Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) has launched its WiMax service in 10 new markets, but they aren’t the big cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle listed on Clearwire’s earlier announced deployment schedule. Instead it’s turning on its Clear 4G service in Killeen, TX, and Bellingham, WA, smaller cities that individually don’t add much to its total tally of pops covered, but taken collectively could grow substantially its footprint.
Most of the new markets are in Texas and scheduled to: Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Killeen-Temple, Lubbock, Midland-Odessa, Waco and Wichita Falls. Clearwire today launched two more markets in the Pacific Northwest–Boise, ID, and Bellingham. All of them are markets where Clearwire currently offers it pre-WiMax residential broadband service, making them the first wave in Clearwire’s plans to upgrade its proprietary fixed wireless network to true mobile WiMax. They will also serve as test for Clearwire to see if it can turn existing residential customers into mobile customers, a process it will have to replicate in Seattle, Honolulu and Charlotte, NC, later this year.
When Clearwire unveiled its 2009 launch plans it rattled off a list of eight more major markets it planned to take live to compliment its existing networks in Baltimore and Portland, OR. The operator, however, stressed that “at least” 10 markets would be running by year end. Today’s announcement shows that “at least” could have much bigger implications. Clearwire has pre-WiMax running in 50 small and mid-sized markets across the country. If it converted them all to full-blown WiMax networks, it would go a long way to achieving the 80 markets and 120 million pops covered it is targeting for the end of 2010.