Sprint and Clearwire come to terms on WiMAX roaming
By Will Park on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 6:00 PM PST In Announcements, Partnerships, Services, Sprint, Technologies, WiMAX
Sprint and Clearwire barely started talking to eachother again and it looks like they’re rearin’ to tie the knot. After calling off negotiations, then getting back together again, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff has announced that Clearwire and Sprint (NYSE: S) have come to terms on how the two companies will handle roaming customers between their WiMAX networks.
Reuters is reporting that the WiMAX duo has “agreed on common network architecture in order to make it possible for their customers to roam between both networks.” This deal would presumably allow Sprint and WiMAX to essentially break up the US into WiMAX market-halves, with each company serving their own subscriber-base in their respective areas. WiMAX customers from either side would then be allowed to roam between networks as they travel, effectively creating a nationwide WiMAX blanket.
Sweet, this deal marks a breakthrough for Sprint’s prospects as one of the premier mobile-broadband providers in the US. We can’t wait for some commercial service-launches.
[Via: MocoNews]
The deal if it goes through will give a new dimension to mobile WiMAX in the US and perhaps in parts of Europe. Embroiled as they are in the 700 MHz spectrum auction, the companies have bid over $19 Billion for 700 MHz spectrum, which has just now been declared as one for which certification profiles” will be announced” by the WiMAX forum. However Sprint and Clearwire can sew together virtually all of the mobile WiMAX spectrum in the 2.5-2.69 GHz, the band where certified Wave 2 devices with MIMO are set to be available anytime now. The support of Inel, will also help with the chipsets and customer devices the last remaining link for success of this new technology. It is to be remembered that the competition will be with the Mobile industry at the prime of its life with mobile handset launches averaging one a day, mobile multimedia on the go and WiFi connectivity et el. Hence the new combination presents one of the best opportunities for success against the industry in the prime as well as one yet to be born in the 700 MHz band with a handicap of Billions of dollars in spectrum charges weighing down the business plans.
See for details wimaxbook.net