14 DAY TRIAL // Clearwire Corporation, an important provider of wireless broadband services, which operates the largest 4G network in the U.S., recently announced that it will start trialing its 4G LTE technology. The company's plans are supposed to improve wireless speeds in the U.S., but it's also a test for the coexistence between LTE and WiMAX radio technologies.
The first tests are expected to demo download speeds ranging from 20-70 Mbps, which is a huge improvement compared with tj 5-12 Mbps download speeds expected from other operators in the U.S. Clearwire will be conducting the tests in collaboration with Huawei Technologies, the company that deployed the world's first commercial LTE network in Europe. The company will also collaborate with Samsung Electronics and Beceem, but additional partners might be named at a later date.
"Clearwire's unmatched spectrum and all-IP network make us the only service provider in the U.S. able to conduct tests of this nature and on this scale. 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.
The company seems to be very interested in discovering how it could add LTE technology to coexist with WiMAX. Since more and more LTE will be rolled out on the market, the coexistence between the two technologies might prove beneficial for both operators and customers.
Dr. Saw continued, "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."
The tests will be conducted in the fall and throughout early 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona.