The public has been eagerly anticipating news from Clearwire, and today they finally offered some information about their current state and future plans.
Clearwire started with the bad news: we knew their financial state was poor, but the company lost an incredible $118 million in the fourth quarter on revenue of just $20.5 million. They claim to have 475,000 subscribers (remember, even though WiMAX is only available in Portland and Baltimore, Clearwire operates "pre-WiMAX" internet networks in 40 other markets, so this total counts them as well), but they are going to need to expand rapidly to start turning a profit.
However, they do have a plan - and the money to execute it. The creation of the new Clearwire company left them with over $3 billion to use, and they say that they plan to spend between $1.5 and $1.9 billion on expanding the network this year.
So what are they going to be doing with that money? Here are the highlights:
- Launch WiMAX in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle in 2009.
- Launch WiMAX in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Houston and San Francisco in 2010.
- Expand Clear network to 80 markets in 2010.
- Release close to 100 WiMAX-compatible products (with Intel's help) in 2009.
