Today Clearwire said it had completed the transactions that will allow it to build the first nationwide WiMAX network, to be known as Clear. CEO Ben Wolff took a few minutes to answer some questions about what the upcoming service will look like, how Clearwire might handle network congestion and how the recession might affect the speed with which Clearwire builds its network. Below is an edited transcript of our interview:

GigaOM: How much will it cost to build the nationwide network and will the economy slow the buildout?

Ben Wolff: Coupled with what we’ve spent, the $3.2 billion from our investors, and based on the same build schedule we released in May, we need to raise $2 billion to $2.3 billion in additional capital and will look at doing so in the next couple of years. We’ve got the ability to modulate the build plan to the point where we could reduce that funding gap by slowing down the build. That’s one of the first things the new board is going to address in the January meeting — make decisions about how quickly we build.

GigaOM: How will the white spaces broadband spectrum compete with WiMAX?

Wolff: We don’t see the whites spaces spectrum as being competitive with our network, much as we didn’t view the Muni wireless networks as competitive. We see it very much as being complementary with the Clear service. The white spaces spectrum will be unlicensed, and any time you have unlicensed spectrum as the primary means of connecting to the Internet you have the potential for interference and quality-of-service issues. We like the idea of relying on white spaces in some of the more rural areas and dense urban areas.

GigaOM: Will Clearwire or its partners use femotocells to build out the wireless networks?

Wolff: I think that femtocells are promising for any kind of wireless network. Having a femtocell indoors will provide better in-building coverage, and an opportunity for our [cable] partners to look at ways to utilize the backhaul they have going into the house. I think all wireless networks going forward could use them, but there are still questions about the business model — who pays for it and getting the cost of femtos down to a point where they can be cost-effective for a home.

GigaOM: Will WiMAX be as fast as LTE and can it act as a fat enough pipe to deliver Internet service to the home?

Wolff: I don’t think there is going to be much in the way of performance differences in LTE and WiMAX. The limiting factor is unlikely to be the technology; it’s likely to be how much spectrum the operator has available for 4G services. We have 100 MHz of spectrum and are in great shape to ultimately deliver a robust broadband experience.

GigaOM: What kind of services can Clear deliver using WiMAX?

Wolff: The suite of services people will eventually be able to buy are residential broadband, mobile broadband for each individual in the house, residential voice, and ultimately, mobile voice.

GigaOM: Since this is all IP network, will you charge for this as individual services or will this be one service that consumers can buy and add things like VoIP to?

Wolff: There will be some customers that will use a bring-your-own-VoIP service and we’ll offer our own managed mobile voice services that will offer higher quality of service.

GigaOM: What about network management such as blocking some traffic or slowing it down when the network is congested?

Wolff: We will have to experiment with how were dealing with network management issues. We won’t ID specific bandwidth-hogging apps and try to restrict or limit those. What we’re going to do is manage the network on a sector-by-sector basis, so if there’s no congestion we do nothing. If it turns out we do have congestion, we’ll manage bandwidth for all users in that segment rather than by applications.

GigaOM: Can a WiMAX network really provide the amount of bandwidth necessary to offer services such as streaming video that can really clog wireless networks today?

Wolff: One of the benefits over 3G is we have much more capacity, and we designed it to have a large number of customers using a large amount of data — including consistent streaming capacity.

Clearwire said today that it has closed several transactions that will allow it to build out a nationwide WiMAX network, including gaining control of Sprint’s Xohm network and a $3.2 billion investment from several large companies. These deals were announced in May, and despite the downturn that has pummeled stocks since then, the terms of the deal have not changed. The new nationwide WiMAX service will be branded Clear.

Clearwire received the $3.2 billion investment from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks. The cable providers will also resell the WiMAX service, even hinting that they will integrate wireless into some of their other broadband and entertainment offerings, much like AT&T and Nokia each hope to do. Sprint will also resell access to its current 3G network to the newly created Clear, paving the way for dual-mode 3G and 4G devices that will ensure that WiMAX devices work even where there’s no WiMAX network. This will be important in signing up mobile users. Below are other important bits from the call:

• Baltimore, Md., and Portland, Ore., will be the first cities to go online, with no mention of Chicago and Dallas which were to go live under Sprint’s Xohm brand soon.
• Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff says most of the $3.2 billion investment will go toward building out the nationwide network. Many of the pre-WiMAX markets that currently have Clearwire service will get Clear service in 2009.
• Wolff also said that Clearwire is building the Clear network with equipment that can also be used for LTE deployments, meaning if LTE becomes necessary, Clearwire can upgrade its network more easily.
• Barry West, the former CTO of Sprint Nextel and head of the Xohm efforts, will become president and chief architect of Clearwire.
• Atish Gude, formerly senior vice president of Sprint’s XOHM mobile broadband operations, is now senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Clearwire.
• First products on the market are embedded WiMax chips in laptops and USB modems, but by mid-2009 consumers will see more mobile Internet devices, MP3 players and other consumer electronics that can run on the Clear WiMAX network.
• The Clear network should provide customers with average download speeds initially of 2-4 megabits per second and peak rates that are considerably faster.
• Clearwire now has 100 MHz or more of 4G spectrum in most markets across the U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to address the issue of creating a nationwide, filtered broadband network at its Dec. 18 meeting according to the Wall Street Journal. That gives that meeting the potential to be as controversial as the one held last month on election day. The November meeting approved two mergers and created the potential for free wireless spectrum over the protests of broadcasters. This upcoming meeting could create free, licensed wireless spectrum in the AWS-3 band, ticking off T-Mobile, which paid $4 billion to lease the adjacent AWS-1 spectrum.

The FCC had issued a rule making on the topic back in June with a proposal that would create two tiers of wireless Internet service in the 2155-2175 MHz spectrum band. The lowest tier would provide free wireless broadband for the 100 million Americans who don’t have access to broadband right now, and a carrier would sell access to the faster tier for all comers. The rule making was similar to a proposal created by the Kleiner-backed startup M2Z Networks, which had asked the FCC to give it the spectrum for free.

Originally, the FCC had talked about filtering that free wireless network to rid it of objectionable content for everyone, but in October, when the FCC issued a report saying that such a network wouldn’t interfere with T-Mobile’s network, a spokesman for the regulatory agency said the filtering provisions would only be aimed at children. That could stop some consumer advocates from protesting the FCC actions, but it won’t stop T-Mobile, which shows no signs of backing down, even though its efforts to stop the proposal on the grounds that it will interfere with the T-Mobile network have failed.

At the meeting, the Commission is also expected to take up the issue of a la carte cable, as well as cable providers’ tactic of switching some formerly basic channels to a higher service tier — in effect raising the price for service for some subscribers, angering consumers and content providers. Much like the outgoing Bush administration is striving to issue its own rules before the changing of the guard, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is attempting to make his mark on the nation’s communications before his exit.

The bad news for mobile VoIP startups keeps coming. EQO, which had cut nearly 65 percent of its workforce about two months ago, might have finally hit the deck and be down for the count, according to Canadian technology news site, Techvibes.

In response to my previous post, EQO CEO Bill Tam said that cuts would allow the company to operate near profitability. He also claimed that the company had 2 million users, was doubling every eight weeks and growing its revenues. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

EQO had raised about $13 million and was trying to sell itself, but apparently it didn’t find any buyers, according to the report. Some of my sources are confirming this shutdown. There has been chatter about VCs trying to claw back unspent cash, though I have not been able to confirm it. Some senior executives, including CFO Laura Colwill, have been job hunting. A sure sign that the party is over: information about the management team has been removed from EQO’s About Us page.

I have been saying for some time that the launch of the 3G iPhone was going to jump-start the demand for wireless broadband. The subsequent release of additional web-friendly mobile phones (we like to call them superphones ) — the Samsung Instinct, the BlackBerry Bold, the Google Phone, and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X-1 — that use 3G wireless networks has now shifted that demand into high gear.

According to data collected by Chetan Sharma Consulting, the U.S. wireless data market grew 7.3 percent in the third quarter to hit $8.8 billion in data services revenue. Despite the recession, many in the industry are of the opinion that wireless data sales aren’t going to fall, and in fact will stay strong for the foreseeable future. A report from London-based research firm Analysys Mason predicts that “mobile network operators in developed regions should prepare for a tenfold increase in wireless network traffic by 2015.” Here are some interesting findings from their report:

• By 2015, developed regions will account for about 25 percent of the cellular user population but those users will generate 65 percent of total global wireless network traffic.
• Average wireless network traffic per cellular user (for all voice and data services) in developed regions will increase to eight times its 2008 level by 2015, rising from 56MB per month to 455MB per month.
• By 2015, data will account for 94 percent of total wireless network traffic in developed regions.

Such a data explosion, however, means that mobile network operators will have to spend a lot of money to upgrade their networks in order to keep up with the demand. As Dr. Alastair Brydon, the Analysys Mason report’s co-author, notes, “In the short-term, underutilisation of 3G networks allows mobile operators to offer low-cost USB services, but operators may be forced to rethink their strategies when they are confronted by the need to make further network investment.” Indeed, we have already seen how Verizon, Sprint and others are imposing data transfer limits on their “unlimited data offerings.”

Regardless of however you spin it, if you are firing 20 percent of your work force and have no real business model to speak of, you are in trouble. That certainly is true of Fring, an Israeli Mobile VoIP startup, which has cut 10 of its 50 employees. CEO Avi Shechter told TechCrunch that his company is doing well. In addition to $13 million it raised in the past, Avi says the company has raised an undisclosed amount of money in its Series C financing.

By doing well, I guess he means Fring’s deal with Mobilkom Austria and an increase in the number of monthly downloads from 100,000 a year ago to 400,000. Mobile advertising is one way it hopes to make money, but it seems like a long shot. Like many of its peers, Fring is going to have a tough time in the future. Jangl and TalkPlus have already shut down, while EQO recently fired 65 percent of its workforce. Jaxtr, another VoIP startup, recently had a management shakeup and has its own set of issues. Other Fring competitors would include iSkoot and Nimbuzz.

Related Post: 7 Ways To VoIP From Your Mobile Phone

Looks like for once I am in agreement with The New York Times gadget columnist David Pogue, who eviscerated the new Blackberry Storm device in his review published earlier today.

“But I’ve got a better name for it: the BlackBerry Dud.
The first sign of trouble was the concept: a touchscreen BlackBerry. That’s right — in its zeal to cash in on some of that iPhone touch screen mania, R.I.M. has created a BlackBerry without a physical keyboard. Hello? Isn’t the thumb keyboard the defining feature of a BlackBerry? A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel. A Prius with terrible mileage. Cracker Jack without a prize inside. ( via The New York Times)

I had pretty much the same sentiments, though I wasn’t quite as colorful. Many who have used the Storm’s touch keyboard have been disappointed by it. Others, have been turned off by its lack of WiFi support.

Citing changes to its billing and costs that are doubling every month, Twitter announced that it will no longer support outbound SMS to Canadians. Twitter’s searching for a business model (and a Business Product Manager to help out), and in the meantime it has to curtail costs — but it doesn’t help that Canadian carriers are trying to charge huge fees for text messaging, resulting in consumer lawsuits. Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice called the decision by Bell and Telus a “poorly thought out decision,” back in July, but reneged in August following meetings with the carriers, saying, “I would encourage consumers dissatisfied with existing plans to seek alternatives. The telecommunications market in Canada is dynamic — choice is available.”

Given today’s news, it would seem that alternatives aren’t available, at least for Twitter, and probably not for Canadians in general.

The statement from Twitter is below.

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212). The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live. There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

In a nation with more than 225 million mobile subscribers, only 1.8 million of them watch broadcast television on their cell phones, according to September data from comScore. But a group of more than 800 broadcasters hopes to change all that — by making mobile TV shows both free and available at the same time they’re shown on oldteevee. To that end, in April 2007 those broadcasters formed the Open Mobile Video Coalition, aimed at establishing a standard for the delivery of mobile TV in the soon-to-be-available digital television spectrum.

On Tuesday, members of the OMVC got one step closer to making their dream a reality. The group, in conjunction with the Advanced Television Standards Committee, which was responsible for creating the standard that governs how your TV set receives an HD signal, approved a candidate standard for mobile digital television. In the bureaucratic world of standards-setting, this means the ATSC mobile DTV standard will be the accepted way to deliver mobile broadcast television going forward, although it’s subject to a few additional tweaks. In the real world, this means devices capable of delivering free, mobile TV will come as early 2010.

LG and Samsung, both of which backed the standard, plan to start making devices that will allow for mobile DTV trials next year. After the broadcasters complete the move to digital broadcasting in February 2009, TV stations will start widespread tests of mobile DTV. By early in 2010, according to Anne Schelle, the executive director of the OMVC, consumers should be able to buy such devices off the shelf.

As for the issue of whether or not consumers even want mobile television on tiny screens, Schelle is optimistic. She envisions interactive services and points out that the standard is flexible enough to offer a digital video recorder for time- and place-shifting, if so desired. That level of control would be compelling to broadcasters who see ISPs and even cell phone carriers as standing between them and their viewers. Schelle points out that broadcast television still controls the content people most want to watch, and by delivering that directly to mobile devices broadcasters can satisfy consumers — and by extension, have a better shot at controlling their own destinies.

“I do think there will be a day five years from now where you will be in a restaurant and everyone will pull out their mobile devices and be able to watch a live broadcast of whatever that seminal event of the day is,” Schelle said.

For end users in the U.S. (which is where this mobile broadcast standard will work), that means there will be two ways to watch over-the-air television on the go — via a device that receives the mobile DTV standard or through a carrier’s service built on top of MediaFLO, a Qualcomm technology. While a representative of LG Electronics, which makes phones for carriers that include Qualcomm MediaFLO chips, told me the two services aren’t mutually exclusive, they are competitive. They both want to offer over-the-air broadcast television on mobile devices ranging from phones to laptops to in-car entertainment systems.

But Qualcomm makes money licensing its MediaFLO network to carriers, which charge consumers $15 a month to access the service, while broadcasters plan to have some sort of free offering to anyone who has a device or dongle that can receive the signal. On the other hand, MediaFLO services are available today, while mobile DTV is still a developing standard.

Of course, almost two years after commercial availability of the service, mobile television delivered by MediaFLO is only watched by relatively few. That looks to be changing, however. Matt Milne, SVP of marketing and sales for MediaFLO USA, declined to give out subscriber numbers for the service but said in an email that viewership increased 70 percent in the three months ending September 2008. It’s still possible for MediaFLO to gain more viewers, or for the mobile DTV effort to fail because of a lack of devices or even consumer interest. One way or another, for those keen to tune in to TV on the go, this is a fight worth watching.

Image courtesy of OMVC

When I read an Inquirer piece about Microsoft launching its own branded phone with a Tegra chipset by Nvidia, it struck me that this would truly be putting lipstick on a pig. The Tegra chipset and the demos shown by Nvidia of it in action are awesome to behold, but running the rather dull Windows Mobile on the graphics-loving Tegra platform just seems like a waste of Tegra’s abilities. I tried to dig into the rumor, but Nvidia referred questions to Microsoft, and a Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on the rumor.

While I’m truly skeptical that Microsoft will produce an actual phone (hasn’t it learned from Zune?), Nvidia has optimized Tegra for the Windows Mobile platform. Tegra’s graphics processing ability could really amp up the user experience on a Windows phone, but it’s also strange to tie Tegra  to an OS that seems so visually unstimulating. Although my guess is that Nvidia’s chip could improve the Windows Mobile experience to make it competitive with the iPhone, while Microsoft uses its marketing muscle to push Tegra-powered devices to the masses.

I cannot wait to see Tegra in actual devices, even if they do run Windows. Nvidia spokesman Andrew Humber told me last week I would have to wait until February to see a devices and the GSM World Mobile Congress mid-2009 to learn which handset makers are using the Tegra chipset, a letdown considering personal navigation devices containing Tegra were due to be out in time for the holidays. So yes, this is lipstick on a pig, but who doesn’t want to at least see what that looks like?

Pocket Communications Northeast, a subsidiary of San Antonio-based cellular operator Pocket Communications, has raised a first round of $100 million to build out a five-city CDMA network in the Northeast that will join an existing network and customer base in South Texas. The Northeast expansion is the first one outside of Texas for the two-year-old PCS operator. Pocket Northeast raised the money from Battery Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Pocket’s CEO, Paul Posner.

Posner, an entrepreneur who has done several things, from selling billboard space to operating a paging company, created Pocket in 2006 using AWS spectrum purchased at auction. Posner started the Pocket network build-out in San Antonio, the former home turf of AT&T, offering a $25 per month unlimited local calling, text and picture mail service on an advance pay basis. Pocket’s 300,000 customers pay between $25 and $40 at the beginning of the month with no contract. If they don’t pay, they don’t get service.

The company broke even in its first nine months, and Posner says it makes about $140 million a year based on its annual revenue per user of $35. The service has more in common with low-cost wireless carriers competitors such as, MetroPCS, which was also backed by Battery Ventures, and Leap Wireless. Posner says he can undercut them on pricing (Metro PCS plans start at $30 per month and Leap’s Cricket plans start at $35) and still make similar net margins.

Posner is clearly keeping his costs in line by operating a no-frills network. The CDMA 1xRTT network isn’t set up for wireless data and Posner doesn’t plan to add that offering as Leap did earlier this year, saying, “I don’t think it’s a profitable proposition for us. The bigger carriers have scooped up a large portion of that market.”

Pocket is a private company, so it’s hard to know if its net margins are similar to those of MetroPCS and Leap, but Matt Niehaus, a partner at Battery Ventures, says Posner keeps a close eye on costs, noting that at small companies that’s easier to do. However, that level of scrutiny could get more difficult as Pocket begins its expansion into Hartford and New Haven, Conn., Springfield and Pittsfield, Mass., and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. But if it can keep up the growth and profits, Pocket might make it an eventual target for the regional consolidation that periodically grips the communications market.

As people in the U.S continue to line up for mobile phone launches, the rest of the handset market is looking pretty grim. Optimistic news about the BlackBerry Storm is akin to Restylane in an aging actress — a plastic filler that hides signs of decay underneath. Today Samsung said that the handset market won’t achieve the 9 percent growth it anticipated for 2008 back in June, and pointed to a lackluster 2009. James Chung, a spokesman for Samsung, told Reuters the electronics giant was looking at single-digit or (the mathematically impossible) “negative growth” for next year.

This follows Nokia’s grim update earlier this month in which the world’s No. 1 handset maker predicted a sales slowdown. As we’ve already noted, lowered handset sales hurt chipmakers and handset makers, and may eventually hurt carriers, which use new handsets to encourage consumers to buy new, or more inclusive, data plans.

Wireless data plans are still enjoying a steady takeup rate as people purchase sub-$200 smartphones. But even though people may still buy those smartphones as Christmas gifts, my bet is that data subscriptions will also hit bumps if the economy continues to pummel consumers. I fired off a quick email to Chetan Sharma to find out how he thought the lowered handset forecast might affect carriers and their efforts to push data plans; he said we won’t know for sure until next year.

“Now, we don’t know if these trends will counter each other to balance things out or will the replacement cycles slow down quicker to bring down the services market. Q3 data didn’t have any indication of that and I doubt if Q4 data will have any conclusive evidence of the trend. I think the first indication of things are shaping up will be in Q109 results as by then consumers and the markets will have a better understanding of the new economic policies.”

March is a long time to wait, but I’m curious how the economic slowdown will affect your data subscriptions. Will you pare back?

The growth of the Internet is both true and greatly exaggerated depending on which web you look at, according to a rundown of data offered last night by Prof. Andrew M. Odlyzko of the University of Minnesota School of Mathematics. Growth of the wireless web is far outpacing the rise in use of the wired web, and providers charge more for wireless traffic. Odlyzko compiles an annual report on the growth of Internet traffic that generally looks at growth not as an incoming exaflood of information designed to take out networks or sell more routers, but to actually forecast the growth of networks.

In his rundown of recent, available data, the wired web has been growing by about 65 percent worldwide from the third quarter of this year over last year judging by stats from PAIX, an Internet exchange. Otherwise, growth appears to be slowing in North America and Europe, although Odlyzko is looking at only a few data points for this update. However, he concludes that wireless web growth is up 400 percent based on a report issued last week by Opera, which makes the Opera Mini mobile browser. As wireless growth explodes, look for carriers, in a bid to both control access and boost revenue, to implement tight controls on what users can and cannot do on their data plans. And even though wired web growth is slowing, don’t expect carriers to suddenly abandon their efforts to squeeze more out of subscribers with tales of video clogging the network.

The Wall Street Journal this morning had a short article pointing out the somewhat obvious reasons why location-based services on cell phones are still not mainstream. It also helpfully pointed out that carriers were working on it. To recap, LBS services need three main things: a way to get location (which we have thanks to GPS chips and even the ability to triangulate using Wi-Fi networks), software that can make sense of geographic information and do something with it (which are out), and cooperation between handset makers and carriers to enable developers to access such services easily.

It’s the cooperation piece that fails, but the article points to several companies such as Nokia, uLocate’s Where application and SkyHook Wireless that are attempting to bridge that gap by offering a platform that will sit between carriers and smaller developers. For example, uLocate has signed a deal with Sprint to act as the LBS platform for its WiMAX network. Smaller developers can sign on through Where and get access to WiMAX subscribers without worrying about working with Sprint or getting the location information form a provider. I suppose since we’ve waited this long for LBS, most of us can wait a little longer.

image courtesy of Where

I’d better hightail it to Washington, because a reshuffling of Congressional Committee members is poised to herald more regulation for telecommunications firms on issues ranging from rural access to Net Neutrality. Yesterday Rep. Henry Waxman ascended to the head of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce — which you may remember for its investigation into how web firms use consumer data — and convened two hearings into online privacy.

As the head of that committee, Waxman has considerable influence over its agenda. The Wall Street Journal speculates that Waxman will delegate many telecommunications issues to Rep. Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, who has already pushed for a Net Neutrality bill, and has a fondness for consumer issues.

In the Upper House, Sen. Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia will likely be named the head of the Senate  Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, and as the representative from a heavily rural state, is likely to push for access to broadband. He would replace Sen. Dan Inouye of Hawaii, who will chair the Appropriations Committee. Inouye had supported Net Neutrality rules, as well as the entrance of new bidders into the 700 MHz auction.

Of course, if politicians are willing to float regulations on telecommunications, they’re also likely to float more regulations in general — some of which the pro-Net Neutrality crowd won’t enjoy. Rockefeller wants to introduce legislation to make the FCC regulate television violence, while Markey  has sent letters to the FCC expressing concern about the use of product placement in television shows.

With the recession in full swing, industries across the charts have been laying off hundreds of employees — making the job market increasingly competitive. So what’s a freshly unemployed tech professional to do? Hit the streets and start networking. As the hordes of job-seekers descend upon trade shows, conferences and meetups around the country, a few mobile startups could be poised to profit from their misery: digital business card services. The last few months have seen the launch of a number of services, delivered via mobile technologies from iPhone apps to text messages, that aim to do away with the business card. Previously, companies may have pitched their product as a “green” alternative to dead-tree info swapping, but in today’s market, the dynamic nature of the digital business card could prove to be a more powerful selling point — at least for a startup that can dispatch updated, social media-connected personal data securely across the range of mobile devices.

The iPhone has been a key driver of the market for digital business cards, at least in terms of visibility. Gabe Zichermann, CEO of rmbrME, says his company, which had previously offered an SMS solution with about 1,000 users, had 10,000 users (and even more downloads) of its beamME application in the first 10 days it was available on the App Store. Other apps include Nameo, Handshake, FriendBook and iCard. Most of the services work roughly the same way: Bring two iPhone users together, pull up the app, and a simple touch command sends information between their devices.

However, Nameo, Handshake and iCard are limited to contacts with an iPhone. But what about those of us without iPhones? Dub, which was launched in beta in June of this year, is another option for the BlackBerry set, and as of this week, its service is also available for Android phones (currently that’s just the T-Mobile G1). (The company says service for the iPhone and Windows Mobile are due out in December.) Perhaps Dub’s biggest claim to fame is that it offers integration with common business services. Data can be beamed to a Salesforce.com contact management system, as well as to mobile devices, and Dub users will soon be able to sign into the service using their LinkedIn login and password.

But even Dub, which allows for limited cross-platform sharing, requires that both users have a smartphone and install the app. For on-the-go information sharing, the “Do you use this app?” conversation can add an extra layer of awkwardness and time. For universal sharing, users might be better off with an SMS service from players such as Dropcard, TextID and rmbrME. Even iPhone app-addicts have an option: While most iPhone apps rely on Wi-Fi networks and geolocation, rmbrME’s iPhone app, beamME, allows users to send personal data from their iPhone to any phone, whether it has a data connection or just a simple voice connection.

I’m still slogging along with a Nokia 2610, so I’m partial to technology that doesn’t leave me (with my pesky  insistence on multiday battery life) out in the cold. I’ve found services like rmbrME and Dropcard to be simple to use, and I could easily send my data to smartphone-carrying folks via shortcode. Better yet, people could send info to me, without even knowing that I still carry a Stone Age-era device.

While there hasn’t been much venture investment in the space just yet, Zichermann says rmbrME has raised just shy of $1 million in angel investment, and DubMeNow has reportedly raised $1.1 million in angel funding. DreamIt Ventures provided seed funding for Dropcard. But the startup founders are optimistic: Zichermann says VCs are exactly the kind of social, tech-savvy users that “get” services like rmbrME, which should make it easier to raise funding when the time is right.

Also promising in this market: None of the services is dependent on advertising revenue. Most of the services use a “freemium” model, and several are working to add enterprise-level functionality. DubMeNow’s BlackBerry-focused, Salesforce.com-integrating app seems aimed squarely at the business-to-business marketplace. Zichermann says rmbrME also has its eye on premium services aimed at the enterprise market, such as offering a branded, customized look and feel for user cards.

You probably can’t throw away your business cards just yet. But if you’re in the market for a new job, sign up for an SMS service and head out to the trade shows.

Image courtesy of rmbrME

This article also appeared on Businessweek.com.