Clearwire, the conglomerate behind WiMax - broadband wifi technology - which has a majority ownership from Sprint Nextel, added 1.5 million new customers last quarter. This, following a well-received advertising campaign featuring their CEO, Dan Hesse, in which the brand points out that they alone offer consumers unlimited plans and no caps, unlike rivals Verizon, AT&T/T-Mobile, through their Simply Everything plan. The company has roughly 49 million subscribers, compared with Verizon's 102 million, 95 million for AT&T and about 34 million with T-Mobile.
Sprint also announced that they too would be offering an iPhone 5 in mid October - launching concurrently with the AT&T and Verizon versions. Little is known about the Sprint iPhone, such as price point, options, or if this or future versions will be WiMax compatable, but analysts are already predicting sales in excess of 1 million units at launch. Are those prognastications due to consumer frustration with AT&T, a rush to support the sole carrier essentially supportive of Net Neutrality, or a combination of both? The smart money is on the gaming folks like Andre Vrignaud throwing their support behind Sprint though. Maybe there's a future between gamers and the brand after all…
