What to do when all is CLEAR

With the current icy roads in Portland people have been working from home and are perhaps more in touch with the limitations of their internet service provider. While driving conditions are the most pressing factor, another reason we haven’t been able to work in a location of our choosing has been the lack of a robust and reliable internet connection.

All that changes in the next few weeks, as Portland dethaws and the 802.16e implementation of WiMAX becomes accessible to those that live in this area. It is offered as “wireless broadband” available as “Clear” from Sprint.

I’ve been asking a handful of technology solution providers how they might take advantage of the technology as consumers and business are able stay connected to a “fat pipe”, regardless of location. However, to date I have been unable to find anyone ready to fully embrace the opportunity.

For one there has been confusion as to how this differs from what Verizon, Cricket and others have also termed “wireless broadband” in their previously available 3G network. Earlier this summer, I spoke to a local analyst on the technology who projected that the service could be offered at twice the speed and at half the cost. Sam Churchill writes that he now gets up to 3mpbs service at $30/month, roughly fulfilling his projection versus a Verizon unlimited plan of $60. However, he must be getting an inside deal - because that varies from the plans currently posted which show a 2GB plan available for $35/month. They give a short description of different usage profiles – but what’s missing is what the maximum connection speed of 4 Mbps/384 Kbps really means.

For consumers interested in speed, that certainly beats DSL – but at my house we have Verizon’s FIOS and I know that Comcast also has a higher speed option. Further, both of those providers bundle TV services so I have to weigh Clear’s mobility advantage vs. totally different vectors like my wife’s preference for on-demand television features. In time, Comcast hopes to offer a quadruple play, and we may even see television content coming directly across WiMax

I mention the consumer value proposition first, because it’s likely that their adoption is to going to spur the business community. Business can be hesitant to send their information over wireless. An early advocate for WiFi security once relayed to me how he was going down in flames with his attempts to justify the need for his offering to a Fortune 100 CIO who had set a policy against WiFi networks. Fortunately, the salesperson remembered his WiFi locator and was able to instantly show over 20 networks accessible from that conference room’s location. Clearly, if a technology is compelling it will find it’s way into the corporate environment.

Professionals who are using 3G for merely monitoring their email inbox or sporadically locating a specific piece of information, may not be compelled to move. It’s already available in the same form and boasts nearly identical coverage as the familiar cellphone. WiMax requires a higher-end plan and not yet available card once you leave the Portland metro area and because of the battery consumption you won’t see WiMax handhelds for at least another year.

However, others have said that it is virtually unusable if you are typically having to access network resources more than 3 times over a ten minute stretch. In other words, if you are sitting down with the purpose of getting computer based work done in a place other than your office you are a good candidate for WiMax

So the key question is who fits that profile? Certainly salespeople who are doing most of their calling on the local area. An account manager who needs to show critical system information to their client in a face to face meeting can give greater confidence pulling that up on their laptop. CRM software become more powerful if it can be used online. It will be interesting to see if financial advisors or mortgage brokers are willing to take the mystery out of their work and perform a real-time analysis right in front of the customer. Ironically, one of the biggest opportunites I hear technology solution providers mention is VoIP, especially Microsoft’s ResponsePoint. Will Clear’s offering of business voice service be complimentary or competitive to that?