Reston-based Sprint Nextel will be the first telecommunications company to unveil an extensive WiMax network in the United States and the Baltimore/D.C. area will be the first to receive it.
WiMax is a wireless broadband network designed for metropolitan areas. It has a much more powerful reach and faster speeds than the local Wi-Fi networks in place in such areas as airports and coffee shops.
Sprint Nextel has committed to investing $3 billion over the next three years for a network that should reach 100 million people by the end of 2008, Sprint Nextel spokesman John Polivka said. Area residents will begin receiving service in limited locations by the end of the year and Sprint will officially roll out the service next April.
Sprint’s network is particularly designed for portable devices such as cellular phones and laptop computers. The other major entrant so far into the WiMax market is Washington state’s Clearwire, which announced a $600 million initial public offering at the beginning of the month to fund its network. Clearwire plans to initially target areas unserved by DSL and cable, such as rural markets.
Lov Kher, a partner with the N.J.-based consulting firm BusinessEdge Solutions, expects other major telecom companies will jump into the market after Sprint and Clearwire have tested WiMax. But WiMax Forum Vice President of Marketing Mohammad Shakouri said it will depend on whether more companies get the spectrum necessary to roll out a WiMax network.
There are still also unanswered questions on whether there will be enough WiMax-compatible devices available by the time the network is rolled out and how much of an investment the service and the corresponding devices will be, analysts said. Sprint has not settled on its pricing model for the service yet, but is looking at charging a bundled fee for WiMax access and mobile phone service, Polikva said.
“Data applications are a huge frontier for us,” Polikva said. “We’re thinking of things like video conferencing and broadband access to video that can be accessed by a number of portable devices.”
Sprint Nextel has partnered with companies like Intel and Motorola to produce devices that will be WiMax compatible by the time the network is launched, Polivka said.
