Sprint's WiMax Lacks Proper Funds, Faces Competition Study Finds

SprInt's WIMax Lacks Proper Funds, Faces CompetItIon Study FInds

A new study on the future of wireless broadband and WiMax in the United States maintains that Sprint Nextel, which has announced the most ambitious nationwide WiMax deployment, can't make a go of its rollout without obtaining additional funding. The Maravedis research report, written by senior analyst Tim Sanders, notes that the rollout of mobile WiMax faces many hurdles before it can be widely adopted. Sprint, of course, has been racked with recent management upheaval, layoffs, and the challenge of merging its Nextel operation into Sprint.

"Sprint is the best play short-term," said Sanders in an interview Friday. But he noted that interest and commitments to LTE (Long Term Evolution) is gaining, and Sprint and other suppliers must send clear signals to the wireless broadband world about development plans for WiMax. "LTE is still two years behind WiMax," Sanders said. "But the technologies are so close that they may end up converging in three or four years."

The report, "Opportunities and Challenges for Broadband Wireless and WiMax in the USA," looks not only at the near-term obstacles facing widespread deployment of WiMax but also at other wireless broadband technologies that are still in the development stage but are likely to reach the marketplace in the future. Sanders predicts there will be opportunities for WiMax in the 700-MHz band, but they aren't expected to materialize in a big way before 2010. "There's little product profile for WiMax with 700 MHz now," said Sanders, "but in time there [will be] because of the [superior] propagation characteristics of 700 MHz." The FCC is currently running an auction of 700-MHz spectrum, which is coveted because its signals can penetrate buildings and the technology requires fewer towers than other wireless infrastructures.

The Maravedis report predicted that LTE will be the dominant mobile broadband technology in 2012 and suggested that WiMax spectrum could be shared with LTE. Sanders noted that Verizon recently selected LTE as its underlying technology for its 4G mobile devices. Observing that WiMax subscribers currently number about 500,000 users, the report forecast that 10 million will be using the wide area wireless technology by 2013 exclusive of Sprint. Sanders said WiMax provider Clearwire has about 300,000 subscribers currently.