WiMax coming this month, devices leaked and new markets confirmed

WiMax coming this month, devices leaked and new markets confirmed

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Published on: 03 September, 2008 by PhoneArena Team

WiMax coming this month, devices leaked and new markets confirmed

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Sprint reiterated that WiMax service will launch this month in Baltimore, with Washington D.C. and Chicago to come in the fourth quarter.  A spokesman also confirmed that they were building base stations in Boston, Philadelphia and Dallas-Fort Worth and that the project was more than a month ahead of schedule.  Thus far they have completed 1,066 base stations and are continuing to build out the service.  Sprint also revealed that WiMax will take advantage of uLocate's software, which will allow for "geobrowsing" that gives the user pertinant information based on the user's current location.

Also leaked, presumably unintentionally, were the launch devices.  There were five in all, and no surprise four of them are modems.  Also not a surprise, but always plesant to see, is the Nokia N810 tablet in WiMax garb.  It looks like two of the modems will be aircards, one USB and one Express, one will be an in-home router and the fourth one is a mysterious "XOHM Portal."  The question now becomes, will Airave users be able to use XOHM as their broadband connection?


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1.
wow all i can say is its about time ive worked for sprint for 3 and a half years until saturday our store unfortunatly closed down but eh ..this is great ive been waiting for wimax and more importanly a wimax blackberry with ptt you never know it could be here quicker then we thing
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2.
I've heard from Moto that there will be a new ptt Blackberry by year's end. Not sure if it's IDEN based or RevA, but I doubt it will be WiMax. We can dream though, right?
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3.
To add to comment # 2: I guess since the news came from Moto, it would most likely be IDEN based. I should think more before I hit "post reply". :)
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #2 ( Show )
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4.
why would moto tell you that?
RIM makes blackberries. Not Motorola
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #2 ( Show )
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5.
Moto is involved with any IDEN devices. They license the technology to RIM so they would know if an IDEN based ptt Blackberry was on the horizon.
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #4 ( Show )
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6.
its the 8350, and its an iden curve with wifi
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #2 ( Show )
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7.
There you go! Thanks for the info.
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #6 ( Show )
Reply to sprint supporter Hide 6 replies to this comment
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8.
Cannot wait until it gets to Philly! Time to cancel Comcast and fire up the XOHM modem.
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9.
too bad xohm will suck compared to lte. i mean everyone will be lte and sprint will be the only one with it. poor them....
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11.
Too bad LTE won't be around any time soon and WiMax will. So since it will be the only option available, I'll take it. Thank you very much, hater.
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13.
Exactly... Thank you #11. WiMax is already established and being used in Europe. Also, Sprint is not the only company that has backed WiMax if you've read anything in the past. It's also invested by Intel, Google, Time Warner, Comcast, ClearWire among others. It won't just be a mobile network for cell phones but will replace some cable company's cable internet service and is also slated to work with schools, school buses and public transportation. They will have the jump on Verizon and ATT for at least another year since LTE is still in development and will most likely be launched in Europe long before it comes here just like everything else. They have their bases well covered with this and the other companys invested in this will also probably make sure that it has the backing to keep successful which it will be without any help. They were the first to have 3G and now the first to have 4G and they had 3G for over two years before ATT had theirs launched. When it comes to innovation in data and technology, they've got it covered. We all saw how scared ATT was when they tried to stop the partnership or merger of Sprint and Clearwire. That should've sent a clear message to everyone that they knew that Sprint had them by the balls with this one. Yes, LTE is supposed to be 30mbps faster but who is gonna have a network capable of handling that in the next 2-3 years without doing major upgrades? Definitely not ATT since they can barely get their 3G up to speed and Verizon has to add new technology to its towers to get LTE going. Sprint is clearly the winner with this technology and they'll be competing with only themselves for the next year to two years or so...
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #11 ( Show )
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14.
Article from ZDNet.com:

"Under the terms of the deal (Sprint statement, Clearwire statement, Techmeme), Clearwire will get Sprint’s XOHM unit. The investment from Clearwire’s supporters has a target price of $20 a share, but has a cap of $23 a share and a floor of $17 a share. The investment will depend on the trading of Clearwire shares over “15 randomly selected trading days during the 30-trading day period ending on the 90th day after the closing date.” Comcast will invest $1.05 billion, Intel Capital will invest $1.0 billion in addition to its previous investments made in Clearwire, Time Warner Cable will invest $550 million, Google will invest $500 million, and Bright House Networks will invest $100 million, for a of $3.2 billion.

Once the deal is done, Sprint will own 51 percent of the partnership, Clearwire shareholders get 27 percent and the new investors will have 22 percent. The transaction is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter."

So who's gonna suck?

73mbps for WiMax, 110 for LTE. Who's gonna have max bandwidth for either in the next 5 years. Nobody in the US. Maybe across the pond but not here... But I guarantee that even with LTE they won't be close to Sprint in terms of speed for the simple fact that they have so many tech giants behind them to support the technology and they have a couple years head start on the other guys... Lets get real people.
Reply to this comment This comment is posted in response to #13 ( Show )
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26.
ANYONE WHO COMPARES LTE TO WiMAX should stay off of this forum. Why does everyone bring up LTE in reference to WiMAx? LTE and WiMax are 2 different technologies with 2 different intentions. Everyone keeps giving Sprint flack about choosing WiMax over LTE but it is by far the smartest choice. LTE is limited to phones!!!!!! LIMITED TO PHONES!!!!!!!! where WiMax will be used in computers, audio/visual devices, navigation systems for cars, and camera's among a host of other products. Sprint just jumped into a whole new ballgame and expanded their portfolio exponentially by creating WiMax. This will turn entire cities into Wifi spots, ENTIRE CITIES!! The reason no other carrier has chosen WiMAx???????..................because sprint owns 51% of Clearwire, the company that Spint was created in conjunction with Intel, Google and other companies to manage it. Other companies went with LTE because they would either have to use Sprint's network, or build their own. Sprint has a monster on a chain right now and I love it. Once people have this available in thier cities they will see the value, it will work on their phone's similar to wifi, Sprint will still have Evdo Rev O and Rev A when WiMax is not available, no more looking for Wifi hot spots for computers, your car will use it to play streaming video and audio, navigation systems will use it, you can use it in home to stream movies, imagine taking a picture with your digital camera and immediately be able to upload it to your Xohm account or Sprint account to save, or send it to someone else instantly without haveing to download it to a computer, there are a million different ways that customers will be able to use this beyond just their phone. LTE will make my phone's internet faster......whooptee fuckin doodah!!!!! WiMAX is the new playing field, Sprint is the Franchise Player and LTE is the fastest athlete in the Special Olympics, congratulations. LTE can not compete with WiMAx, and I am excited for it to roll out in L.A. personally. Hope this clears up the LTE/WiMAx argument. Let me know if you have any questions.
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10.
Let me know when LTE comes out
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21.
You're an idiot. Try reading the other posts.
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12.
Wi Max is going to change the things, until LTE rears it's head (in the U.S.) there is nothing to be said
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15.
I actually work for an indirect agent that sells Sprint, Verizon, and At&t. Let me be first to correct number 13. Verizon was the first to officially launch 3g followed closely by sprint, although that doesn't really matter now. And to make a comment like verizon has to add new technology to it's towers shows your a moron. Sprint's wimax is a whole new technology and yes sprint has to do the same thing by deploying this new technology to it's towers too. Now verizon has said they will begin testing LTE this year and into next year and deploying it starting in 2010. You also fail to mention that at&t and verizon is deploying LTE with the 700mhz old analog TV spectrum they purchased, and the 700mhz spectrum penetrates buildings much better than the 2+ghz spectrum sprint is using with wimax. Also to #14 to say that wimax speeds will be faster than LTE because of the tech giants backing wimax shows your a moron. When you compare Hardware to Hardware being wimax vs LTE, LTE is a lot faster and you can't change that fact no matter how many companies you have backing you. That all said I'm glad to see sprint is launching wimax so much sooner than at&t and verizon is launching LTE. Let's hope this 4g network will provide sprint with a much needed boost. Although reading the early reviews, It's sad to see that sprint's wimax speeds aren't higher than the forecasted 1-2 Mbps upload and 2-3 Mbps download. Those are still great speeds however thats only 2-4 times faster than sprint and verizon's ev-do rev.a which averages 500-800k upload and 800-1.4 Mbps download. For all this investment money reaching the billions for wimax I expected it to be faster than what they are saying. But who knows when wimax launches those speeds may officially go up. Sprint well definitely hold the advantage for a couple years before at&t and verizon launch LTE, but once LTE is launched nationwide which is a lot faster than wimax and has global support, sprint may have a tough time selling wimax side by side when compared to LTE in the same markets. This all said I wish the best of luck to sprint because they really need it right now.
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16.
LTE still isn't here but Wi Max is
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17.
#15, I would suggest you check your facts. Verizon has yet to begin any work regarding LTE testing if the announcement made last year is to be believed. The LSTI still hasn't decided on which of the two competing preliminary standards to further develop, and the backhaul issue still needs to be addressed.

You're also conveniently glossing over the fact that there is no way to transition from CDMA to LTE at the moment as the current dual-mode ASICs are much too expensive to manufacture for any real benefit.
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18.
WiMax will do a creat service to the mobile community. *****BUT**** I think WiMax will fall in the same boat as Sega did with the "dreamcast" . Sega was the first to release 64-bit technology and many morons bought into the hype that it was out like 7 months before the N-64 and playstation. What happened to sega's gaming platform development team? Oh, that's right, they went bankrupt and now Sega makes games only.

LTE will be faster, It will be more widely used, and It will have global roaming for most the entire world. AT&T and VZW could have gone with WiMax, but they chose a winner with LTE. Why settle for second? VZW and AT&T are contstantly battling for first and Sprint is content with just existing, which is a poor business model. Which is why Sprint will always be behind. Sure they pay rediculous amounts of money to have exclusive rights on phones over Verizon, but that is a dumb choice and a waste of money. The only reason they do it is to, again, try and grab the morons who want something better now, rather than wait until the product is a little bit better.

#14, You talk about how much billions of dollars were spent on the technology for WiMax. Verizon Spent over 7 billion AT&T spent like 4 billion on just the Spectrum. Sprint just had to sell half a million in towers to a 3rd party to help boost their expendable cash b/c they need it. I don't see AT&T selling their towers to make their accounting books look good. Again, that's right, they don't have to. They are good as they are.

Sprint never looks at the long run goal only the short term gain, and in recent months, a massive loss. If I were a Sprint life-employee I would be looking to expand my education so when they bankrupt in 10 years I would be valuable to the job markey besides saying that I am "experienced and loyal."
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20.
The way sprint is positioning wimax its not even going to be used for cell phones initially. Its going to be used like cable and dsl. They will have it first so they will get the foothold. Imagine having your phone, net, and cable for your whole house thru one xohm modem. Sprint had to go with wimax so they could have a 2-3 year head start on any other 4g network; to become the STANDARD in 4g wireless data for other applications. If the fact that LTE is more globally accepted, is too much for Wimax to gain foothold in 4g data for phones; sprint can build LTE if it wants or set data roaming agreements. This move is much bigger than phones trust me..

oh yea and sprint was the only major us carrier that still owned a majority of their towers. So dont say sprint selling their towers is bad. If you go to a company that owns their towers you will prolly find yourself on metro pcs thats if they havent did the industry norm too...
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19.
There still is no LTE in the U.S. and the won't be for 2 years at the earliest. 24 months is a lot longer than 7
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22.
I BELIEVE IT TILL I C IT...

SPRINT EMPLOYEE
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