Business Week does a decent job of looking at Craig McCaw's recent purchases in the broadband wireless space: McCaw recently bought a company that owns spectrum that would be ideal for rolling out broadband wireless. He also bought NextNet, an equipment maker. The story takes a broad look at McCaw's history and places this move among McCaw's success and failures. This recent foray is risky just like McCaw's other ventures so it could become quite successful like Nextel or McCaw Cellular or it could fail or stall like XO or Teledesic.
This story notes that the first WiMax equipment will appear next year. While that's accurate and exactly what most of the folks in the WiMax movement will tell you, I think the WiMax folks are remiss to not clarify that statement. The first equipment will operate in licensed bands internationally--it can't be used in the United States. Some experts say that the first gear to become available here won't surface for another couple of years.
The story quotes our pal Steve Stroh, the editor of Focus on Broadband Wireless Internet Access. Steve wrote a detailed report of McCaw's moves when these recent purchases first came to light.