Sprint 2008 WiMAX rollout scheduled for Chicago, Indy, Denver, and more
Sprint announced today that it has added several cities to its list of service areas that will have commercial WiMAX (4G network) access in early 2008. Additionally, Sprint will be launching a program to accelerate the development of WiMAX-enabled devices, and has chosen the companies that will provide its launch hardware.
Only two cities were announced as test markets in January: Chicago and Washington D.C., with Motorola building the WiMAX network in Chicago. Motorola will now not only be developing the network in Chicago, but also in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Minneapolis. Samsung will also be developing the market in a number of cities: Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, and the previously-announced Washington D.C. Finally, Nokia will be responsible for developing the network in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and Seattle. All in all, Sprint plans to roll out WiMAX in 19 cities across the US by April 2008.
Sprint doesn’t plan to introduce its mobile WiMAX service until the end of this year, but this carrier said this week what it is likely to charge per month: $55 for unlimited data transfers.
This carrier will need to sign up a great many subscribers to pay for the $3 billion it is putting into this initiative.
More About WiMAX
WiMAX is an acronym for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, and its more technical name is IEEE 802.16e.
It should not be confused with regular WiMAX (802.16a), as that works only between fixed points. The mobile version, on the other hand, can be installed in laptops, PC Cards, and smartphones.
[Thanks Jerry B. for the news]
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