@ 4G World: Carriers brace for data storm

CHICAGO – The final day of this year’s 4G World event included a roundtable discussion of representatives from a diverse selection of wireless operators, all of whom seemed to agree that mobile broadband is set to revolutionize the industry and hopefully the industry is prepared.
During the discussion, Clearwire Corp.’s chief commercial officer Michael Sievert, touting a mantra that few carriers can tout, said that American carriers really have no idea what is coming their way when it comes to mobile data usage and their networks’ ability to handle that traffic. Sievert pointed out that current plans to launch LTE services using 20 or 30 megahertz of spectrum will quickly run into capacity constraints if consumers aggressively partake in the fruits of the technology’s labor.
While Clearwire is in a sort of cat-birds seat when it comes to the availability of spectrum as it has in excess of 120 megahertz of capacity in most of its markets, even Sievert noted that Clearwire could run into those constraints at some point in the future if customers go crazy with their mobile broadband usage.
“If we had millions of people streaming 1080p video all the time we would have trouble,” Sievert noted.
Sievert, speaking with RCR Wireless News earlier at the show, noted that while the carrier was looking at potentially selling off some of its spectrum assets in an attempt to raise funds to support continued build out plans and possible technology evolutions, that plan was only one of four the carrier was looking at and that it would expect to announce the resolution of that decision sometime before the end of the year.