In the last couple of days Sprint has made charitable donations in Atlanta and Chicago, to help remedy the technological deficiencies specific to each community. The Sprint Foundation has given four local non-profits in Atlanta a grand total of $55,000 in grants. In Chicago, Sprint has partnered with the city to provide complimentarymobile Internet access for select high school students. They also have plans to develop affordable wireless services for hundreds of thousands of residents in low-income neighborhoods that do not even have access to Internet, whatever the cost. "Going forward, Sprint Nextel will be able to offer its various services at lower prices to residents and businesses that are traditionally underserved by the telecommunications industry," according to a recent statement from the company.
The same statement goes on to note that the Sprint Foundation "creatively and thoughtfully delivers Sprint's commitment to championing the communities where Sprint customers and employees live." Even after donating over $110 million in grants to non-profits, the goal at the end of the day is still the profit. Yes, Sprint has enabled several courses of action to benefit local communities and that is what to be commended, but on the other hand, Sprint is still a corporation and while we don't want to denigrate their positive donations to needy communities, they still stand to benefit from their benevolent actions.
This fact may go a long way towards answering the questions, "Why Atlanta? Why Chicago?" Part of it is likely connected to Sprint's sister company, Clearwire. Clearwire has been released in about 50 markets in the U.S., including Atlanta and Chicago and ----most importantly-Sprint and Clearwire share networks. At this point in the game, Sprint and Clearwire are miles ahead of the competition in regards to their 4G platform launch. But that's about to change soon with other carriers poised to get in on the action. Which company is next to make the biggest impact? All signs point to Verizon, as they have already mapped out the targets of their service rollout to include, you guessed it, Atlanta and Chicago.
Sprint is using whatever leverage left at this point to do some PR work. By getting good publicity in two major citiesthey risk losing in the next year, they are sticking their foot in the door and putting up a fight.
]]>At face value, the reasoning for Sprint's resignation from the board is sound.
Clearwire was informed by Sprint that the decisions to resign were made out of an abundance of caution to address questions raised by Clearwire regarding new developments in anti-trust law.
This was the statement released from Clearwire regarding the decision. Judging from the points of "analysis" that many articles are focusing on, there seems to be a misunderstanding on the definition and application of anti-trust laws.
Anti-trust laws are created to prevent monopolies. The United States doesn't regard monopolies as illegal; the act of limiting competition is illegal. A brief reminder: United States vs. Microsoft (MSFT). That case was regarding the bundling of Internet Explorer with Microsoft Windows and marked a precedent of increased government regulation over futuretechnological process. But how is this relevant to Sprint and Clearwire?
It's a known fact that the two companies share towers, and most likely, deployment strategies. But that has no relevance to any anti-trust issues. The problem would be in bundling the two and therefore limiting the competition through a joint venture. As of yet, there have been no actions from either company suggesting such an event. Until Sprint starts selling packages with Clearwire home service or vice versa, nothing illegal is going on. They utilize the same WiMAX network, not anything past that.
These "new developments in anti-trust laws" are either legitimate new developments or a ruse. Maybe the CEO of one company should heed warning and distance himself from big investments that may create a monopoly of a sort of his niche in telecommunications. Or, as everyone else seems to be convinced, there is now room for other companies to create innovative marketing strategies. Even if another company were to associate itself with Clearwire, at this point it would just be a redistribution of money because Clearwire has already been deployed in over 50 markets. Another telecom company can't even attach itself to Clearwire's 4G WiMAX network because it is already in use with Sprint. In order for a merge to work it would have to be with Sprint too, in order to have access to both towers and spectrum. But, if anything, that would be creating the biggest monopoly in the U.S. telecom arena. So, what is Hesse playing at by resigning? His intentions may not be known until the next quarterly earnings report. Hopefully they will shed some light on this conundrum.
]]>Barlow Keener will moderate.
Jack Unger
President of Ask-Wi.Com, Inc.
Jack Unger founded the company in 1993 after working for 14 years in the Silicon Valley telecom industry for ROLM, IBM, Siemens and NEC. Ask-Wi.com has been serving the broadband wireless community for the past 17 years. Mr. Unger deployed one of the world's first wireless ISPs (WISPs) in Silicon Valley 1995. He has personally has trained over 3500 wireless personnel and he wrote the first handbook for the WISP industry, "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks", which was published by Cisco Press in 2003. Mr. Unger is serving his 4th-term as a Director on the Board of the Wireless ISP Association (WISPA) and is serving his third term as Chair of WISPA's FCC Committee, which guides WISPA's advocacy and lobbying efforts on TV White Space and other FCC issues of importance to the WISP industry.
Fanny Mlinarsky is the founder of octoScope. She brings a powerful combination of in-depth technical knowledge and business acumen. With 26 years of experience in progressively influential technology roles with companies including Agilent and Teradyne, she has developed hardware and software, managed R&D teams and founded Azimuth Systems, a successful VC funded wireless test equipment company. Fanny has a BS/EE and BA/CS from Columbia University with some graduate work at MIT. She holds 5 patents. In 2004, Fanny received a Woman to Watch award from Mass High Tech.
Fanny Mlinarsky is the founder of octoScope.
In 2001 she founded Azimuth, the leading provider of Wi-Fi, WiMAX and LTE test equipment, and served as the company's Chief Technology Officer for five years.
Before founding Azimuth, she managed the Agilent Handheld Tester business unit formed through the acquisition of Scope Communications. Prior to that, she was VP of Engineering at Scope, where she led the development of the technology that was acquired by HP/Agilent.
Brough Turner
Brough Turner is the founder of netBlazr Inc., a radically new form of wireless ISP. Our motto: Free your broadband! Check us out. Previously he was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Natural MicroSystems and NMS Communications. After NMS was split up and sold off, Brough consulted to Dialogic as their Chief Strategy Officer for most of 2009.
Brough has a long history with telecom and the Internet, beyond what's mentioned in his LinkedIn bio. He entered the telecom industry when some friends and I started Natural MicroSystems in 1983.Barlow Keener
Barlow Keener has been specializing in communications law and its development for over 15 years. Barlow represents competing telecommunications providers (including firms using wired and wireless technologies) in state and federal regulatory matters. He negotiates interconnection agreements and handles issues involving universal service, pricing, tariffs, and other matters, as well as representing various Internet-related entities in regulatory matters and issues relating to rights management, privacy, and internet video. Barlow also handles matters related to inter-carrier compensation, providing advice and analysis regarding compliance with the Carrier Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and CNPI rules, interpreting court orders, FCC orders, and tariffs to determine precise costs of network configuration, and negotiating interconnection agreements. In addition, Barlow works on matters related to start-up firms in the telecom, wireless, and internet sectors including incorporation and general corporate governance.
Barlow was the legal counsel and CEO of a facilities-based voice and data CLEC, General Counsel at CSA, Inc., a video advertising-focused consumer products company, and General Attorney at BellSouth Telecommunications. He is a member of the Massachusetts, Georgia, and Florida bar associations.
Barlow has spoken at numerous telecommunications conferences on the regulatory and legal issues related to femtocells and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FCM) issues.
Atlanta ;Baltimore ;Boise ;Chicago ;Las Vegas ;Philadelphia ;Charlotte ,Raleigh , andGreensboro, NC ;Honolulu andMaui, HI ;Seattle andBellingham, WA ;Portland andSalem, OR ; andDallas/Ft. Worth ,San Antonio ,Austin ,Abilene ,Amarillo ,Corpus Christi ,Killeen /Temple ,Lubbock ,Midland /Odessa ,Waco andWichita Falls, Texas .
Specifically, Huawei will provide several key infrastructure pieces, including base stations, element management system (EMS) components, and related network hardware and software.Clearwire said former suppliers Motorola and Samsung remain on the WiMAX provider's preferred list, along with Cisco, Ciena and microwave backhaul specialist Dragonwave.