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Sprint to debut WiMAX network

Mark Brezinski Published on December 13, 2007 Comment on this

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December 13, 2007 - This week Sprint plans on taking its WiMAX networks live. The soft launch, which is limited to Sprint employees, will include Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. Sprint has doled out network-building responsibilities to its three major hardware vendors: Motorola built Chicago's network, Samsung handled the East coast, and Nokia Siemens is currently building a third network in Texas. While no hard dates have been set, Sprint has set a full commercial launch for the second quarter of 2008. Sprint hopes to extend the network to 100 million people by the end of 2008. Following in the footsteps of fellow carriers, Sprint will keep this network "open", meaning any device will be able to access the network.

This soft launch will mark the first time a fourth generation network is available in the United States. The technology is already available in South Korea, but not on the large scale Sprint will offer. Like CDMA technologies, WiMAX might be limited to the US and Korea, as the European Union has already denied frequency allocation for WiMAX technologies, citing a push towards network standardization.

Sprint's endorsement of WiMAX is taking the company in a different direction than other carriers, as both AT&T and Verizon have decided on LTE technology to provide their next generation networks. Until these other companies get their networks running, WiMAX will compete with existing technologies such as HSDPA and EVDO. EVDO can offer download speeds up to 3.1 Megabits per second, while HSDPA's maximum rate is 14.1 Mbps. WiMAX will offer speeds up to 70Mbps, while LTE will exceed 100Mbps.