3G Netbooks, iPhone Modems and Wayport: WiMax Has More to Worry About than LTE
November 7, 2008When searching for a competitive threat to Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMax services, most observers end up looking at Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation cellular technology publicly favored by AT&T and Verizon. But as recent news has shown, the big telcos aren’t waiting for LTE to start heating up the competition. Instead, they’re pushing harder on 3G-based options and greater Wi-Fi access as perhaps a way to keep customers from ever finding out what the WiMax consumer experience can be.
While laptop manufacturers like Lenovo have told us that WiMax chips are easier and cheaper to embed into notebook PCs than cellular chips, recent reports have HP talking to carriers about subsidizing netbooks with 3G connectivity built in, perhaps at price points as low as $99 (with the obligatory two-year contract). In all our analysis of WiMax’s chances in the U.S., we have always noted that the big carriers might elect to lose money in order to gain or keep market share. Since AT&T has just shown that it’s not afraid to spend almost a billion bucks to be the exclusive iPhone provider, we shouldn’t be surprised if the telcos spend a lot of cash on 3G-equipped netbooks to win or keep wireless data users in their stable.
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4G, LTE, WiMAX, Wireless | Tagged: Apple, AT&T, Boingo, Clearwire, Hotspots, iPhone, LTE, Paul Kapustka, Sidecut Reports, Wayport, Wi-Fi, WiMAX | 
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