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Sprint Xohm at Intel’s IDF: Going live with WiMAX in 2008, killing the subsidy business model!

Categories: Announcements, Sprint, WiMAX
By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 1:26 PM

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Sprint was at the Intel Developer’s Forum this year showing offing their plans to launch in early 2008, offer a massive roll out during the same year and by the end of 2010 to be in a total of 37 areas around the country. Speeds and prices were not announced, but it was nice of Sprint to say that they are going to take an ISP approach to the service. Will this be the radical change that gives the American wireless industry the swift kick in the ass it needs? This slide sheds some light:

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With Nokia already saying they’re planing to create WiMAX handsets and Samsung already producing WiBro (Korean name for WiMAX) devices, this might be the start of something big. I have mixed feelings about WiMAX however. They say where Intel goes the industry goes, but a presentation I attended by Gartner Research at the Mobile Monday World Summit in Helsinki a few weeks ago supported my uneasiness with conclusions that WiMAX will remain niche and technologies such as LTE and HSOPA (both UMTS based) is where the future of the industry is going. We will just have to wait and see.

[More pictures at Anandtech]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Amitabh Kumar

    A beginning has already been made in the embedded devices market in Korea and taiwan. However,we are waiting for some innovative consumer devices based on WiMAX to set the trend for the year. We have a navigation and streaming device announced already, but what would be interesting would be media players and gaming devices as well.