(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) Greater Boston and Providence now have a new super-fast wireless network: Clearwire's 4G or "fourth generation" wireless network, able to deliver streaming video and megabits per second of Internet access.
"Yesterday, people were tethered to a WiFi spot,'' said Matt Drinkhahn, Boston-area general manager for Clearwire. "They'd go to the coffee shop and use the Internet there, out to a few hundred feet. What our Wimax network does is allow the Internet experience all over the place.''
Drinkhahn and Clearwire's Antone Porter gave me and videographer Christopher Garvin a live display inside a tricked-out Ford Flex that has four computer screens connected to a Clearwire receiver, with download speeds of typically 3 to 6 megabits per second, able to support multiple web pages, live video, and phone calls simultaneously. The cost starts around $45 to $60 a month, and unlike many 3G plans, with 4G there is no monthly cap on how much data you can download or video you stream.
According to Clearwire, the service area activated in Boston reaches areas home to about 2.5 million people, as far north as Danvers, Reading, and Burlington and parts of the Merrimack Valley from Lawrence to Haverhill; west to Natick and Framingham; and south to Norwood and Braintree. Clear 4G is also live in Providence. For a map of where service is available, go to www.clear.com/coverage. Clear sells both 4G-only receivers, and also more expensive 3G/4G receivers that will operate on the fast new network when service is available, or otherwise resort to slower Sprint 3G service. Also available are a "Rover" prepaid wireless data plan, where you buy a device for around $120 and then pay $5 a day or $20 a week, and devices the size of a deck of cards that connect to the 4G network and immediately create a WiFi hotspot that five to eight computer users can tap into.
Nationally, Clearwire now covers areas home to about one-fifth of Americans, including areas around Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Drinkhahn said the company plans further expansion in New England but he couldn't yet say where or when.
Local
Comcast Corp., which owns NECN, is an investor in Clearwire (along with Google, Intel, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, and other companies). "It was a natural extension for us to offer this very. very fast internet speeds on the go,'' said Mark Adamy, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Comcast's Greater Boston Region. Comcast is using the network to sell its own Comcast-branded wireless service, with plans like $40 a month if you already have home Xfinity broadband service, or $55 a month for a year if you are a new customer buying a combination of 4G and Xfinity broadband. "The bundle is really where we can provide the best value to the customer,'' Adamy said, referring to combinations of TV, broadband, landline phone service, and wireless 4G.
T-Mobile has begun rolling out its own network it says can rival the Clearwire/Comcast network in speeds, and AT&T and Verizon Wireless are developing 4G plans. So for now, while Clearwire has a big lead, it may prove to be just the first glimpse of a whole new world of much faster wireless service.
Meanwhile, as we drive around the streets of Boston and Cambridge, Matt Drinkhahn is having a blast showing off the new network. "We can," he says, "literally do whatever we want on the Internet.''
With videographer Christopher D. Garvin
