Rover is available in all of Clearwire’s 49 4G markets across the U.S. at rover.com. Rover is also available at CLEAR stores, Best Buy stores and select independent wireless dealers in Houston and St. Louis.

“Simple, commitment-free wireless services are wildly popular with the Gen Y crowd, and Rover provides them with the first pay-as-you-go unlimited mobile internet offering at 4G speeds,” said Mike Sievert, chief commercial officer for Clearwire. “We’ve built Rover from the ground up with products, pricing and features designed specifically to serve a younger market who knows how you get connected is just as important as where. Expanding our offers to meet this underserved segment is an important new business opportunity for Clearwire as we continue to extend our leadership in mobile broadband.”

“The opportunity for pay-as-you-go mobile broadband should not be underestimated,” said Carrie MacGillvray, program manager and wireless analyst at IDC. “Prepaid – or pay-as-you-go – data provides an option for consumers to experiment with the power of mobile broadband without being saddled with a two-year commitment. A prepaid mobile broadband service can offer consumers the ability to access and share Internet service, at home or on the go, in an affordable way.”

PUCKS AND STICKS

Friends with Benefits

Rover’s flagship device is the Rover Puck: an ergonomically designed portable Wi-Fi hotspot that lets you share broadband access, or “Puck”, with up to eight devices at home, out on the town or nearly anywhere the feeling strikes you. The Rover Puck can easily slip into a purse or backpack and serve as an on-the-go broadband access point for devices such as laptops, netbooks, the iPad^™, the iPod touch^®, smartphones, PSP^® systems, game consoles, and Wi-Fi enabled digital cameras, among others. Users have the option to connect up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously.

The Rover Puck features mobile download speeds of three to six mbps, with bursts over 10 mbps (up to 4x faster than conventional 3G), using Clearwire’s 4G network. The Rover Puck is available today for $149.99 (plus tax).

Going Solo

The Rover Stick^™ is a personal 4G USB modem that connects any notebook, laptop or desktop to the Rover 4G Service. The Rover Stick is compatible with MacBook^® and MacBook^® Pro laptops using Mac OS X, as well as netbooks and notebooks running Windows^® XP, Windows Vista^® and Windows^® 7. Offering the same super-fast internet speed as the Rover Puck, the Rover Stick is available today for $99.99 (plus tax).

No Commitment Issues

New users receive two free days of service to ensure Rover’s metro-focused 4G coverage fits their mobile lifestyle. Rover has a 14-day no-hassle return policy for any device purchases made on rover.com or in CLEAR stores.

Rover is priced at $5/day, $20/week, or $50/month for unlimited 4G internet usage. Depending on the retail channel, customers will be able to purchase a Rover Re-Up PIN code or physical Rover Re-Up card in $20 or $50 denominations. Rover Re-Up is available online at rover.com, at all retail outlets carrying the Rover Puck or Rover Stick, as well as at Rover Re-Up specific retail locations. Rover does not require a credit card to activate service and is designed to bring broadband internet to a new audience.

GENERATION Y

The Rover brand is designed for a demographic that has grown up in a wireless world. They manage their life through the internet, and their devices signify status. Rover provides products and service to meet their need for all things internet.

“Rover’s target audience has never known life without internet. They love their devices and they want as much speed and capacity as possible, without the limits and commitments of most mobile options,” said Seth Cummings, GM, Rover. “Rover offers iconic devices along with straight-forward pricing, and plans where unlimited truly means unlimited. It is not in Rover’s DNA to be constraining, confusing or complex.”

MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Launch campaign

Rover’s initial communications will showcase the dramatic ways in which 4G mobile broadband can change human behavior in previously unimagined ways. More information is available at www.evology.com.

Life @ 4G

Rover.com invites users to experience “Life @ 4G.” Rover-sponsored athletes and music artists will be profiled, showing how Rover influences their careers and lives as they live Life @ 4G. Sporting a Rover wingsuit, base jumper JT Holmes, who travels up to 150 mph during freefall proximity flying, lives life with the Rover Puck and no strings attached.

Rover Activity Badges

Rover believes in loyalty, and will introduce a badging system that rewards users for participating in Rover activities. For example, the “Trendsetter” badge recognizes early adopters of Rover in each market, and the “Friends with Benefits” badge acknowledges users who refer friends to the Rover service. Badges have become wildly popular on location-based apps and are expected to resonate with the youth consumer and motivate usage.

Source: Business Wire

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The Government has launched a consultation setting out its intention to implement a series of recommendations made by the Independent Spectrum Broker (ISB), Kip Meek, on how to make the best use of the digital spectrum – the airwaves which all mobile telecommunications networks need to operate.

The proposals will make available parts of the spectrum suitable for mobile broadband and 3G to offer more sophisticated services and applications. Lack of bandwidth and exclusive use of certain wavelengths for 2G services, such as voice calls and text messages, has constrained the expansion of mobile internet services.

Minister for Digital Britain, Stephen Timms said:

“Digital Britain is the Government’s vision for creating a world-class digital infrastructure boosting jobs, growth and competitiveness.

“To realize that vision it’s vital that we make the best use of the digital spectrum and ensure that sufficient bandwidth is available for sophisticated next generation services, and not just calls and texts.

“This package will free up the airwaves for the expansion of wireless and 3G services, increasing their reach to consumers and businesses across as much as 90 per cent of the country, including rural communities.

“I would also like to thank Kip Meek who has had to weigh up very complex issues in producing a report which marks a clear way forward.”

The Digital Britain report welcomed a number of recommendations made by Kip Meek in his report of May 2009.  However, further work was carried out to resolve some technical issues.  Kip Meek’s final proposals are published today alongside the consultation.

The Government now intends to implement these proposals through a Direction to Ofcom. Before doing so, it is obliged to consult on the Direction and has published its consultation today. Stakeholders are invited to put forward their views ahead of the deadline of 8 January 2010.

Source: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

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Mobile broadband employs cellular networks, where users pay subscriptions for access and the connection is made with a PC card, built-in adapter, or connections can be tethered via a cell-phone or PDA, and is different than Wi-Fi access, which is predicated on the availability of short range “hot spots” where access fees often apply incrementally for each connection. In 2007, Verizon and Sprint accounted for the majority of the mobile broadband market. AT&T has announced it will increase its coverage in 2008.The number of computers using mobile broadband technology to access the Internet grew by 154 percent in Q4 2007 versus the same period in 2006.

“Though mobile broadband access is currently used by about 1 percent of the total U.S. Internet population it is poised for significant growth over the next few years,” said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore. “As consumers increasingly demand and depend on portable Internet access, the demand for mobile broadband should continue to increase.”

At this early stage of mobile broadband, usage appears to be more a function of “need” than “want.” In particular, mobile broadband shows a significantly higher presence on work computers (59 percent) than home / personal computers (41 percent).

Mobile broadband is also somewhat of a luxury, skewing strongly towards the highest income households. Those making at least $100,000 were 37 percent more likely than average to use mobile broadband and those with incomes below $25,000 were 41 percent less likely to do so.
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The venture capital firm’s Top-10 trends list also points to consolidation and increased bandwidth consumption as critical items that will drive the industry in 2008.

M/C Venture Partners, which focuses on the communications, media, and information technology sectors, developed the list as an element of its research for gaining an accurate picture of its target industries and portfolio companies. The list includes input from M/C Venture Partners management and executives from many of its portfolio companies.

1) “Mobile broadband is becoming the medium to bridge the digital divide worldwide,” said James Wade, managing general partner, M/C Venture Partners. “Many people in the world, even developed economies, don’t have regular, affordable access to the Internet for a variety of reasons, but mobile phones and the business models around them are profitably penetrating even the low income sectors of the economy. Now more than ever, people of many means can use mobile phones to enable their lives. Quite simply, mobile broadband will democratize communications.”

Other trends on the M/C Venture Partners’ list include:

2) Consolidation will continue to be a driving force in the telecommunications services industries. Wireless carriers, CLECs, fiber carriers, and rural carriers are all improving their business models through consolidation, enabling higher profitability and quality services for their customers.

3) Network service providers will increase their usage of fiber-based infrastructure significantly. Driven by consumer demand for streaming video, premium bandwidth-intensive wired and wireless services, network service providers are continuing to absorb fiber from the glut, resulting in an environment with firmer pricing and higher fiber capacity utilization.

4) T1s going the way of the dinosaur. With businesses leading the way, IP-based broadband last-mile solutions will supplant T1 connections as the superior conduit for data communications. Through fixed wireless and fiber offerings the solutions are more flexible, affordable and available than ever.

5) The square footage of quality network hub locations (commercial data and collocations centers, Internet exchanges, proprietary hosting centers) will increase sharply in 2008. As bandwidth-intensive services continue to grow, so too does demand on network facilities. The industry is starting a new investment cycle in data centers that can support the power and bandwidth requirements fueled by video applications, distribution of database information and distributed computing, which will become more prevalent in 2008.

6) Telephony solutions will morph into managed services for the enterprise. VoIP services helped to start this trend, which promises to get a lot of attention next year. Alternative telephony companies will go beyond being a commodity provider and branch out into more complex outsourced applications that touch the data needs of the enterprise.

7) Wireless ushering in the ‘second coming of broadband’. Based upon investment trends and consumer demand, wireless broadband is doing today what DSL and cable broadband did for consumers five years ago. The industry will get past the hype and promise of wireless broadband and in 2008 finally begin introducing compelling services first to the consumer and later to the enterprise. Consumers in rural markets, in particular, will see an impact from this trend.

Consumers are increasingly valuing safety and security on their mobile devices, helping to support the carrier’s “walled garden” for mobile media. Payment-oriented applications, in particular, will drive this relationship. Carriers will benefit with a stronger base of viewers for their advertising models.

9) New seeds of application and network device innovation will be planted for future years. As a result of many of the advancements in data consumption and consumer demand for Internet-related services, there will be more opportunities for investors in new network devices and software applications to enable and manage the re-emerging communications ecosystems.

10) Network service providers will become key pillars of product and service innovation in 2008. Through consolidation and rational pricing, companies are profitable and that creates a good environment for investment in high-bandwidth applications and infrastructure.

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