Sidecut Reports

Since we hear that the Apple iPad may actually now be available, we will do our readers the service of reprinting the post we wrote back in January — in which we opined that the best way to get fast connectivity for your iPad would be to buy one of the WiMAX Pocketspots like Sprint’s Overdrive, and surf the web in 4G fashion using WiMAX backhaul to your own personal Wi-Fi cloud.

(Savvy folks that they are, Sprint and Clearwire marketing types picked up on our lead and made such thinking the center of some press releases. No charge for the idea!)

Anyway, here’s the post from Jan. 27 to enjoy all over again.

– old post below —

Om said it best in less than 140 characters: “If i had to buy an iPad, I would buy a WiFi one with a Sprint MiFi. Who needs to blow money on a crappy AT&T 3G connection.”

His late Wednesday tweet summed up perfectly my reaction to the Apple iPad’s pricing for a model with connectivity to AT&T’s 3G cellular service: Why would you pay an extra $130 “3G tax” for the privilege of connecting one device to a network whose underpinnings are still suspect? Especially when you can get a mobile Wi-Fi router, either in the slim 3G-only version or in the beefier, brawnier hybrid 3G/4G configuration — and have better connectivity for your iPad and four other devices?

From AT&T’s standpoint, the pricing structure makes sense — by making it a high leap over the base iPad price, you can guess many folks will opt not to spring for a 3G version, especially since (unlike an iPhone) this device is primarily designed for content consumption or creation, and not necessarily for communications. (Though we fully expect Andy A to be the first to use it in an airborne Wi-Fi/VoIP configuration)

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Had a lot of calls today from folks who saw our quote in a Sprint Overdrive ad in USA TODAY — never doubt the power of the mainstream media! Since it’s been a little bit since the post that Sprint quoted, we’ve handily reprinted it here below. Enjoy!

Pocketspots Bust Out — Sprint’s Overdrive a Winner at CES (Originally published Jan. 10, 2010)

Looking back, it’s clear we didn’t do justice to Sprint’s introduction of its Overdrive mobile hot spot product — such is the problem of holding a late-night event at CES, when your audience may be distracted from blogging or writing in the moment, as they say.

Overall, it was a boffo product announcement, hitting all the big-time notes (silly comedian Frank Caliendo, star turn from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, over-the-top after-announcement party food from celebrity chef Mario Batali) but most importantly it delivered a shipping-now, easy to use and understand product in the form of the Overdrive pocketspot from Sierra Wireless, which combines 3G and 4G connectivity into an in-your-pocket package. At $99 for the device and $60 a month for the data plan — same as most standalone 3G aircards — the Overdrive is a no-brainer decision if you are a road warrior who spends any amount of time in Sprint’s already operating 4G markets.

In our brief bit of hands-on testing at CES (the Sprint folks were kind enough to lend us an Overdrive for evaluation) we found the Overdrive incredibly simple to operate — just push one button and BOOM, as Caliendo would say in his trademark John Madden imitation, your WiMAX-enabled Wi-Fi hotspot was up and running. And even in the challenging airwave atmosphere of the Las Vegas Convention Center, we were able to live-Tweet the FCC chairman’s talk, via the Overdrive sitting in our suit jacket pocket. Nice.

Not to be outdone, pocketspot veterans Cradlepoint were showing their latest wares in a suite in the Wynn — while not yet available the company’s “Project Tablerock” mobile hotspot with docking station will likely be an extremely attractive choice for Clearwire users, since it features a portable WiMAX modem that becomes your home modem when you drop it into its two-antenna charging/docking station.

According to Cradlepoint folks who showed us the Tablerock unit, the docking station antennas give the unit a significant reception boost — never a bad thing when it comes to wireless connectivity. Look for the Tablerock and maybe more (!) pocketspot modems for Clearwire and its partners as the first quarter of 2010 comes to a close. (Bad phone-cam picture of Overdrive and Tablerock side by side follows.)

Sprint’s Overdrive by Sierra Wireless, left, and Cradlepoint’s Tablerock, in the wild at CES.

Readers of our Sidecut Report on WiMax weren’t surprised to read in USA Today that the big telco likes WiMax, despite a strategic direction tilted in favor of Long Term Evolution (LTE) for its main 4G strategy.

In our report, we offered some details of AT&T’s current WiMax deployments, which include one in Alaska and one in Pahrump, Nev. In our post “Five Things You Didn’t Know About the Clearwire WiMax Deal,” we added more analysis, saying that “AT&T may be hedging its bets by keeping its toes wet in matters WiMax. This may be more important in the future, when WiMax standards at the 700 MHz level emerge.”

In the USA Today story (a sidebar to a longer interview with CEO Randall Stephenson) new AT&T CTO John Donovan talks about how WiMax is appealing in rural deployments, especially where AT&T may not have copper assets. The USA Today story also says that WiMax is “cheap to install and maintain,” an idea that our readers know about (and we highlighted in a report excerpt about the WiMax TCO Advantage.)

If nothing else, Donovan’s affinity for WiMax should give cheer to WiMax gear manufacturers, who may sell their equipment side-by-side with all that LTE stuff Ma Bell plans to deploy. And maybe they can stop believing those LTE will kill WiMax stories whose sources are suspect.

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.