Sprint's Limited WiMAX Launch Imminent
675343
While WiMAX products abound at Mobile World Congress, a Sprint official acknowledged that the carrier's full-scale deployment still awaits budget approval by new management.
47986
Sprint Nextel and its hardware partners today sought to convince a small CES audience that their WiMax plans are solid.
46997
Sprint Nextel Corp.  and Clearwire Corp.  plan to build a U.S. nationwide mobile broadband network using WiMAX technology that will be five times faster than current wireless networks and cost less.
350034
InfoWorld - Underdog mobile operator Sprint Nextel quietly rolled out an emerging technology on Monday to give customers a strong cellular signal and flat-rate calling at home.
754793
(InfoWorld) - Clearwire shares soared after the WiMax service provider's IPO on Thursday, though later in the day they settled around their initial price. The successful IPO, which raised about $600 million, may be a good sign for the emerging wireless broadband technology the company uses to provide Internet access to more than 200,000 U.S. customers. The company, backed by Intel and Motorola, serves 35 U.S. metropolitan markets. WiMax has a longer range than Wi-Fi and can deliver higher speeds depending on how bandwidth is allocated. Because it's based on standards, WiMax could become a widely deployed technology that's inexpensive to build into portable devices. Sprint Nextel plans to use the technology as a complement to its cellular network beginning later this year. Clearwire's underwriters sold 24 million shares at a price of $25 per share in the IPO. On Thursday, the stock opened at $27.25 per share, though later in the day it settled around the $25 level. The Kirkland, Washington, company was founded in 2003 by mobile pioneer Craig McCaw, who started McCaw Cellular in the 1990s and later sold it to AT&T Wireless. Clearwire filed for an IPO last year but withdrew the filing in July after receiving $600 million in funding from Intel Capital. Motorola participated in the same round of funding, which totaled $900 million, and in the process acquired NextNet Wireless, Clearwire's hardware subsidiary. Part of Clearwire's value comes from its spectrum licenses. Unlike Wi-Fi, WiMax is expected in many cases to be deployed over licensed frequencies. Sprint Nextel holds about 85 percent of the licenses across the country for spectrum in a valuable band around 2.5GHz that can be used for WiMax. The carrier, third-largest in the U.S., has said it expects to reach as many as 100 million people with WiMax by the end of next year.
572862
(InfoWorld) - Sprint Nextel's ambitious Xohm WiMax vision will be based on a radical change in the way users pay for the service compared with cellular plans. Users will sign up for wireless broadband for a day, a month, or a year without a contract tied to a specific device. Payment could be made via a credit card wirelessly. The pricing approach, described in broad strokes by Sprint chief technology officer Barry West Wednesday at WiMax World in Chicago, will be designed on the principle of "affordable" broadband and "around the needs of the individual," he said in an interview. That approach breaks down the concept now seen with cellular plans, in which users typically buy a two-year contract in part to subsidize the cost of a single mobile device that a user is locked into using. A Sprint spokesman explained that the proposed pricing will rely on subscriptions, but not contracts in the sense associated with typical cellular contracts. And the longer the subscription a customer buys, the cheaper the service will be, he said. West said Sprint will announce pricing early next year, but also said it will probably be based on tiers of service. The cost of devices, such as laptop cards able to transmit mobile WiMax, will approximate the cost of a 3G broadband laptop card today, he said. In response to a question from an audience member, West also said that Xohm will not be backed by what the industry calls service-level agreements, a kind of guarantee that a minimum bandwidth will be provided or the customer receives a refund. "We will give you a good experience, but not SLAs," West said. Several Sprint executives have described Xohm WiMax speeds that are expected to be 2Mbps to 4Mbps, although the technology is capable of 10Mbps. At a demonstration onboard a moving tour boat on the Chicago River Tuesday night using Motorola gear, mobile WiMax shared across 12 laptops and cell phones was clocked at 2.5Mbps downward. West noted that the demonstration was across only one channel, and that Sprint will be able to offer many channels to handle users at a single antenna site, offering plenty of bandwidth for many users. West, who calls himself a technology "pragmatist," said he does not envision any hidden technology bugaboos in the nationwide rollout of Xohm planned for next year. In the next three years, he has predicted 50 million devices, such as laptops and mobile phones, will be WiMax-certified. Getting the certification process for interoperability in order will be difficult, but he said that even if there are 100,000 different devices, it is conceivable all of them could be served from only 10 different chip sets. "That's not unmanageable," he said. By contrast, West said Xohm's biggest challenge will be servicing the needs of 210 million Internet users in the United States alone, and meeting their demands for access, applications, and services. In his keynote, West said some critics have already begun to question whether West's predictions for Xohm's growth are too ambitious. He said commercial rollouts are still on schedule for the second quarter of 2008, and work has begun on 10,000 base stations nationally, with 20,000 WiMax antennas. The initial rollout in Chicago and Baltimore/Washington in December is "pretty much on target," he added. As for competition, West said he doesn't see Verizon Wireless or AT&T.
678074
The merger of Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications, unveiled last week in a deal valued at more than $35 billion, is likely to spur deployment of broadband wireless services as three giant
450548
As Wi-Fi solidifies its hold on the tech world, Sprint shores up its long-term plans for longer-range WiMax.
362803
Wondering what a WiMAX card looks like? Check out the one for Sprint's Xohm service.
191948
Sprint Nextel is looking for new ways to fund its WiMax network, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, Sprint investors are concerned about the network's $3bn expense.
261829
While all the focus with Wimax is on Sprint and Motorola, Nortel Networks is planning a big focus on the technology and rollouts ofor all kinds of customers, including high-speed trains and rural networks.
43698
Ushering in New York City's fourth-generation high-speed wireless internet, Sprint Nextel taps Samsung to provide WiMax infrastructure for the city. The same duo will create infrastructure and equipment for similar networks in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Boston.
572124
(InfoWorld) - With wider national coverage than either company could have had on its own, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. say they can achieve on their joint WiMax network some of whatÂ Google Inc. and others want to seeÂ in the prized 700MHz band. TheÂ companies announced Thursday they will link their respective WiMax wireless broadband networks to give subscribers a seamless roaming experience across territories that eventually will cover 300 million U.S. residents. The network will deliver between 2M bps (bits per second) and 4M bps downstream and about half that speed upstream, they said. Sprint and Clearwire plan to use WiMax so that subscribers can choose among a wide range of devices built to the open standard on which the technology is based. In addition, they intend to let users access any application or service on the Internet, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint. The upcoming auction of 700MHz radio spectrum around the U.S. has sparked a fierce debate between traditional carriers and Google Inc., Frontline Wireless LLC and others over how that spectrum should be used. Current mobile operators generally sell a limited set of devices locked to their networks and favor their own applications among the offerings their customers can access on their phones. Google told the FCC on Friday it won't bid unless the government requires any-device, any-application networks. It also wants a rule forcing the winners to sell wholesale network access to other service providers. Sprint doesn't have plans for wholesale access. Sprint, which announced its WiMax plans last year, said Thursday it owns spectrum licenses for the WiMax band that cover 185 million U.S. residents. Clearwire has spectrum in the same band to serve 115 million people. The combined network should be fairly comprehensive, covering urban, suburban and rural areas across the country, which today has a population just over 302 million, the Census Bureau estimates. After "soft" launches in Chicago and Washington, D.C., at the end of this year and commercial availability starting next year, the companies together aim to reach 100 million people by the end of 2008. This is the same 2008 goal Sprint had given previously by itself, but it was an aggressive goal then and is now a conservative estimate, Gude said. The companies did not estimate when the full network would be completed. Given the higher frequency Sprint and Clearwire plan to use, at 2.5GHz, their network is likely to need more base stations than a similar network using 700MHz, which travels over long distances and through walls more easily. Clearwire already operates a wireless broadband service and has been planning to convert it to standard mobile WiMax, which is only now emerging as a commercial technology. The company is backed by heavy hitters including Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. Sprint, struggling against larger rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless Inc., could use Clearwire's helping hand. The deal may let Sprint realize its WiMax dream at less expense, said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua. There seems to be little overlap between the two carriers' licenses, so the partnership won't really hurt competition and is likely to win government approval, Chua said. The first users will access the network with standalone modems, notebook add-on cards or PCs and smaller Ultra Mobile PCs with embedded modems, Sprint said. But it sees mobility as the key driver of the network and believes WiMax handsets will arrive by 2009, Gude said. However, Chua thinks ever-faster cellular technologies have the edge for mobility. The Sprint-Clearwire network will compete mainly against DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable modem services, with the advantage that subscribers can set up a notebook away from home and enjoy the same service. It could significantly boost broadband competition, he said. "It's making the world a little bit more interesting now," Chua said. Â
729960
Technology behind super-fast wireless networks is close to getting official approval.
410900
Three companies are set to use the backdrop of the 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to debut a device that can use WiMAX technology to make calls.
690340
Vendors in the WiMax forum are developing a variation that broadens the spectrum of the wireless technology.
60645
By James Connell  Eric Pfanner contributed reporting from London.   *  WiMax, the long-range wireless Internet standard backed by technology giants like Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, Nokia and Samsung, is unlikely to be appear as a new feature on cellphones anytime soon.