Sprint Nextel considers how to fund WiMAX rollout
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Sprint is considering options such as spinning off its WiMAX business and taking on partners in an effort fimd its nationwide wireless broadband network.
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Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation's third-largest cellular provider, said Tuesday it will use an emerging technology called WiMax to build a new high-speed wireless network.
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Chinese manufacturer ZTE may supply Sprint with handsets for upcoming high-speed WiMax.
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Sprint Nextel Corp , which recently  said it would spend up to $5 billion on a mobile high-speed  wireless standard by 2010, said it had awarded the New York  WiMax market to Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. .
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Wireless Internet provider Clearwire Corp. and cellular operator Sprint Nextel Corp. have reportedly restarted talks to combine their high-speed wireless WiMax networks.
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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.
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As Wi-Fi solidifies its hold on the tech world, Sprint shores up its long-term plans for longer-range WiMax.
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Sprint Nextel's breakup with some customers may not be popular, but it could make financial sense.Images: Sprint's Dear John letter
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A. Sprint and Nextel are projecting that it&#39;ll happen in the second quarter next year. They don&#39;t expect it to take longer than the eight months needed to gain approval of Cingular Wireless&#39; purchase of AT&amp;T Wireless.
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Sprint Nextel and its hardware partners sought to convince a small audience at the Consumer Electronics Show that their WiMax plans are on track, despite the recent departure of Sprint&#39;s CEO and the dissolution of its partnership with Clearwire.&quot;We are exactly where we said we&#39;d be,&quot; said Barry West, Sprint Nextel&#39;s CTO and president of the company&#39;s Xohm WiMax business unit. Sprint is in the process of soft-launching in Chicago and Baltimore, he said.Executives from Nokia and Samsung said they both expect to have user devices ready for the second-quarter launch. In addition, Motorola said it is working on a device that will operate over Sprint&#39;s EvDO (evolution, data optimized) cellular network, Wi-Fi, and WiMax.Since the&#160;ouster of Gary Forsee, the former CEO and chairman of Sprint Nextel, who was thought to be a champion of the company&#39;s WiMax plans, onlookers have speculated that the network might not roll out as planned. In addition,&#160;Sprint Nextel ended a partnership with Clearwire&#160;to jointly deploy WiMax, a further cause for uncertainty. Sprint has been hemorrhaging mobile subscribers and recording declining revenues since its purchase of Nextel.Beyond the unrest internally at Sprint, the company faces critics of WiMax who say that the technology won&#39;t work as well as cellular technologies in a mobile environment and that it won&#39;t support international roaming as easily as the cellular standards.But in describing the reasons why Sprint chose WiMax and why it intends to aggressively pursue the network, West further sought to soothe market qualms about the future.&quot;Being first to market is a huge advantage,&quot; he said. &quot;And WiMax technology is here, now, and mature.&quot;While an investment in a totally new technology requires a strong reason for change, this won&#39;t be the first time Sprint&#39;s doing it, he noted. WiMax doesn&#39;t follow on the upgrade path for CDMA, the basis for Sprint&#39;s cellular network, so it requires a totally new network.Sprint did that first when it moved from an analog cellular network to digital, West said. The same went for the move to third-generation technology, although in that case Sprint stuck with the CDMA path.Sprint also considered LTE (Long Term Evolution), a fourth-generation mobile technology, but one big disadvantage is that it&#39;s not yet available, he said.Moving to WiMax represents a shift to a new air interface technology: OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) instead of CDMA, which is the basis of the current 3G technologies. According to West, when CDMA is deployed in a wider section of spectrum, which helps boost throughput, the computational complexity required goes up exponentially. That requires higher-performance chips, which come with a steep price tag, he said.With WiMax, Sprint plans to use a wide section of spectrum that can dynamically switch from carrying data up or down, depending on user requirements, he said.Beyond the radically different network technology, Sprint envisions a very different business model than cellular, one that will support any kind of standard device.&quot;Look at the cellular model. It was very successful but also very frustrating,&quot; West said. He was referring to the business model in the United States where operators subsidize phones and then require long-term subscriptions from users.With Xohm, Sprint will allow any WiMax-compliant device to run on the network, he said. End-users will buy the devices themselves, probably at a variety of retail stores and hopefully for a low price because vendors expect the cost of WiMax chips to drop dramatically, like Wi-Fi. &quot;Since I&#39;ve got no money in you, I don&#39;t need a contract,&quot; West said. That opens the door to a wide array of new pricing scenarios. End-users could pay for the day, week, month, or on a regular subscription, he said.While West declined to cite specific prices, he said a monthly subscription to Xohm will be comparable to existing DSL rates.Initially, Sprint will sell PC cards and modems, but by the end of this year as many as&#160;10 different kinds of devices could be available, he said. Navigation and gaming devices are possibilities, he said.If the market has any doubts about Sprint&#39;s plans for the network, it should rest assured that, regardless, the future of WiMax is more certain, panelists said. &quot;WiMax is bigger than Sprint,&quot; said Sriram Viswanathan, vice president and general manager for Intel Capital and for Intel&#39;s WiMax business.Motorola alone has 17 contracts for networks and is involved in 60 trials, said Fred Wright, senior vice president and general manager at Motorola. &quot;This technology is real, it&#39;s not a fairy tale,&quot; he said.
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Sprint plans to accelerate efforts to get business customers to move to wireless and Internet services. &quot;This strategy plays to our strengths by advancing our broad portfolio of wireline and
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PHILADELPHIA/NEW YORK  - Sprint Corp. is close to  an agreement to buy Nextel Communications Inc. for about $35  billion in a mostly stock deal that would combine the No. 3 and  No. 5 U.S. wireless telephone companies, sources familiar with  the situation said on Friday.
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CTO outlines future of WiMAX in the USA Sprint Nextel is on schedule to launch its WiMAX service at the end of April, but won't be subsidising devices or requiring long-term contracts.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Sprint Nextel and Clearwire have entered an agreement to jointly build the first nationwide WiMax network in the U.S., the two companies announced Thursday. The vendors will work together on the WiMax network and expect to offer service to a broad range of users, including the U.S. government, public safety agencies, businesses, and consumers, they said. The two companies plan to reach 100 million U.S customers by the end of 2008, said Gary Forsee, Sprint Nextel chairman and CEO, during a press conference. The WiMax network, which will be marketed under a common brand, will compete with and compliment existing broadband services, he said. The deal "will fundamentally change the communications landscape in this country," added Ben Wolff, Clearwire CEO. "By working together, a nationwide network becomes possible." Sprint Nextel will build out about 65 percent of the network, and Clearwire will build out the remaining 35 percent, the companies said. The agreement still needs to be finalized, and it will be subject to regulatory approval by the U.S. Department of Justice and spectrum transfers from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Sprint Nextel will focus on geographic areas covering approximately 185 million people, including 75 percent of the people located in the 50 largest U.S. markets, while Clearwire will concentrate on areas covering approximately 115 million people. A year ago, Sprint Nextel announced its plans for a nationwide WiMax network. The partnership with Clearwire allows Sprint Nextel to invest less money to create a nationwide network, Forsee said. The agreement will also allow the two companies to provide customers with "more breadth and depth of support," he added. The partners said the wireless network will provide broadband-speed Internet access to customers. The agreement will enable "seamless" roaming across the network, Forsee said. WiMax is designed to operate more than five times faster than current third-generation wireless networks. The arrangement will allow the exchange of spectrum between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire to enable each company to build out its portion of the network and to enhance service in its buildout territory, the companies said. Clearwire will be able to use some of Sprint Nextel's wireless infrastructure. The initial term of the arrangement is 20 years, with three 10-year renewal periods.
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While many are just adjusting to the fast wireless technology behind WiMax, the head of Sprint Nextel's Xohm is planning new ways to charge for the service and how to meet the needs of huge numbers of Internet users.
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Sprint Nextel and Clearwire announced a plan to build a nationwide WiMax network in the U.S.
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Sprint (NYSE: FON) will spend US&#36;3 billion over the next three years to upgrade its U.S. wireless network, including the development of high-speed Internet services.