In news announcements today cable giant Comcast announced that it would start reselling Clearwire’s WiMax services, a business move they promised earlier this year.
From the press release, the main pricing plan for the service (which they are calling Comcast High-Speed 2go™) is a combo of wired cable broadband and local Clearwire WiMax for $49.99, or cable plus a hybrid 3G/4G card for $69.99:
The $49.99 Fast Pack Metro service includes Comcast’s 12 Mbps home Internet service, a free WiFi router for mobility and extended coverage in the home, and 4G service that will provide up to 4 Mbps download speed when customers are on the go. For an additional $20 per month, consumers can upgrade to the Fast Pack Nationwide service that includes the same services plus nationwide 3G mobile network access.
Though we haven’t yet heard the full details from Comcast it appears the cable company will be offering its customers a version of the Sprint 3G/4G hybrid card that allows for access to both Clearwire-hosted WiMax services where they are available and Sprint’s 3G cellular network where they’re not. Like Sprint’s reselling plan Comcast will make these services available in markets where Clearwire launches, which include Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas/Fort Worth this year among others.
While Om questions whether Clearwire and Comcast will be able to get their national act together before Verizon rolls out its 4G offerings, from a Clearwire perspective this has to be viewed as a big step forward — who better to act as a reseller than a provider with lots of existing billing relationships?
Need to know more about Clearwire — like which markets it will launch in 2009, and what devices will be available? Order our CLEARWIRE NTK, or Clearwire Need to Know report for just $4.95! For less than the price of a Portland microbrew you can satisfy your thirst for knowledge of all things WiMAX and all things Clearwire.
About Paul Kapustka
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