Dragonwave is a great company/product strategy but they sell back haul, a generic requirement of all wireless BB operators. Clearwire is using them for much of their back haul but that has little to do with Apple's decision where they sell the iPhone.

As for Clearwire: as CW gets above 100 million POPs they start to look more attractive for consumer electronics applications of all sorts including the iPhone. Until then, sometime around mid 2010, they remain in the build-out phase of business development. At this point they have about 1/10th the number of POPs (people covered) as Verizon or AT&T.

CW does have the higher bandwidth that mobile computing, entertainment and video devices need... that becomes a very appealing prospect once wider spread coverage is achieved.

While its certainly not too early to enter into talks, Apple is under no immediate pressure to place CW on the front burner. interface. If they were to do a deal, they can only sell into the markets that CW currently covers: growing fast but still not near that of competitors.


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On the issue of DSL Reports or other coverage flames: As I've been saying, 2.5GHz is a relatively high frequency mobile networks. The nature of the technology and how it is deployed is rapidly changing but is market dependent. If CW could jump ahead by about five years and an additional $10-$20 billion capex to build out a micro-cellular network as anticipated in WiMAX-Advanced version, there would be a base station or remote/relay station located within a few thousand feet of every residence, public place and thoroughfare so that signals would more easily penetrate into the tough spots. Until then, coverage is not going to be equal to current expectations for mobile phone service.

Don't forget, mobile coverage has taken several years of tweaking including in-building signal enhancement. CW will take at least a few years to be on par with 'fully mobile' expectations.

Of course, what Clearwire is selling is as a stand-alone is metro cloud type service. The reason they offer the combo Sprint 3.5G and WiMAX is so that idiots who need the broad coverage can buy it. The first response from customer service should be "If you want full coverage, pay for it."