Clearwire posted another bad quarter with a loss of more than $125 million but the 4G provider said it will be testing out Long-Term Evolution technology in a few markets. It’s not messing around either, as it claims it will provide speeds which are “unmatched” by any other carrier.
The company, which is majority-owned by Sprint, has been delivering 4G service in multiple markets that is built on WiMax technology. This is the underlying network for the 4G data connection on the HTC EVO 4G and this consistently gets between 3 to 6 Mbps downstream with bursts of over 10 Mbps.
That’s child’s play compared to what Clearwire is promising with its LTE trials, as the company said the initial tests will yield real-world download speeds ranging from 20 to 70 Mbps. Rival Verizon is also in the middle of rolling out its own 4G network based on LTE tech, but this has only been getting between 6 to 12 Mbps in real-world testing. Check out our exclusive road map of Verizon’s LTE plans to see if you’ll get its 4G service soon.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of Clearwire flirting with LTE, as the company’s CEO has said the infrastructure was built out in a flexible manner. This means switching from WiMax to LTE could be almost as simple as a software upgrade.
“As we have consistently stated, we remain technology agnostic, but WiMAX provides us with unique advantages to meet the needs of our customers today,” said Dr. John Saw, Clearwire’s chief technology officer, in a prepared statement. “Ultimately, consumers don’t care about technical acronyms, but they do care about quality and affordable Internet services that work where and when they want, and that’s what we’re focused on delivering. Part of our technical due diligence at Clearwire is to be prepared to leverage a number of possible opportunities as we future-proof our network, and that’s the goal of these tests.”
These speeds are getting crazy folks, let’s hope Clearwire can actually execute.
[Via Clearwire]