IP Democracy: Sprint "Pivots" with Cable, Plans Big WiMax Launch

WiMax is the last great hope for mounting competition to terrestrial broadband networks, but the high-speed wireless technology has been a pipe dream for so long that folks have forgotten about it. Sprint, however, is shaking up the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando with a big announcement of WiMax deployment plans this year.

The wireless carrier’s deployment of the broadband service (which, unfortunately, won’t reach much beyond 2 Mbps to 4 Mbps, still better than the 300 kbps to 700 kbps EV-DO delivers today) will begin in earnest during April, expanding out to at least nineteen markets by year-end (see table at end). Hopes are high: Sprint says it will reach 100 million people with its WiMax offering by year-end 2008. Sprint is working with Motorola, Samsung and Nokia to manufacture the handsets and Samsung will make the PC cards, ZTE will make other devices, while ZyXEL will make the modems.

Separately, Sprint announced a name for its joint venture with the cable industry — it’s called “Pivot,” which will be part of a co-branded (e.g. Time Warner Pivot.) Sprint is working with Comcast, Cox. Time Warner and other top operators to offer the fourth component, wireless voice, as part of a quadruple-play package, and to develop integrated service offerings. The cable ops and Sprint have already tested a co-branded Sprint voice service in eight markets and plan to expand the service to 40 markets by year-end.

Sprint WiMax Markets for 2008
Motorola	Samsung	Nokia
Chicago	Baltimore	Austin
Detroit	Boston	Dallas
Grand Rapids	Philadelphia	Denver
Indianapolis	Providence	Ft. Worth
Kansas City	Washington, DC	Portland
Minneapolis		Salt Lake City
		San Antonio
		Seattle

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 27, 2007 10:07 AM to IP Democracy