Change of heart a blow to WiMAX
DirectTV CEO Chase Carey said at a conference this week that the largest US direct to home satellite provider will try out broadband over power lines in a few cities later this year.
And in that simple statement he may have delivered the biggest body blow to WiMAX in the US that he could have, and in particular to Craig McCaw's Clearwire and any of its suppliers. A test would be tried later this year in one of the top 50 cities in the US and would need to cover an area of at least half the city, Carey said.
The head and shoulders certainty for DirecTV to take its one way pay TV service and turn it into a two way triple play, was a deal with Clearwire and there is no question that such a deal would have been the making of McCaw's new baby. He recently signed a deal with AOL to get the marketing muscle of AOL behind the Clearwire broadband push, but would have loved even more to get the DirecTV marketing engine on his team.
So either DirecTV really believes that broadband over power is the way to go, and has an economic model of it which is secure, or it just could not come to terms with Clearwire. Our own view is that DirecTV could reduce churn so dramatically by offering a triple play, that its savings would have paid for the US rollout of Clearwire. With that understood, DirecTV would have sought ownership or part ownership or eventual control at Clearwire, and that may have been a sticking point.
[MORE]