Clearwire Shows 90 Mbps LTE

Clearwire Chief Commercial Officer Mike Sievert says Clearwire has tested Long Term Evolution during a recent test in Phoenix and achieved peak download speeds of 90 Mbps. Of course, that is on a network with zero users, and used a 20 MHz by 20 MHz channel.

Verizon is using 10 MHz by 10 MHz channels. More bandwidth enables faster speeds. Up to a point, speed is a nice marketing platform. Every carrier wants to advertise that it has the "fastest" network. But few customers actually buy the top-rated service any service provider sells.

Higher bandwidth is helpful when a single connection is shared by multiple users, as single fixed-line connections are shared by all members of a family or all workers at a single business location. A similar advantage would accrue to a wireless user sharing a single connection by Wi-Fi with multiple devices or users.

But there are very few applications a single user can interact with today that actually require 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps connections. In truth, such "hero" bandwidths are more a marketing gambit than something most people can use productively.

Clearwire details results of initial LTE testing