Intellectual Property Law

Is the Cable WiMax Consortium Getting Off the Ground?

By Cynthia Brumfield

The WSJ reported last month that Comcast, Time Warner and Brighthouse Networks are forming a new WiMax consortium with Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire. Intel and Google are possibly joining in as investors.

Now GigaOm reports that Comcast is creating a new wireless division and hired CTO of Telefonica O2 Europe, Dave Williams, to be the CTO of the new group.

All of this comes on the heels of the cablecos pretty dismal track record in reselling Sprint service under the brand name Pivot. (Karl Bode at Broadband Reports got a hold of a memo that says that Comcast will stop selling Pivot this week, but other operators have already put the mobile service on hold.)

It's hard to imagine how an unwieldy consortium of inexperienced cable ops and a weakened Sprint can make a go of an untested technology, particularly when the competition is AT&T and Verizon Wireless. On the other hand, cable has little choice given that without a mobile business, the industry is going to be left behind in a wireless world.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on April 23, 2008 (boomark / email).