Sprint-Clearwire Rides Again, LTE Makes Inroads

4G is back.

It’s expected within the next year in select metro markets thanks to Sprint-Nextel Corp. spinning off its unwieldy Xohm WiMAX arm to Clearwire Corp., a move that shores up the initiative on any number of fronts and brings a lot of important players — like Google, Intel Corp.,Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable, among others — into a new joint venture headed up by CEO Ben Wolff with an assist from Barry West, the former head of Xohm and now president of the new Clearwire. But that’s just part of the story when it comes to fourth-generation wireless.

Meanwhile, Alltel, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless all have said they're planning to deploy LTE. Verizon expects to do LTE trials this year and hopes to begin its commercial build in 2010. Most analysts say that LTE deployments will begin in earnest in 2011.

The bottom line is, if everything goes as planned, the United States effectively will have four nationwide 4G networks within the next five years or so.

The next 18 months are expected to clarify the promise and business models of 4G, and just may usher in a completely different era in communications. That may be a sweeping, hype-filled statement. But it's also one with bona fides.

For example, with 4G, we can expect to see speeds of anywhere from 10mbps on up to 60, 70 or even 100mbps. That's fast. Really fast.

"I do believe it will be transformational in the services it will bring to you and me," said West. "With broadband access to the Internet wherever you are, combined with location-based and presence information, it puts the user in the center of the communications experience. It's as transformational as the first cell phone."

Indeed. From a consumer perspective, 4G (whether that's WiMAX or LTE) promises

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