Sprint Nextel To Build WiMax Network

NEW YORK, — In a catch-up strategy to gain on emerging European and Asian mobile broadband services, Sprint Nextel is set to launch a full 4G national network by 2008. The nation's third largest service provider has formed a WiMax ecosystem along with Intel, Motorola and Samsung to make it happen, the company announced at a press conference here Tuesday (Aug. 8).

Sprint's 4G wireless broadband network will implement the mobile WiMax IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard to develop a nationwide network infrastructure, as well as mobile WiMax-enabled chip sets to be embedded in consumer electronic devices and hi-end notebook computers.

Sprint Nextel's 2.5GHz spectrum holdings cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets— the most of any wireless carrier in any single spectrum band.

"None of us today can envision our lives without wireless connectivity or the Internet," said Gary Forsee, president and chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel during the conference. "Sprint Nextel is taking a major step forward by linking the incredible potential of these two cornerstones of daily communications."

The company is targeting trial markets by the end of 2007 and plans to deploy a network that reaches as many as 100 million people in 2008.Sprint Nextel expects to invest $1 billion in 2007 and $1.5 billion to $2 billion in 2008 in the 4G mobile network. While Forsee was reluctant to disclose how much each of its partners is investing in the network, "suffice it to say that there is a substantial commitment by the partner to the infrastructure, development of embedded chip sets and for marketing this endeavor on a grand scale."

The WiMAX technology being deployed in the network is expected to offer a cost-per-megabit and performance advantage over comparable costs for current 3G mobile broadband offerings. "We expect download speeds to increase fourfold over present 2.5 and 3G networks and reach 2- to 4-Mb/s," Forsee said.

Motorola, Samsung providing support

Motorola and Samsung will also support Sprint's current CDMA/EV-DO (3G) network technologies by creating multimode devices for both 4G and 3G services in areas outside the planned 4G coverage, and will provide voice service using the core 3G network. The 4G broadband network will offer a complementary, high-bandwidth service driven by data centric devices.

Motorola will also provide Sprint Nextel both single- and multimode devices designed for seamless mobility. Motorola will also play a major role in WiMax infrastructure roll-out as well as continue its iDEN technology and CDMA and EV-DO Revision A technology.Intel, one of the early members of the WiMax Forum and a key contributor to the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard, will incorporate WiMax technology in its Centrino line for notebooks and provide device-to-network verification expertise based on its lengthy WiMax experience.

"The underlying technology for WiMax follow's Moore's Law, and the 2.5 GHz bandwidth spectrum that Sprint has ascertained has a chance to catapult the U.S. back in the lead for broadband mobile services," said Sean Maloney, Intel executive vice president.

Samsung Telecommunications America will be a primary Mobile WiMax infrastructure supplier to Sprint Nextel.

The move by Sprint Nextel, the communications giant formed by the merger of Sprint and Nextel approved last year by the Federal Communications Commission, comes as the wireless industry seeks to promote mobile services like video and Internet surfing as possible revenue streams.

Barry West, chief technology officer of Sprint Nextel and president of the 4G Mobile Broadband Group, said during the press conference the critical factor for adopting next-generation broadband was "it had to all-IP, adopting Internet Protocol universally is really going to set us apart." West said that Sprint developers assumed that the future would belong to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), which the WiMax network would use.Initially, Sprint Nextel had tested a flash OFDM network developed by Flarion (now part of Qualcomm Inc.) in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C. area. The technology worked well, West said, but it was based on frequency division duplexing and is currently only offered in 1.25-MHz channels. Sprint's existing broadband 2.5-GHz technology uses time division duplexing, and Sprint wanted to see wider channels offered in the frequency band.The company also tested a TD-CDMA technology from IP Wireless, which West called very impressive, but the standards seemed stuck between its current standards and the Long Term Evolution technology promoted by the 3G Partnership Program.

Similarly, he said, High Speed Packet Access is a transitional standard which will be replaced by LTE, and Sprint Nextel did not want to consider a short-term technology, West said.

Additional reporting by Loring Wirbel and Spencer Chin