Imagine buys Clearwire Irish assets

bealtine

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0726/imagine.html

Monday, 26 July 2010 11:25

Communications group Imagine has bought telecoms company Clearwire's Irish business. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Imagine said it would use Clearwire's existing infrastructure to continue a €100m programme to roll out its high-speed wireless network WiMax, which it says will provide an alternative to cable and DSL broadband.

Imagine said it would now have nearly 400 sites across the country to facilitate the development of the WiMax network. The company is aiming for the WiMax network - which it says will be an alternative to Eircom's - to cover 90% of the country within two years.
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As part of the deal, Clearwire will become a minority shareholder in Imagine and will nominate a representative to the board.

watty

bealtine wrote: »

Imagine said it would use Clearwire's existing infrastructure to continue a €100m programme to roll out its high-speed wireless network WiMax, which it says will provide an alternative to cable and DSL broadband.

Not much infrastructure, It's customers mostly.

Only an alternative to 3G Mobile if DSL, Cable, Fibre, Metro or quality Fixed wireless isn't available.

I welcome this as we actually have too many ISPs and not enough Broadband availability.

Clearwire, Imagine's Self install Indoor Wimax and 3G Mobile dongles actually show that Ofcom's doctrine that Competition and Market forces lead to most efficient use of Spectrum is wrong.
One 3G infrastructure would use 3G spectrum better, 12 channels/Carriers instead of four operators with minimal three.

Self install Nomadic/Mobile such as Clearwire and Imagine is to get quickest return on capex and lowest install cost per customer. So yes it makes sense for Clearwire and Imagine. But it's x10 to x16 less capacity in the same spectrum as a good quality Fixed Wireless system. Thus ultimately the infrastructure of country suffers (x10+ wastage of spectrum in reality) and customer performance (Speed, Latency, Always on) suffers.

Regulators can't leave spectrum use entirely up to bidders/Licence holders. There has to be minimum guidelines. Or else the "cheapest to roll out" will cannibalise the market of the "quality" solutions.
http://irelandoffline.org/2009/08/is-mobile-midband-in-ireland-destroying-broadband-infrastructure/

What Regulators should do
Future Mobile/Nomadic solutions should be limited to 2100MHz or Less and LTE only to allow easy migration for customers, efficiency and cost reductions for scale. Preference should be given to Fixed only External aerial Licences in Bidding to recognise the extra deployment cost and advantages to the State. There should be analysis of how much truly "on the go" Mobile capacity is needed and it should be pan European or World-wide standards to allow customer Mobility.


2500MHz/2.5GHz and upward should be outdoor directional fixed aerials only (to avoid in-building penetration issues, and waste of spectrum) and can use any non-CDMA system (FIxed WiMax, "Mobile" Wimax, LTE, DOCSIS/WiDox are probably the only type currently worth deploying).

watty

More example of stupidity of letting Market and Regulators decide how to use Spectrum:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/29/mega_auction/

Based on economic return rather than Infrastructure value in longer term to Country, ordinary non-telco business and consumer.