U.S. FCC Approves Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX Network

The U.S. FCC approved the transfer of control of licenses held by Sprint and the the existing Clearwire to the new Clearwire joint venture formed by the two companies. This action is expected to facilitate the build out of a nation wide WiMAX network by the new joint venture.

This action clears the way for Clearwire to deploy its WiMAX service in the U.S. in 2009. This will be the first major 4G network in the U.S. and is an important test case for WiMAX and for broadband wireless services.

Maravedis Says 2.3M WiMAX Subscribers in 2Q08

Maravedis said that there were 265 WiMAX deployments at the end of 2Q08 with a total of 2.33 million subscribers. This was up from 264 deployments and 1.99 million subscribers at the end of 1Q08. Clearewire was the number one operator with 462 thousand subscribers and Korea telecom was number two with 202 thousand subscribers.

Maravedis said that 67 percent of subscribers were residential and 33 percent were business subscribers. The residential ARPU was $46.73 and the business ARPU was $135.08.

This is the start of the deployment of 4G services. The size of these deployments are still modest. Clearwire and KT are the two service providers to watch.