In the world of high-speed wireless technology, known as 4G, you can bet on two horses: WiMax, which is a long-distance version of Wi-Fi, or LTE, which stands for Long-Term Evolution. Sprint (NYSE: S) has staked its fortunes on WiMax, and has an early head start, while Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are expected to roll out LTE later this year and into 2011. Sprint made that WiMax bet after becoming a major shareholder in Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), a pure-play high-speed wireless provider in the process of rolling out service in major American cities. Read More
In the world of high-speed wireless technology, known as 4G, you can bet on two horses: WiMax, which is a long-distance version of Wi-Fi, or LTE, which stands for Long-Term Evolution. Sprint (NYSE: S) has staked its fortunes on WiMax, and has an early head start, while Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) are expected to roll out LTE later this year and into 2011. Sprint made that WiMax bet after becoming a major shareholder in Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), a pure-play high-speed wireless provider in the process of rolling out service in major American cities. Trouble is, Clearwire just announced it is having second thoughts. Perhaps LTE is indeed a solid choice after all, mused company CEO Bill Morrow on a conference call with investors Wednesday night. He conceded what many industry watchers already knew: that LTE is capable of carrying much higher volumes of high-speed data than WiMax. That’s bit hard to swallow for investors, as Clearwire has already consumed massive amounts of capital with its WiMax bet. More customers = more losses Clearwire has been an impressive growth story — as long as you ignore the rest of the… Read More