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May 24, 2010

Clearwire Adds More Subs, Cities; Cuts Cost for Adding Subscribers

By Doug Mohney
Contributing Editor

If you’re looking for pleasant surprises out of this month, WiMAX provider Clearwire certainly gave one to analysts. The company ended the first quarter of 2010 with 971,000 total subscribers, along with quarterly revenues up 72 percent ahead of Wall Street guessimates, er estimates.

A gain of 283,000 net customers in the quarter beat the average of nearly 192,000 net new subscribers as predicted by four analyst polled by Reuters. Similarly, revenues for the quarter reached $106.7 million, roughly $10 million higher than analyst predictions.

Other good news in its first quarter report includes cutting its retail cost per gross subscriber addition (CPGA) to $439, as compared to a whopping $624 in the fourth quarter of 2009. It also improved its retail monthly churn numbers (3.0 percent vs. 3.6 percent in 4Q 2009), and lowered its loss per share from $0.47 per share in the quarter, as compared to $0.55 per share last quarter.

By the end of this year, it expects to have more than 2 million total customers -- about triple the number it had at the end of 2009.

Helping along the optimistic growth number will be additional markets; Clear will add Nashville, TN; Daytona, Orlando and Tampa, FL; Rochester and Syracuse, NY; Merced, Modesto, Stockton, and Visalia, CA (News - Alert); Wilmington, DE; Grand Rapids, MI; Eugene, OR; and Yakima and Tri-Cities, WA to the list of cities it will turn up this summer.

Already on the list for a summer turn up are Kansas City, Kansas, St. Louis Missouri, Salt Lake City, and the core area of Washington D.C.; a Clearwire representative I spoke to at The Cable Show said that D.C. would be soft-launched to select customers in July, with retail channels starting to sell WiMAX capable gear in mid-July and a formal launch occurring at the beginning of August.

Sprint has already been priming the pump for WiMAX in the D.C. area at an aggressive clip. The company dropped in a flier for the 3G/4G HTC (News - Alert) EVO phone into its May bills -- despite the fact the phone won’t be available until June 8 and WiMAX service won’t be up until the following month. In addition, Sprint (News - Alert) has purchased D.C.-area movie trailer spots touting the wonders of WiMAX service.

Ironically, Clearwire officials once again said they had the ability to convert the network over from WiMAX to LTE (News - Alert) technology in the future, noting it had changed an agreement with Intel that allows it to give as little as 30 days notice if Clearwire plans to adopt LTE. A switch or in-parallel operation of LTE would help in a potential partnership with T-Mobile USA -- expected to migrate to LTE from its GSM-network -- and in roaming relationships with Cox (News - Alert) and other cable operators. Cox has run LTE tests in Phoenix and San Diego, so it should be more than happy to offer a seamless wireless product offering of LTE across the board, rather than having to juggle a mix of CDMA 3G technology, WiMAX and LTE.


Doug Mohney is a contributing editor for TMCnet and a 20-year veteran of the ICT space. To read more of his articles, please visit columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri


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