Clearwire signed up another wholesale
customer today with the addition of Jolt Mobile, a provider of prepaid and
international calling for GSM phones.
The contract will help bolster
Clearwire’s wholesale customer base as Sprint, its largest wholesale WiMAX
customer, prepares to phase out use of its WiMAX network. Clearwire has added
four new customers for its WiMAX network since last fall: Simplexity,
FreedomPop, NetZero and now Jolt Mobile.
“Clearwire’s 4G network is a great fit
for Jolt, enabling them to add 4G mobile data plans to their prepaid service
portfolio,” said Don Stroberg, Clearwire’s senior vice president of
strategic partnerships and wholesale, in a statement. “We’re thrilled to
continue building momentum as the premier wholesale provider of 4G capacity to
carriers in the U.S.”
Stroberg touted Clearwire’s WiMAX
network as a good fit for a “broad range of providers including national and regional operators,
MVNOs, and non-traditional entrants.”
Clearwire said its contract with Jolt
Mobile may be eventually expanded to include access to its TD-LTE overlay
network, slated for launch next year.
“By partnering with Clearwire we aim to
give our customers a compelling 4G alternative to higher-priced carriers,”
Jolt Mobile President Avi Yroshalmaine said in the announcement.
Jolt Mobile’s prepaid service runs on
unlocked tri-band/quad-band GSM 900/1800/1900 phones and is compatible with
locked AT&T phones and unlocked GSM phones from other providers.
Clearwire is still heavily dependent on
Sprint WiMAX customers for its revenue. Sprint’s WiMAX customers comprise
virtually all of Clearwire’s wholesale revenue and accounted for more than
one-third of its income during the first three months of this year. Wholesale
customers also vastly outnumber Clearwire’s retail customers – it had 9.7
million wholesale customers and just 1.3 million of its own retail customers
during the first quarter.
Sprint said last year it would not
develop any new 3G/WiMAX handsets this year, though it did announce a tri-mode
hotspot in May compatible with 3G, WiMAX and its LTE network. It will support
WiMAX customers through 2015, even after it stops selling devices compatible
with Clearwire’s network.
Clearwire has said it is aggressively
pursuing new wholesale customers. It announced yesterday it had joined the
Rural Cellular Association, a move that will give it added lobbying clout and
access to regional providers who could be potential customers.
Clearwire’s forthcoming TD-LTE network
is a key part of its forward-looking strategy. The service is designed to
provide supplemental capacity to companies looking to bolster their LTE
networks in high-traffic areas like large cities.
So far, Sprint and Leap Wireless
International prepaid brand Cricket Communications have signed up for the
network.
“We believe that, as the demand for
mobile broadband services continues its rapid growth, Sprint and other service
providers will find it difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy their
customers’ demands with their existing spectrum holdings,” Clearwire said
in its most recent quarterly report. “By deploying LTE, we believe that we
will be able to take advantage of our leading spectrum position to offer
offload data capacity to Sprint and other existing and future mobile broadband
service providers for resale to their customers on a cost effective basis.”
Clearwire expects to have its first
5,000 TD-LTE cell sites up and running by mid-2013, part of the 8,000 sites it
currently has planned for the service. New York City, San Francisco, Los
Angeles and Chicago are among the 31 cities scheduled to go live next year.