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Last updated: Friday, January 9, 2009

You could hardly turn around in Portland, Ore., in recent weeks without bumping into ads for the new mobile broadband service from Clearwire. Product reps demoed the service at at least one college alumni association holiday party. Clearwire placed ads on TV and in The Oregonian. And at an over-the-top Jan. 6 launch, right in front of the swanky RiverPlace Hotel downtown, Clearwire parked a semi with a see-through trailer that housed a portable living room — complete with couch, coffee table, and what appeared to be a student hammering away on her PC. “This is not a truck,” read a sign on the side of the vehicle. “It’s yet another place to get super-fast mobile Internet.” The question is, will consumers elsewhere in the city opt to get super-fast mobile Internet from Clearwire? And more important, does Clearwire have the firepower it needs to roll out the service in other parts of the U.S.? Skeptical Investors Drive Down Stock Price Clearwire’s Clear relies on so-called WiMAX technology that, like Wi-Fi, lets users log on to the Internet without wires. But unlike Wi-Fi, which operates in limited areas such as a home or coffee shop, Clear provides wireless Web access over a much larger area — in the case of Portland, about 700 square miles. So using a Clear-enabled device, users could stay logged on to the Internet while riding in a car or other vehicle — all the while enjoying roughly the same download speeds as with a DSL line at home. It’s an attractive proposition, but Clearwire faces strong, entrenched competition from such cash-rich incumbents as Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. And it’s trying to do so at a time when consumers are cutting back on spending — not looking for new ways to shell out. In a sign of investors’ concern over…

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Will Clearwire’s WiMAX Service Succeed?

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