Sidecut Reports

We’re about a week behind here but think it is worthwhile to highlight DigitalBridge Communications’ recent win of a $4.3 million grant from the first round of the NTIA’s broadband stimulus funding. Though the award is just a small portion of the funds that rural-market WiMAX provider DBC had applied for, in a phone call with DBC last week executive VP William “Bill” Wallace said that the company is hopeful that it will get more of its last-mile requests approved in the second round of stimulus funding, now underway.

“It’s a good thing to have,” said Wallace of the grant, which will be used to extend DBC’s services to a few more towns in rural Idaho. The grant seems to be somewhat unique for the first round of NTIA funding, a process that seemed to put a priority on infrastructure projects like backhaul or other transport-related fiber builds. What Wallace and DBC really want to see, however, is some more last-mile love during the second stimulus round; according to DBC, it has submitted 31 round-two applications for a total of $150 million in potential grants.

“Receiving the stimulus dollars allows us to go [with network builds] to places we would not go otherwise,” said Wallace. According to Wallace many of the proposals revolve around extending services from some of DBC’s existing markets in what he calls “mid-size” cities to the rural neighborhoods near those cities.

And even though the Idaho grant is seriously small potatoes when it comes to infrastructure investment dough, Wallace said DBC is pleased with the NTIA process so far and hopes that the definitions of “underserved” markets that were shook out in the round one process carry on to round two.

“As a taxpayer, I felt that they [the NTIA] put us through the right amount of due diligence — the questions asked throughout the application process were very hard and very thorough,” Wallace said. “People may complain, but we felt it was an analytically driven process and was very merit-based.”

Not sure what to make of this report in the Wall Street Journal (via Dow Jones newswires) tonight about a rumored $100 million WiMax equipment deal between gear vendor Alvarion and WiMax service provider Clearwire.

According to the Journal report — which is using as a source a report written in Hebrew in a Tel Aviv-based newspaper — Alvarion has signed a deal with Clearwire, which if true would be a serious bump in revenue for Alvarion, which just posted $68 million in revenue for its last fiscal quarter. But near the end of the report an analyst says there is no deal with Clearwire, and says instead it may be with rural WiMax providers who have stimulus-funds backing.

Well, they can’t both be right. What’s with those analysts, anyway?

We have calls and emails all around and will of course update this one whenver we hear more. The thing is, either version is believable — though Clearwire hasn’t used Alvarion in any of its present deployments, it’s not a stretch to think that there might be room under the big WiMax tent for some Alvarion contracts, especially in the smaller markets Clearwire says it will deploy this year and next. The rural-telco route is also believeable, since Alvarion has a lot of history in that market, there is interest from rural folks for WiMax, and Alvarion’s gear is stimulus-fund certified.

No matter who it’s with, if Alvarion is pulling down a $100 million deal for infrastructure gear that’s a good sign that investors are ready to bet with dollars on WiMax becoming real in the U.S. Maybe competition isn’t dead after all.