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Until recently, Mobile WiMAX in developed economies has been largely a notebook/dongle play, following similar adoption patterns to Wi-Fi in its earlier days. But to make the differentiation from metro Wi-Fi and also from 3G, supporters of the platform have long talked about creating a far broader device ecosystem, going beyond laptop access and handsets to embrace new device categories, supporting new business models.

Clearwire's CEO Bill Morrow was pushing this point home, even as one of its lead chip suppliers, Beceem, announced one million WiMAX device chips sold (mainly at Clearwire and Japan's UQ, and mainly in USB modems). While acknowledging the importance of low cost devices that encourage users to try new services (dongles and the Clearwire Wi-Fi/WiMAX mobile router both tap into an existing installed base of PCs and WLans), Morrow was also looking ahead to products that might bring new services and revenue streams to Clearwire and its MVNOs.

Only a 4G network could unlock the true potential of broadband web focused products like the iPhone, Morrow said during his keynote speech at this week's 4G World show in Chicago. He proceeded to demonstrate a 'WiMAX iPhone' - actually an iPhone connected to the WiMAX network via its Wi-Fi mode and the Clearwire router. This was demonstrated alongside an iPhone linked to its usual AT&T 3G system, and the improved data rate and latency was clear to see.

"The 3G network is not built for the broadband data speeds we're talking about," Morrow said, while indirectly making a point he often drives home - that Clearwire is head-on competitive with the 3G cellcos incertain markets.

Clearwire is diversifying its ecosystem as it builds out more markets and starts to get sufficient volume of high-end customers - and a large degree of public profile - with which to lure vendors. It already has the Samsung Mondi MID and Morrow was promising smartphones, connected laptops, netbooks and tablets, plus new formats - a new generation of smartphones, as he called it, though the outline sounded like the 'smartbook' concept supported by Nokia, Qualcomm and many others. He believes this next generation handset will have PC features - 1GHz processor, high definition video, 3D imaging and 64Gbof internal memory - but also sensors as well as connectivity, supporting new functionality like voice and object recognition.

Morrow was also firmly behind the vision of investor Google, of fatter wireless pipes enabling cloud computing to go mobile, with people accessing services and data remotely over the web rather than keeping it all locally.

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