Sprint, champion of WiMax and a former backer of XOHM (which has become Clearwire), may be hedging its 4G bets.

Reports GigaOm:

Sources in the telecommunications world have been telling me that Sprint is testing Long Term Evolution, or LTE, equipment, which seems a bit odd given Sprint’s cheerleading for WiMAX and 51 percent stake in Clearwire, which is building out a nationwide WiMAX network.

GigaOm got this response back:

As a prudent Technology Development organization we are always collecting competitive information about various technologies/equipment to monitor and assess the competitive landscape and any potential impacts to Sprint’s plans.

Sure. But there's testing, and then there's testing. We're still way early into the LTE/WiMAX battle, and we're nowhere near being able to even begin declaring a winner. (That, and there are zero mainstream phones on either service right now.) So maybe Sprint's poking its toes in the LTE pool, and maybe it's not. Let's finish getting 3G built out and under everyone's belts first, shall we?

UPDATE: As promised, Sprint and Clearwire held a news conference this morning regarding the recently approved merger between the two companies.

All of Sprint's XOHM service will be rolled into the new company, and the new WiMAX venture will go by the name "Clear." And that's the main news we got.

Otherwise, they're looking at providing an all-IP WiMAX network with average download speeds of an initial 2 to 4 megabits per second.

There's plenty of glad-handing to be had in the official press release, and click here to listen to the news conference, if you're into that sort of thing. (Warning: You have to "register" with a name and e-mail. Whether it's yours is up to you.)

You know that Sprint-Clearwire deal that we’ve been waiting on forever? It’s about to become officially official. Officially.

The FCC already blessed the merger that will help get WiMAX off the ground, for realz. And with the details all worked out, we’ll learn more in a conference call on Monday morning, thanks to the long holiday weekend.

The short version: Clearwire now has a boatload of cash — like, $3.2 billion (said with a raised pinky) — to get things going. It also now has all of Sprint’s 2.5 gigahertz spectrum and its XOHM business, which has already been up and running in Baltimore.

The short, short version: Here comes some sweet 4G goodness

Say what you want about Sprint — and we've certainly done our share of sayin' — the company keeps on pressing ahead with its EVDO follow-up, the 4G network known as XOHM (pronounced zoam) or WiMax. (This is the 4G competitor to LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, which AT&T and Verizon have signed on for.)

The service is officially up and running in an initial major U.S. city, with New York Chicago Los Angeles Washington Baltimore getting the honors.

Devices that can use WiMax are still a bit scarce, but Sprint promises more in the near future.

Customers can purchase XOHM-branded Samsung Express air cards for $59.99 and ZyXEL modems for $79.99 via XOHM web, telesales or select Baltimore-area independent retailers. Additional WiMAX devices such as a ZTE USB modem, Intel Centrino 2 WiMAX notebook PCs and the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition are expected in market later this year.

Check in after the jump for Sprint's full press release on the launch, and visit the XOHM Web site here.

T4 Show talks XOHM and WiMax: Speaking of XOHM and WiMax, Michael Manna, host of T4 Show, had Sprint regional media rep Mark Eillott back on his most recent podcast (Episode 86) for an excellent talk about XOHM and WiMax. Give it a listen.

(And while you're over there, be sure to check out our man Dieter Bohn's appearance on Episode 77.)

Read the rest of this entry »

The Consumerist and Gizmodo report that Sprint plants on placing caps and throttles on their WiMAX service. In other words: expect the same sort of soft caps on data usage and for data to potentially slow down when you go beyond it. Bad news, but may not so bad for Windows Mobile followers given that there won't actually be any smartphones released on the network in the foreseeable future anyway. Laptop cards on the newly live Baltimore portion of the network are working fine.

However, in our forums we're getting reader reports that Sprint claims they won't throttle data in any way, shape or form. The data service clocks in at $45 a month(see below), which isn't too bad but definitely doesn't feel as nice as their recent standard EVDO tethering price drop.

We were seriously hoping that with 4G, "unlimited" would really mean unlimited. If Sprint is serious about capping and throttling their XOHM service, we'll likely turn our lonely eyes to Verizon and AT&T's pending LTE services -- not that we'll see anything we like there on the bandwidth front, either.

Update: Draiko does us a solid in the comments: "Actually, the pricing for the first 6 months is $30 per month for mobile, $25 per month for home, and $50 per month for 2 devices. Much tastier." Tastier indeed.

When it comes to Sprint's WiMAX / XOHM were not really quite sure what’s going to happen, or how great it actually will be. What we do know so far is that Engadget picked up a little more news when it comes to what devices will be launching. Sprints new MY Xohm site is pretty choppy at the moment and is filled with jumbled text and little info but we gathered that Sprint will begin the service with wireless modems and a Nokia tablet. That’s right: modems not phones. Not sure why Sprint didn’t come out the gate with some really cool phones that support Wimax since it’s what we have all been waiting for. Expected to launch in September sometime are:

• Nokia's N810 WiMAX Edition
• XOHM USB (ZTE's TU25) modem.
• XOHM Express Card
• XOHM Modem
• The XOHM portal

In my opinion this is all fine and dandy. I’m just happy to hear that the thing is finally coming out. I’m guessing they want to start off with a “Replace you home internet” kind of marketing for all the business users with laptops. No harm here, yet I still wonder why they aren’t going to start with compatible handhelds. We do tend to carry around our cell phones more than we do our laptops, and I would love 4Mbps down and 3Mbps up. As far as moving to Baltimore for the new launch, well the Ravens would have to step up their game before I make that switch.

Just when it seems Sprint might be getting off the mat, along comes AT&T throwing another punch.

AT&T has asked the Federal Communications Commission to halt the merger of Sprint's WiMAX division with Clearwire, another blow to the creation of the companies' planned $15 billion 4G network. In April, Sprint announced that the launch of its XOHM service was delayed, and that they're still looking to get it going later this year.

But Brighthand reports that AT&T is crying foul and contends the deal isn't under enough scrutiny, with the emphasis on a number of spectrum licenses held by Sprint and Clearwire.

Responds Sprint:

A spokesman for Sprint said that the companies have documented for the FCC on a county by county basis how much spectrum they would hold after the merger, and that nearly 50 public entities had filed similar comments in support of the proposed merger.

We'll keep an eye on this one.

We have a new twist of events in our WiMAX WaTCH: Sprint, after ditching Clearwire, is back together with them again. That's not the crazy part, though, the crazy part is that Sprint, along with Clearwire, has managed to cobble together $3.2 Billion US in investment to create a band new company, also to be called Clearwire. The money's coming from various sources, inclding Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

In other words, it looks like Sprint is dropping XOHM in favor of using this new company (which they'll control 51% of, by the way), though it may be that they'll keep XOHM as the Sprint-branded version of Clearwire's WiMAX services. These services, by the way, will also be available to re-sell to other companies:

“We've made an excellent start developing XOHM WiMAX services. Contributing those advances to a strongly backed new company - in which we'll hold the largest interest - provides Sprint with additional financial flexibility and allows Sprint management to leverage and focus on our core business.
”Additionally, the agreements allowing the new company and our cable company investors to bundle and resell Sprint's third-generation wireless services strengthen the distribution of our current services while reducing the complexity and enhancing Sprint's cable relationships,“ Hesse added. -[Clearwire Press Release]

Given Sprint's many, many woes, it's to be expected that they would do something to shake things up a bit. It remains to be seen whether or not this is the right move, but it smells to us like Clearwire is going to just offer ”big fat pipe“ services for data and voice. We've been begging for that since the inception of WMExperts -- here's to hoping that the new company can offer that.

In any case, it's clear now why Sprint signed a deal to use Google's services on their future handsets, innit?

Ouch. Not a month after Sprint promised us that XOHM, their WiMAX service, was all set to launch on time later this month, we hear that this isn't really going to be the case:

Sprint Nextel will delay the commercial launch of its Xohm WiMax service until later in the year, a spokesman said Wednesday.
The Overland Park, Kan., carrier was originally scheduled to launch the service this month. But it will come later this year, said spokesman James Fisher. It's the latest in a series of setbacks for the troubled company. - [Cellular News via Engadget]

Not all that surprising given Sprint's many recent woes, but still a bummer. Folks are hoping for summer and noting that the fact that Hesse didn't really focus too much on XOHM during his CTIA Keynote should have sounded the alarm that this would happen.

At least their “unlimited everything” plan for $99 per month still beats the pants off everybody else's offering by at least 30 bucks, right?

Looks like not only is Sprint still planning on launching XOHM, their 4G WiMAX-based network, they're feeling pretty good about it too. Electronista reports that Sprint core technology vp Ben Vos says the new network is on track (we saw a soft launch in December), presumably to the markets totaling 100 million people Sprint promised. Best part - XOHM looks to use standard IP switching to managing devices, just like the internets. That should make creating networked apps a lot easier.

...For a second there you thought we were going to talk about Sprint without bringing up the possibility of an imminent Deathwatch, didn't you? Silly rabbit. No, the wrinkle with XOHM is that Sprint isn't telling just how the expansion is going to go until their next financial results call (when they will hopefully lay out the details). Sounds an awful lot like they're trying to make sure they have some good news to offset what many expect to be a deluge of red ink and bad news.

We don't really know exactly what devices are going to be made available, but Sprint intents to really and truly get the ball rolling on WiMAX right quick, as in the next few days. Good thing, too, because Sprint has promised WiMAX coverage for 100 million people by the end of '08 - a target that might be a little tougher to hit now that their pact with clearwire recently was 86'ed.

With any luck, Sprint will be trying something new with their XOHM service: subscriptions instead of long-term, 2-year contracts. I know I'd rather pay for “use whatever you want on our network for the next six months” instead of “let us nickle and dime you every month, plus: you can get out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Sprint does seem to be righting the ship after ousting their CEO in October (executive-ousting has been in the air lately, eh?). Interim CEO Paul Saleh definitely has his eyes on exactly the right ball: keeping his customers by treating them right.

Sprint Nextel will soft launch its XOHM WiMax network in the next few days according to Bin Shen, VP of Product Management and Partnership Development. Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore will all go live at soft launch

Read: Sprint XOHM Will Soft Launch “In A Few Days” (Phone Scoop)