by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
Officials from Clearwire were in town recently to announce that the new wireless broadband Internet provider has doubled its range of service in the Jacksonville area.
Clark Peterson, Clearwire’s president of major markets, said an additional 75,000 homes and numerous businesses in Duval County are now included in the company’s expanded coverage area.
Clearwire’s original coverage area included downtown Jacksonville, San Marco, Mandarin, Fleming Island and parts of Baymeadows, but the new expansion extends service to Arlington, Ponte Vedra Beach and the Jacksonville beaches.
“We had a tremendous start and that is why we accelerated this to get the expansion going even sooner,” said Peterson. “We have been adding more customers sooner than originally anticipated.”
Peterson said the company expedited its expansion because Clearwire had been receiving a plethora of inquiries on its website from the beaches since the wireless Internet service was introduced to Jacksonville in late August.
“We were seeing a great deal of requests from these areas as well as a lot from the Julington Creek area,” he said.
Julington Creek was not included in the recent expansion, but Peterson said more expansions are coming soon. The next areas likely to receive service are Ortega, Orange Park, Julington Creek and the Westside.
“We will continuously build in (Jacksonville) as we see the demand for service in the different areas,” said Peterson.
Clearwire broadcasts its Internet signal via radio signals transmitted from the same cellular towers mobile phones use. With the expansion, Clearwire now transmits from 30 cellular sites in Jacksonville, Peterson said. He added that Clearwire has spent more than $1 million on licensed frequency rights in Jacksonville.
“We co-locate on the same towers that cellular companies use,” he said, “It costs us a lot of money to own the rights to these different licenses. But because we own those licenses it provides for a very secure mechanism to be able to broadcast our Internet signal.”
Clearwire service works similar to cellular phone service. After signing up for service, the company will send the customer an antenna, about the size of a paperback book, which is plugged into a computer. As long as the customer is in the service area and their devices are plugged in and turned on, the Internet service should be available.
Clearwire uses “non-line-of-site wireless technology,” which Peterson said is very easy for customers to use.
“Unlike other wireless technologies where you have to have a dish or an antenna on your roof, (Clearwire’s antenna) doesn’t have to be pointed in any particular way,” he said. It’s a very easy, flexible way to get high speed Internet service without having to install anything or load any CDs.”
Peterson said service expansion is easier for Clearwire than it is for other broadband providers, such as Comcast or BellSouth, because Clearwire does not use physical connections such as cables or wires.
“As your town rolls out into the outlying areas, it is easier for us to put up a cell tower than for the competition to dig up streets and lay copper and cable,” he said. “When you put up a tower, you instantly have several square miles covered that same day versus taking up the streets for a long while.”
Though Jacksonville was the first city in the U.S. to receive Clearwire’s technology and services, Peterson said the company has plans to offer its services in other cities.
Daytona Beach, Abiline, Texas and St. Cloud, Minn. should be receiving service later this year, and Clearwire will build out 20 more cities in 2005, Peterson said.