Pretty much every tech source out there is reporting that the merger between Sprint’s XOHM WiMax service and Clearwire has been finalized with $3.2 Billion in funding coming from Google, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner and Bright House Networks. What a coincidence… Comcast has failed me miserably in the past week and today I purchased a XOHM Wireless USB connection.
This past Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I woke up early to write a couple articles for phandroid. A sigh of WTF billowed out as I could not connect to the internet. Repair network - nothing. Restart computer? nothing. Reset my modem, router and computer? Nada. Zilch. Zero.
So I call customer service and after 1 hour on the line? Nothing. Well that’s not completely true… they scheduled a technician to come out today (Monday) 5 days later. Luckily I have a few alternative places I can “stay” and access the Internet… so a trip it was!
I came back this morning to find that:

• My roomate rescheduled the appointment for Sunday
• They never came
• My roomate called and they rescheduled for Tuesday
• So that left me here, on Monday, without access to Internet. Sure, I could have packed my bags and headed to a little cafe with WiFi. Or I could even make an hour or so drive to one of the several friends/family who would take me in for the day/night so I could leech their interwebs. But I have a bunch of packages on the way and need to be home for the next several days to ensure they arrive.
  But beyond that, I was sick of the uncertainty. This could happen at any given time - Comcast could just POOF go out - and I could be left without a convenient internet connection for days on end. And no, there aren’t any other WiFi signals I can pick up from my house that aren’t painfully slow.
  I took a quick drive to BestBuy and grabbed a XOHM USB hub for $60, came home, installed the software, paid for 24 hours service for $5 and within 10 minutes I had a blazing fast connection to the internet. A blazing fast connection that for all intents ans purposes, can’t go down.
  
  I know I’m opening up the door to* all sorts of agruments in the comments, but I’m simplifying the facts. The point is, even if XOHM service WERE to go down it would get back up and running MUCH faster. Because they are more than likely fixing a tower rather than having to set up an individual schedule to fix my personal problem.
  Comcast is scheduled to come tomorrow between 7am and 10am at which point they’ll either fix the problem or diagnose the problem and schedule another ridiculous time several days into the future that they plan on fixing it. If the latter happens, I’ll probably tell them to take a hike and just start using XOHM full-time.
  
  XOHM packages are both unique and awesome, if you ask me. You can get 24 hour web access for $5 or a month of web access for $30. The best part? No contracts! Just pay by the month! I’m lucky to be in Baltimore where XOHM made its debut and I’m happy it did. XOHM was a lifesaver for me today and it will probably save me again tomorrow when Comcast shows their incompetence yet again. In fact, many people I know locally are switching their Internet/TV service to Verizon.
  And this is where the story comes full circle. Tomorrow, I might be leaving Comcast to use XOHM full time. But XOHM was part of Sprint and the service will be renamed Clear under the new company, Clearwire. The same Clearwire that was just approved for $3.2 Billion in financing… $1 Billion of which comes from Comcast.
  
  So is this a case of “The Grass Is Always Greener Between The Two Fences Which is Partially Owned By Numerous Neighbors?” You betchya… and that is the main problem that Clearwire will have if you ask me. There are many stakeholders in Clearwire that have priorities and interests pulling in different directions. If execs in these companies sit on the Clearwire board or hold prominent positions in the company, there will be a tremendous conflict of interest that could create huge problems.
  Myself, I’m sure along with many reading this article now, would love to see XOHM/WiMax/Clear used to conjunction with mobile devices, like an Android Phone, to support tremendous growth in mobile web speed and capabilities. Officials at Comcast and Time Warner likely have other ideas in mind. You can spin it however you want but the fact is that resources are never unlimited and at some point, decisions on how and where to use those resources must be made.
  If one were looking at this in the most optimistic of manners than the investment is an insurance policy purchased by the investors. They’ll have a stake in a possible industry juggernaut moving forward and regardless of how their own company performs, Clearwire will provide some balance and diversity depending on which direction the tech sector heads next… its often hard to tell.
  But lets not be naive. Do you think for a second that these huge companies with enormous power not only within their industry but within the world are just going to plop down hunderds of millions of dollars, pat Clearwire on the back and say, “go out and play?”
  Not a chance. They’re going to keep an eye on their investment and make sure the company is being managed properly. And what Comcast or Time Warner views as “properly” could differ greatly from what Google views as “properly”.
  That’s one way to look at it. The pessimistic way to look at it. But you could also look at Clearwire as more of a “meeting of the minds” where the best ideas and actions will be discussed by these various stakeholders and the CEO of Clearwire will attempt to do what is best for the company and its investors moving forward. Sound familiar?
  It reminded me a lot of what Barack Obama said today as he announced more members of his cabinet including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:“I assembled this team because I am a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions,” he said.
  “I think that’s how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group-think and everybody agrees with everything and there’s no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I am going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.”
  And if this Obamian perspective is to be believed, then Clearwire CEO Benjamin C. Wolff had better be prepared to be a strong, visionary leader.
  So as I sit here writing this article with my little XOHM USB plugged in, I am quite literally wondering if I am looking at my solution for today’s problem or if another industry powerhouse is being created before our eyes. Unfortunately, the answer is anything but Clear.
  [Via Clearwire PR]
  
  
  More...

The tech blogosphere takes pride in its canny ability to leak information about upcoming devices and announcements before the company themselves make the information “officially official”. But execs at Nokia say their countdown clock (which runs out soon) is counting down to a huge announcement that nobody on the internet has yet predicted, leaked or anything else.


You can be pretty confident it isn’t the Nokia touchscreen XpressMusic phone because that has been leaked on more times than a portipot at Preakness. Apple and Android have their sight set on taking over the mobile industry and Nokia, whose Symbian OS is currently the market leader, doesn’t want to let that happen. So what will they announce?
For all the supposed “bragging” that Nokia execs are doing, it better be something good. We can be pretty sure it isn’t an Android based phone since Nokia owns Symbian, which competes directly with Android’s Linux based OS. But if somehow, some way it WERE an Android Phone… what are the chances it would be made available on Verizon Wireless? There you have it… the LEAST likely scenario… Nokia announces an Android Phone on Verizon Wireless.
But in all seriousness, most phandroids out there are also just mobile and tech enthusiasts in general and we’re curious to hear your predictions… what does Nokia have prepared to announce?
Will it be a phone or other hardware? Will it be about developments in the Symbian platform? Will it be a contest announcement and SDK of some sorts like the Android Developer’s Challenge? Or will it be something else altogether?
[Via Mobile Roar]


More...

pCNBC, high on its viewership numbers as the markets continue to nosedive, is in for its own downturn possibly by Q1 of next, a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6618023.html" title="a long cover story"a long cover story/a in the latest issue of BC says. "Despite the yuks and the huge numbers, the network is now in the process of slashing as much as 10% from its budget. People at the network, says one staffer, are 'scared s---less.'...As CNBC enjoys a new level of visibility and is babout to launch a massive new marketing campaign to capitalize on the momentum/b, it must do so while navigating through the same flailing economy that has sent the network's proverbial stock soaring." This far into Q4, the channel viewership is up 66 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. /p p CNBC execs are working to implement a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-nbc-universal-caling-for-500-million-budget-cuts-next-year-layoffs-at-t/" title="next-year's $500 million cost-cut"next-year's $500 million cost-cut/a directives across parent NBC Universal (a href="http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=GE" class="ticker" title="GE"NYSE: GE/a), and CNBC's longform unit has already been downsized from 25 to about a dozen, the story says. And despite all that, today CNBC is brolling out four 30-second promotional spots each week/b featuring its more than 40 anchors and reporters, continuing on its "a href="iam.cnbc.com" title="I am CNBC"I am CNBC/a" campaign launched last year. /p p One of the video ads, below: /p p object width="300" height="202"param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2391441server=vimeo.comshow_title=1show_byline=1show_portrait=0color=fullscreen=1" /embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2391441server=vimeo.comshow_title=1show_byline=1show_portrait=0color=fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="300" height="202"/embed/objectbr /a href="http://vimeo.com/2391441"I Am CNBC: Maria Bartiromo/a from a href="http://vimeo.com/bandc"Broadcasting Cable/a on a href="http://vimeo.com"Vimeo/a. br / /p pstrongRelated/strong/p ul class="related" lia href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-nbc-universal-caling-for-500-million-budget-cuts-next-year-layoffs-at-t/" title="NBC Universal Calling For $500 Million Budget Cuts Next Year; Layoffs At Telemundo"NBC Universal Calling For $500 Million Budget Cuts Next Year; Layoffs At Telemundo/a/li /ul piOur streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. a href="http://m.paid.mwap.at/"Click here to download/a./i /p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=mr31h0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?i=mr31h0" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=MyuXO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=MyuXO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=9ffcO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=9ffcO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=BMRYo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=BMRYo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=OiMtO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=OiMtO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=wCBdO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=wCBdO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~4/471495318" height="1" width="1"/

Come on, you didn't think Nokia's only response to the G1, iPhone, and Storm would be the 5800 XpressMusic, did you? Word on the ground at this week's Nokia World conference is that Espoo is planning a major announcement tomorrow -- and hey, is that a countdown timer to the keynote that just went live on Nokia's site? Interesting. Our pal and yours Robert Scoble says that Nokia execs are running around bragging that "the Internet" is totally in the dark on this one, and that only a small number of people within the company have seen the new device. That's certainly got our ears perked up -- we're guessing this is something a little more major than that hinted-at touch Communicator. We'll let you know right away if you want to stay up with us -- the event is scheduled for 3:15AM EST.

Read - Scoble's take
Read - Nokia countdown clock

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia teases major new product launching tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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div align="center"a href="http://events.nokia.com/countdown/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/12-01-08nokiatease.jpg" alt="" //abr //div Come on, you didn't think Nokia's only response to the G1, iPhone, and Storm would be the a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/02/the-nokia-5800-xpressmusic/"5800 XpressMusic/a, did you? Word on the ground at this week's Nokia World conference is that Espoo is planning a major announcement tomorrow -- and hey, is that a countdown timer to the keynote that just went live on Nokia's site? Interesting. Our pal and yours Robert Scoble says that Nokia execs are running around bragging that "the Internet" is totally in the dark on this one, and that only a small number of people within the company have seen the new device. That's certainly got our ears perked up -- we're guessing this is something a little more major than that hinted-at a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/02/nokia-hints-at-new-touch-based-communicator/"touch Communicator/a. We'll let you know right away if you want to stay up with us -- the event is scheduled for 3:15AM EST.br /br /a href="http://scobleizer.com/2008/11/30/nokias-touchiest-week/"Read/a - Scoble's takebr /a href="http://events.nokia.com/countdown/"Read/a - Nokia countdown clockpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/cellphones/" rel="tag"Cellphones/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/nokia-teases-major-new-product-launching-tomorrow/"Nokia teases major new product launching tomorrow/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:56:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/nokia-teases-major-new-product-launching-tomorrow/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1387431/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/nokia-teases-major-new-product-launching-tomorrow/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1UhalvB3v26xecvDg9XxYhIybMI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1UhalvB3v26xecvDg9XxYhIybMI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=RS4r9kMA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=RS4r9kMA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=18KsVVvi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=18KsVVvi" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/cWHW-v5C0KA" height="1" width="1"/

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=48954c7714b9b93300525357maxX=250maxY=417" border="0" alt="jon miller kung fu aol.jpg" title="jon miller kung fu aol.jpg" width="250" height="417" /The Times of London reports the details of an intricate pending Microsoft-Yahoo deal, in which Microsoft would buy Yahoo's search business for $20 billion and install Jon Miller and Ross Levinsohn to run the company. The concept sounds reasonable (Microsoft buying Yahoo search), but the price sounds ridiculous (Yahoo's whole market cap right now is about $15 billion). And a key player in the drama, Ross Levinsohn, says the whole thing is a crock./p pFirst, a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article5258258.ece"the Times' report:/a/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"SOFTWARE giant Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo's online search business for $20 billion ( 13 billion)./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"The proposal forms the centrepiece of a complex transaction that would see Microsoft support a new management team to take control of Yahoo. But there is no intention of Microsoft tabling another takeover bid for the web giant, after its aborted $47.5 billion offer this summer./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"It is thought that Jonathan Miller, ex-chairman and chief executive of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media, have been lined up to lead the new management team. Senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed.../p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Under the terms of the proposed transaction, Microsoft would provide a $5 billion facility to the Miller and Levinsohn management team. The duo would raise an additional $5 billion from external investors./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"This cash would be used to buy convertible preference shares and warrants which would give it a holding in excess of 30% of Yahoo./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"The external investors would also have the right to appoint three of Yahoo's 11 board directors. The talks with Yahoo involve Microsoft obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. It would also receive a two-year call option to buy the search business for $20 billion. That would leave Yahoo to run its own e-mail, messaging, and content services./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"It is expected that the operating agreement would boost Yahoo's income by as much as $2 billion per annum./p pAnd now a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081129/total-fiction-there-is-no-20-billion-microsoft-deal-to-buy-yahoo-search/"Kara Swisher's debunking:/a/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"A a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article5258258.ece"report in the Times of London/a in which Microsoft would buy Yahoo's search business in a convoluted $20 billion deal that would include well-known Internet execs Jon Miller and Ross Levinsohn, is-in the words of one key player-'total fiction.'/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Actually, that's Levinsohn speaking, on the record. But that's also the essential word from all key players regarding the Times' report./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"BoomTown has spoken to top sources at Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) too and all scoff at such a deal now taking place or that either side has been in any such discussions of late./p pWho to believe? Let's assume the truth is somewhere in the middle. Even if there are no actual talks taking place right this minute, there should be./p pThe $20 billion number is almost certainly fiction, given that, last summer, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo's search business for $1 billion. Microsoft also wants to own and run the search technology, so the idea of having a call option doesn't really make sense. Microsoft and Yahoo need to merge their search businesses, however, and both companies have said publicly they are happy to discuss a deal, so the idea that they're working on something is perfectly plausible. (And if they aren't now, soon.)/p pRoss Levinsohn and Jon Miller, meanwhile, would make fine additions to Yahoo's senior team, and they are almost certainly being considered for those roles./p pLastly, unlike everyone else in the economy, Microsoft has cash coming out of its ears. So the idea of Microsoft using some of that cash to facilitate a Yahoo deal (which it also tried to do last summer). also makes sense./p pstrongBottom line: /strongIf Yahoo and Microsoft aren't discussing a search deal right now, they should be and soon will be. And Yahoo's short list of candidates for CEO probably includes Jon./p pstrongSee Also/strong: a href="http://businesssheet.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/the-biggest-losers-"The Biggest Losers: 20 Moguls Creamed By The Crash/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HUGAG6ApwIYj8zYalcFYhx8hc3A/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/HUGAG6ApwIYj8zYalcFYhx8hc3A/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=Xazo1K74"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=Xazo1K74" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=TCUsVG9D"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=loHWkdFZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=7QzwaJIM"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=7QzwaJIM" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=69Duwhxf"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=zKFQt5X3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=b54mT8QX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=kWVNDw24"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/0RJVw6sTqM0" height="1" width="1"/

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
“Total Fiction”: There Is No $20 Billion Microsoft Deal To Buy Yahoo Search (Not Yet, At Least!)  —  A report in the Times of London in which Microsoft would buy Yahoo's search business in a convoluted $20 billion deal that would include well-known Internet execs Jon Miller and Ross Levinsohn …