LTE and WiMax in 2010

It must be confusing to the consumer: 3G, 4G, CDMA, GSM, EVDO, WiMAX, Wi-Fi, LTE. I'm in the Industry but I notice when people confuse the terms. (Seems often like everything is inter-changeable).

Clearwire will be rolling out WiMax for its 4G service, according to a company press release.

"During 2009, we expect to launch our Clear™ branded mobile broadband services in a number of new markets such as Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas/Ft. Worth and in our largest existing markets, namely Baltimore, Seattle, Honolulu and Charlotte," Wolff added. "With a robust pipeline of cell sites under development, we are working to significantly extend our wireless 4G network to many more markets, giving us the ability to cover as many as 120 million people with true broadband mobility by the end of 2010, including in major markets such as New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay area to name a few."

Clearwire is stating that it will blow VZW out of the 4G water in 2010 by spending $1.5B in 2009 on its network.

Of course, Clearwire is bleeding money too. Even after a 2008 where it raised $3.2 Billion and merged with Sprint's XOHM/ 4G Assets, which resulted in Clearwire holding the largest mobile wireless spectrum portfolio in the US.

• ARPU rose to $39.70 a month, from $36.09.
• Churn bumped up to 2.8%, from 2.4% a year ago.
• CLWR had 5,000 net subscriber adds in the quarter;  475K total.
• costs per gross add fell to $468, from $550
• has $3.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.
• posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $157.3 million
• revenues were less than $60M.  [barrons]

 The accounting is crazy due to the investments by Sprint, Google, Intel, bright House, TWC, and Comcast. According  to the SEC filing of the New Clearwire:

On November 28, 2008, Clearwire, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Comcast Corporation, Time Warner Cable, Inc., Bright House Networks, LLC, Google Inc. and Intel Corporation completed the transactions contemplated by the Transaction Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Transaction Agreement"), entered into by the parties on May 7, 2008. For accounting purposes, the transactions (the "Transactions") are treated as a "reverse acquisition" with the WiMAX business contributed from Sprint (the "Sprint WiMAX Business") deemed to be the accounting acquirer. As a result, the financial results of the legacy Clearwire Corporation ("Old Clearwire") prior to the consummation of the transactions are not included as part of the Company's financial statements.

Meanwhile MetroPCS and Verizon Wireless are rolling out LTE in 2010 [per the Washington Post].