Clearwire uses protected MMDS spectrum to provide broadband wireless Internet access to consumers and small businesses. The company utilizes next-generation, non-line-of-sight wireless technology provided by one of its subsidiary companies, NextNet, which claims to provide non-line-of-sight equipment that will work anywhere. Many in the industry question this claim.

In the late 1990's, Sprint, MCI and a host of other wireless cable TV providers launched MMDS systems, but they ultimately failed because their marketing campaigns promised more than their engineering teams could deliver.

Not because it couldn't be done, but because the companies had a difficult time explaining that certain customers would never be able to service because structures or trees blocked their line of site.

How is Craig McCaw and Clearwire using a combination of MMDS and public spectrum to deliver service? The company claims to be signing up lots of new customers, but refuses to provide any official customer counts. If so, why keep it a secret?

Our guess it that Clearwire doesn't want the public to know where it is having the most success. So where is Clearwire signing up customers?

Perhaps the answer can be found by taking a look back in history.

Craig McCaw grew up watching his father buying and selling radio and television stations. One acquisition his father made included a small rural cable operator, which ended up under the younger McCaw's management. Mirroring a strategy learned from his father, McCaw reduced costs, increased revenue and began acquiring more small rural cable operators.

Using the equity in the cable systems, McCaw also borrowed money and began acquiring rural cell phone licenses with the intent of building the first national wireless cellular network. At the time, people questioned why someone would want to use a cell phone in more than one city.

Most of the big players had never heard of Craig McCaw. Those who did doubted his strategy of acquiring assets in rural markets, much the same way that cable operators and DSL providers to this day frown on broadband opportunties in rural markets.

I’m sure Mr. McCaw's father was smiling in 1986 when his son sold his cable operation for $755 million. Then again eight years later, when he sold his national network of wireless cellular carriers for $11.4 billion.

It is no wonder that when researching material for this article that McCaw wouldn’t allow his PR team to share the details of what they are building, nor the number of subscribers they have put on their systems. But a good guess would be rural areas and secondary markets where acquiring MMDS licenses is fairly inexpensive.

It's not clear exactly how much MMDS spectrum Clearwire has access to, although a simple search on the FCC's online database shows the startup holds 132 MMDS licenses. It is estimated that McCaw owns enough MMDS spectrum to roll out wireless broadband service in the top 75 U.S. markets. The real question is does McCaw have enough spectrum to rollout a national network. Highly questionable when Nextel Sprint owns 93% of the spectrum McCaw needs to build a full fledged national MMDS wireless network.

Another option that McCaw might be pursuing it to buy the Advanced Wireless Spectrum that the FCC has been planning to auction off for years. The FCC recently said it might be ready to auction off this spectrum as soon as June 2006.

It's hard to write a concluding paragraph for this profile without input from Mr. McCaw. However, given his historical pattern of buying up rural assets, reducing costs, increasing gross revenues and selling out for large sums of money, it is a fairly educated guess that McCaw is pursuing the golden opportunity of providing high-speed wireless Internet access in rural areas. The real question is, "What does Craig McCaw know that everyone else seems to be overlooking?"

Time will tell.

Number of Wireless Internet Customers:

Number of Cities/States Served: