Kramer Telecom Law Firm, P.C.

October 7, 2009: Over the past few months, I've been talking with a lot of governments about Clearwire's deployment into Southern California.

For those of you who don't know the firm, Clearwire is an over-the-air subscription based Internet service provider. Their web site can be seen via this link. I've also put up a few photos of Clearwire sites in Portland, Oregon and Modesto, California. You can see those photos via this link.

The basic talking points I've been sharing regarding Clearwire's deployment to date has focused in several areas.

First, I've talked about the fact that Clearwire's sites are interconnected (one site, without others, is non-functional), and that Clearwire's method of interconnection is via line-of-sight microwave links. Because of this multi-site linkage for functionality, I've indicated that I believe that a CEQA review is necessary to avoid piecemealing the project.

Second, I've also discussed the fact that all of the projects that I've seen submitted so far bear Sprint/Nextel's name on the plans, applications, and cover letters from the various real property representative bring the projects to the planning counters. For the most part, the applications have requested modifications to exiting Sprint/Nextel sites. The issue I've raised is that Clearwire, while 51 percent owned by Sprint/Nextel, is an entirely separate entity, thus the projects are not really mods to Sprint sites, but rather collocations of a separate entity on an existing wireless site. The local government planning treatment of a mod of an existing site is typically different than that imposed on a new collocation.

Would you like to know why Sprint Nextel (not just I) think that Clearwire is a very separate legal entity not under Sprint's control? You'll learn a lot more by clicking here.

I've shared my thoughts regarding these and other related matters on two key League of California list serves reaching out the the key players in local governments who deal with these issues.

(Would you like to see what I wrote on the list serve? CLICK HERE to read the post.)

Not surprisingly, my comments have generated feedback from Clearwire. Last month, I received a call from Clearwire's outside counsel, Suzanne Toller [her bio here], Partner and Co-chair of the Communications Practice at Davis Wright Tremaine, based in DWT's San Francisco office.

Suzanne, who is a friend and colleague (albeit on the 'other side' of many wireless issues we have in common), asked whether I'd agree to meet with Clearwire's key deployment, technical, and legal management team responsible for the Southern California deployment to learn more about their plans and processes. I immediately said yes, and she set up the meeting for a few days later.

The 2-hour meeting was exceptionally productive, and very cordial.

We discussed Clearwire's views as to why they believe they are not subject to CEQA analysis in all cases, and why the initial applications are coming in from Sprint.

I also left the meeting with a very clear (no pun intended) technical and functional description of Clearwire's interconnected network. While I have reduced that down to a single page drawing which has been reviewed by Clearwire, at the firm's request I am not publishing that drawing here or on the web, although Clearwire understands that I'll use that drawing with my clients to describe their network.

Did we agree on every point in the meeting? No.

Did we agree on any points in the meeting? Yes.

Do I agree with every point in Suzanne's letter? Of course not.

Did each side gain a better understanding regarding the other's? Yes.

Is the letter helpful to local governments to gain a broader perspective regarding Clearwire's deployment? Yes.

Now, with background set out, I invite you to read Suzanne Toller's letter.

You can read it online (click on the arrow, below) or you can download it in PDF format (3.1 MB) by clicking here.

-Jonathan