ask your local salesperson politely if the connection problems for the modems are being fixed.

While the 4G LTE data plan for the Thunderbolt may not be revolutionary, it certainly offers heads-up competition to Sprint’s unlimited 4G data plans for its WiMAX-based smartphones and mobile hotspot devices. At the very least we should have some fun debate about the term unlimited at the wireless CEO panel at next week’s big CTIA show in Orlando. If unlimited is the new table stakes for 4G, the real winners already are the potential customers of the faster data networks.

Well, nothing like a silly headline to get your attention, eh? In the latest of our wireless testing series that has already made stops in Silicon Valley and Las Vegas we now turn our attention to the greater Chicagoland area where Clearwire’s WiMAX wireless broadband service has been commercially available for almost a year now.

No fun pictures to accompany this report — we were in Chicago this past weekend for a 30-year high school reunion and all the fun such events entail. But that didn’t stop us from doing a quickie WiMAX vs. Wi-Fi speed test in the northern suburb of Highland Park, where Clearwire has been busy adding towers including one right smack in the middle of downtown. Perhaps that’s why our parking-lot test of Clearwire’s service (even via the Clear Spot 4G+) was as hot as a big, deep-dish Chicago pie right outta the oven:

HIGHLAND PARK DOWNTOWN CLEARWIRE WIMAX CLEAR SPOT 4G+ TEST



And yes since we were parked right outside the front window of the downtown H.P. Starbucks outlet, we could glom onto the coffee shop’s AT&T-provided Wi-Fi signal (which was free, unlike the paid WiMAX service) and here is what we got:

HIGHLAND PARK DOWNTOWN AT&T/STARBUCKS WI-FI TEST



What are our conclusions? That Clearwire has been busy adding towers in the Chicago ‘burbs, something we can tell because we watch the company’s coverage maps from time to time and a lot of the northern suburban area is getting dark-greener on the Clearwire maps courtesy of the additional network rollouts. And if you want to pay for the extra speed and mobility the Clearwire service gives you, it will serve you faster than the Starbucks Wi-Fi. If you are just looking for a free way to connect while sipping that latte, the Starbucks/AT&T link may be all you need.

But… if you find yourself at O’Hare airport near the Starbucks island around Gate C 39, you may (like we were) be unable to find any AT&T service… so then the Clearwire WiMAX can come in pretty handy for those who need speed:

O’HARE AIRPORT GATE C39 CLEARWIRE CLEAR SPOT 4G+ WIMAX TEST

And thanks to the props from our pal Andy Abramson who may soon be able to “officially” run on the Clearwire/Sprint 4G network here in San Francisco which some of us have noticed to be working quite well already. Attention, CTIA attendees!