SPRINT GOES TO LTE

Sprint, which owns 51% of WiMAX operator Clear, is weighing whether to migrate to LTE on part of its own CDMA networks, reports Light Reading Mobile.

At the LTE Summit in Amsterdam, Kevin Packingham (left), SVP of product and technology development for Sprint, said the operator was doing a technology evaluation and has sent out an RFP.

Packingham wasn’t dismissing WiMax: “We don’t see WiMax and LTE as being mutually exclusive,” he said.

Light Reading indicated that Sprint’s RFP is for its CDMA networks at 1900 MHz and 800 MHz, though the majority of Sprint’s CDMA networks are in the PCS band. So instead of identifying new spectrum for a 4G network it would look to upgrade or overlay LTE in its existing 2G and 3G bands.

CDMA carriers are only 1.25 MHz wide, so it will have to take several offline before it can aggregate the spectrum for a much broader LTE carrier. With no dominant voice standard for LTE, a voice handset using the LTE data network may take a while to reach the market. Currently Verizon and AT&T plan to use their 700MHz LTE frequencies as a data-only network. Voice will be carried on their traditional cellular network.

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all are backing LTE, so it makes sense for Sprint to support the standard, too, and provide seamless roaming on the paired cellular spectrum. But until voice is carried on LTE, there doesn’t appear to be an overwhelming need.

Sprint’s data-centric WiMAX network has bandwidth to burn. Clear has previously stated a willingness to provide whatever technology the market wants – even to other carriers. That may serve Sprint well, since the 2.6 GHz band is the spectrum of choice for “4G” providers world-wide — and Sprint/Clear owns 90% of that spectrum in the United States.

Clear is installing Samsung U-RAS Flexible base stations, which can be used as a common platform for 802.16e, 802.16m, as well as both FDD-LTE and TD-LTE deployments, as well as Motorola’s LTE/WiMAX solutions and Huawei basestations that allow TDD-WiMAX, TDD-LTE or FDD-LTE with a simple board swap.

According to Light Reading, Packingham would not specify a timeframe for when Sprint might make a leap to LTE. He suggested, however, that such a decision would be informed by customer reaction to the EVO 4G WiMax smartphone, which will be released on June 4, as well as an understanding of what work needs to be done at standards bodies to make a technology shift possible in its frequency bands.

SPRINT WIMAX PHONE

Sprint’s EVO 4G from HTC is the No. 3 U.S. operator’s first WiMAX cellphone. It has two cameras, an 8 megapixel camera for taking photos and video and a second 1.3 megapixel camera on the front for applications like video chat.

Built-in mobile hotspot functionality allows up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices to share the 4G connectivity. Specs include a microSD card, optional HDMI output, WiFi and 3G/4G. It will work on Sprint’s 3G and WiMAX network.

Previously called the HTC Supersonic, it will use Android 2.1 with HTC’s Sense UI, a 1ghz Snapdragon processor, 512mb ROM, 4.3″ AMOLED screen, built-in FM Radio and Flash.

A Sprint 4G developer guide explains how developers can take advantage of its unique hardware/software capabilities, including the forward-facing camera, HDMI output; and network detection (3G, 4G or Wi-Fi) to optimize quality of data in an app.

You can post 720p video to YouTube or broadcast live via Qik. It also works with Android applications like Google Goggles, Google Earth and the all-new Gesture Search. The HTC EVO 4G will be available through all Sprint channels and through national retail partners, including RadioShack, Best Buy and Walmart, this summer. Pricing will be announced at a later date.

Sprint has WiMAX in 27 markets and expects to quadruple its footprint this year with Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, New York City, Houston, Boston, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis and the San Francisco Bay Area expected to come online this year. Clearwire currently covers 34 million people and plans to cover 120 million by the end of the year.

In other news Samsung introduced the Galaxy S (Model: GT-I9000), an Android-powered smartphone that incorporates a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen and a 1 GHz application processor and advanced LBS (Location Based Services).

The ‘Social Hub’ provides always-on social networks connectivity. Other Key Features include a Daily Briefing (weather, news, stocks, and the scheduler), All Share (inter-device connectivity), Home Cradle (digital photo frame, table clock, calendar, and music station), Swype (easy way to input text on screen), and ThinkFree (view and edit Microsoft Office 2007 documents).

Samsung also announced the first mobile phone to be DivX Certified for HD video playback at 720p resolution. The Samsung Wave will demonstrate DivX HD playback as well as the new Galaxy S phone.

T-Mobile has announced that they’re making good progress on their super speedy HSPA+ network. By the end of 2010, T-Mobile expects to have HSPA+ deployed across the breadth of its 3G footprint, covering more than 100 metropolitan areas and 185 million people. More than half of that will be complete by the middle of the year.

HSPA+ service is currently available in Philadelphia and has now expanded into parts of New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, the Las Vegas Convention Center and Strip areas, and west suburban Washington DC, with Los Angeles coming soon. T-Mobile’s webConnect Rocket USB Stick, available next week, is the first HSPA+ stick available from a major carrier.

Customers can choose T-Mobile’s Even More webConnect data plan, which requires a two-year contract, and get 5GB for $60 per month or 200MB for $30 per month. Those wishing to avoid contracts can select the Even More Plus webConnect data plan, which costs $50 per month for 5GB or $20 per month for 200MB (but they have to pay for the modem). All plans have overage charges costing $0.20 per megabyte.

Qualcomm’s new Gobi modem technology is significant because it supports more than one type of 3G service. In effect, Gobi allows switching to a different 3G provider in software. Now it supports LTE, too.

Verizon Wireless and Skype today announced that Skype mobile will be available this Thursday, March 25, starting with nine Verizon Wireless 3G smartphones. Skype mobile uses the Verizon Wireless voice network for the wireless connection of the Skype-to-Skype calls.

AT&T says Verizon’s first LTE phone is ‘going to be a fat brick’. AT&T’s CTO John Donovan, at CTIA, claimed that Verizon was jumping the gun with its LTE rollout, suggesting initial devices are “going to drain the battery like crazy,” noting that “2012 will be the time when you’ll have decent handsets.”

Two US-based mobile broadband providers are planning to offer the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook at subsidized prices. T-Mobile will offer the Mini 10 with an integrated 3G modem for $199 when you sign up for a 2-year contract. Clear will offer the Dell Mini 10 with an integrated 4G WiMAX modem for $250 with the purchase of a service plan.

SPRINT AND MOTOROLA AND WIMAX ROAMING

Sprint today rolled out WiMAX services in Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary, N.C., and Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, N.C.. The buildout is being handled by Clearwire, based in Kirkland, Wash., of which Sprint is 51 percent owner.

Sprint customers can use the external 3G/4G USB Modem U300 which offers access to both 3G and WiMAX networks. Customers can benefit from a 4G promotion allowing them to get the dual-mode device for free after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year agreement. Sprint is currently offering new 4G/3G data plans for $69.99 monthly with unlimited 4G and unlimited 3G on the Sprint network.

Sprint today also unveiled the Dell Inspiron Mini 10, the first netbook available from Sprint. The Atom-powered Netbook is now available at select Sprint Stores throughout the Twin Cities for just $199.99 with activation on a Sprint Mobile Broadband plan and a two-year service agreement, after a $100 mail-in rebate. It features an embedded EV-DO data card — but no WiMAX.

It follows moves by AT&T in April and Verizon in May to offer netbooks for as low as $49.99.

Samsung’s Moment is also coming to Sprint. It features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, AMOLED screen and Android inside. It costs $179.99 after rebates (with a two-year commitment).

Motorola says it has shipped 10,000 Mobile WiMAX standard base stations, a 40 percent compound annual growth rate since Motorola’s first WiMAX access points were shipped in 2007. In September, 2009, Motorola announced it has shipped over one million WiMAX CPE device.

There are now 4 million worldwide BWA/WiMAX subscribers, says Maravedis, with 45 new devices obtained WiMAX Forum certification from June to September 2009, including 18 notebooks, 4 cards, 12 USB dongles, and 3 chipsets, among other devices.

Motorola’s WiMAX portfolio includes a variety of solutions with different coverage and capacity. In the licensed 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz, and 3.5GHz bands, Motorola is currently shipping include the WAP 400 with 2×2 antenna technology and the WAP 450 – a higher power 2×2 unit. In addition, the WAP 800 in the 3.5GHz has the versatility to support both coverage and capacity models with 4×8 beam-forming antenna technology.

The WAP 800 uses antenna arrays to control the direction and shape of the radiation pattern — steering and forming the beam to provide an optimal radiation pattern focused in the direction

The recently announced 4×4 WAP 650, which the company says is an easy field upgrade from the WAP 450, and offers operators 30 percent reduction in total cost of ownership compared to average 2×2 base stations, by using more MIMO antennas for better coverage.

Each new generation of the WAP product line is designed with improved energy efficiency. Motorola says there is a more than 100 percent relative energy efficiency improvement from the first to second generation radio frequency (RF) unit, enabling cost-effective solar and wind-powered installations.

Motorola claims more than 35 WiMAX contracts in every region of the world, in 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, and 3.5 GHz, including a recently announced deal with Imagine in Ireland.

Clearwire International, and Taiwan’s Tatung InfoComm and VMAX have for the first time demonstrated mobile WiMax global roaming, the WiMax Forum said on Monday.

The demonstration was done at the WiMax Forum Member Conference in Taipei. It used a USB (Universal Serial Bus) modem, a username and password from Clearwire to gain access to both Tatung InfoComm’s and VMAX’s respective WiMax networks in Taiwan. The operators talked to each other via Aicent, a third-party roaming exchange provider. Other companies participating in the demos include Samsung, Futureinfonet, Alcatel-Lucent and Bridgewater Systems.

Unlike its cellular rivals, WiMax does not have roaming specified in the IEEE standards, explains Clearwire’s International’s president Barry West in this Light Reading video. West wants WiMax to get to the “same position” as GSM roaming, whereby any GSM device can be used on any GSM network in the world.

Clearwire’s international roaming deal means that someone using Sprint’s USB WiMAX modem, for example, could seamlessly roam to other WiMAX networks, explains Unstrung. Clearwire has also signed agreements with WiMAX operators UQ Communications of Japan and Yota of Russia for WiMAX roaming between the operators.

WiMAX Roaming.org, under the auspices of WiMAX Forum, provides a forum for working out roaming standards. Roaming may also be applied when Comcast or Time Warner WiMAX users in the United States venture into other regions that are served by other providers such as Clear or Sprint.

SPRINT 3G/4G WIRELESS USB MODEM

Sprint Nextel announced Wednesday that it will start selling dual-mode 3G/4G wireless broadband modems for laptops starting Sunday.

Sprint 3G/4G USB Modem U300

(Credit: Sprint Nextel)

The new device allows users to access both Sprint's 3G cellular data network and the new 4G WiMax wireless network the company is building as part of the new Clearwire venture.

The modem known as the Sprint 3G/4G USB Modem U300 will use the new 4G Clearwire network with download speeds between 2 Mbps and 4Mbps where that network is available. And when users are out of range of the 4G wireless network, they will automatically be able to access Sprint's 3G network, which offers average downloads of between 600 Kbps and 1.4 Mbps, according to Sprint.

Sprint launched the 4G WiMax network called Xohm in Baltimore in October, just months before it officially merged its WiMax network with Clearwire's network. The service will be launched in other markets across the country throughout 2009.

At the Baltimore launch, Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse promised a wireless data device that would allow users to access both networks for better coverage.

"It will take a while for the new (4G) network to be built ubiquitously," Hesse said during the Baltimore press event. "And we will have new multimode devices that will use 4G where it's available, and when it's not, it will downshift to 3G to provide that ubiquitous data coverage."

The new wireless modem connects via a standard USB port and costs $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and with a two-year subscription to the wireless data service. The wireless modem will be available through Sprint's direct business sales force and at most Baltimore-area Sprint stores and select Baltimore-area retailers, the company said. Starting in January, the device will also be available in Baltimore-area Best Buy stores.

The new wireless modem from Sprint will likely be a better deal for most consumers because the service, which costs $79.99 per month, offers the best coverage at the best price.

Several notebook manufacturers, including Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Toshiba, are including Intel's WiMax/Wi-Fi module in new laptops, so that users can access the 4G WiMax network. But these devices do not have Sprint's 3G wireless technology integrated into them. This means that users would have to subscribe to both a 4G WiMax service from Clearwire, which regularly costs $45 per month (a $15 discount is available for the first six months), and Sprint's 3G wireless service, which costs $59.99 per month, if they wanted wireless broadband service nationwide. And because the 3G and 4G radio frequency technologies aren't integrated in these laptops, the devices would not seamlessly switch between the 3G and 4G networks.

A Sprint spokesman said the company and its partners will eventually offer embedded dual-mode 3G/4G technology in other devices. But he also pointed out that the laptops that use Intel's embedded WiMax technology and the dual mode 3G/4G modem are really aimed at different sets of customers.

The embedded laptops are for users who only need high speed wireless access close to home, while the 3G/4G modem is for road warriors who may find themselves far from Baltimore or any of the other WiMax enabled cities.

SPRINT: SAMSUNG WIMAX READY

Sprint and Samsung today declared Mobile WiMax ready for commercial service. Sprint plans on launching commercial WiMax in Washington and Baltimore “later this year”.

Washington and Baltimore joined Chicago in a “soft rollout”, in which Sprint workers use and test the technology, a Sprint spokesman said last week. A Clearwire Mobile WiMax rollout is also planned, likely later this summer, in Portland, Oregon.

Despite today’s announcement about Washington and Baltimore, no commercial rollout projection for Chicago was mentioned. When asked about Chicago, a Sprint spokesman said “there will be further progress to report at another time.”

It’s a Motorola party in Chicago and Portland.

Sprint and Samsung said testing of overall performance, including successful wireless handoffs between cell towers without delay, had met Sprint’s “rigorous commercial acceptance criteria.” Testing was conducted in laboratories, as well as in the Baltimore-Washington area, the companies said.

Samsung has been working with Sprint since June 2007. There were lab tests, followed by field tests in October and then interoperability tests with “multiple” other device vendors in April.

Those devices included a Nokia’s WiMax tablet, a Samsung WiMax express card for laptops and a Zyxel WiMax modem. Intel has been developing chip sets for use in laptops and ultramobile PCs.

Clearwire is planning to move onto Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Grand Rapids, Mich., with mobile WiMax deployments after it launches in Portland, Ore., in the second half of this year, the company said during its first quarter earnings call this week. Clearwire ended the first quarter of 2008 with 443,000 users, up 72 percent on the previous year’s first quarter.

Maravedis forecasts WiMAX subscribers to exceed 100 million by 2014.

Meanwhile, there are more than 45 million cellular-based HSPA users worldwide, delivering consistent data rates in the range of 500 kbit/s to 1.5 Mbit/s, reports Unstrung. The GSM family will account for fully 89% of the global market in 2011, according to Gartner Inc. In the U.S., AT&T is a GSM provider, along with T-Mobile, which many believe will eventually announce intentions to support LTE and has launched AWS service in New York City.

Alltel has committed to LTE but any significant network upgrades are still three to five years out, the company said today. The No. 5 carrier has just over 13 million customers. Alltel is the second major CDMA carrier (after Verizon Wireless) to switch tracks and select LTE. Sprint, of course, is going the Mobile WiMAX route (and may get a 3-5 year lead over the competition).

Late to the party, AT&T and Verizon had to pay a premium for their spectrum, will wait years for LTE infrastructure, and could be left with scraps for their microwave backhaul.

“It’s what I call the elephant in the room that nobody talks about,” explained Clearwire CTO John Saw, to Unstrung. “The backhaul is probably the highest cost of deploying the network… Anyone who wants to roll out a real wireless broadband network nationwide needs a cheaper solution.”

SPRINT'S XOHM WIMAX SUPPORTED LAPTOP

Debuting today at CTIA 2008, the Cloudbook MAX not only boasts an 8.9-inch WVGA (1,024 x 600) display, Windows Vista, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, integrated GPS receiver, 2-megapixel webcam and a battery good for four hours, but it also features an 80GB HDD, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, audio in / out and an S-Video output. Beyond all that, this thing gets energized by a 1.6GHz VIA C7-M ULV processor coupled with the VX800 digital media IGP chipset, which touts full DirectX 9 support and video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, VC1 and DivX video formats (plus a VMR-capable HD video processor, among other things). Lastly, the unit includes built-in support for Sprint's XOHM WiMAX network. Brimming with excitement yet? Start stocking that piggy bank -- this currently unpriced rig will be available in the latter half of this year across North America.

Read - VIA and Everex demonstrate Cloudbook MAX at CTIA
Read - VIA VX800 Series Chipset

MOTOROLA MOBILE WIMAX DEMOS

In here you can watch the Motorola Wi4 demo videos of Sprint's Mobile WiMax demonstration show in Chicago

SPRINT'S MOBILE WIMAX DEMO

These days many things happening around the WiMax world.

Recently American giant operator Sprint/Nextel announced their Mobile WiMax solution XOHM, it would be either Samsung or Motorola but last week Motorola and Sprint demonstrated Sprint's Mobile WiMax solution XOHM on Chicago. There involved 4 BS towers and 12 Laptops and few WiMax enlabled Cell phones. System showed people that it can handle 2-4Mbps for downstream and 1-2Mbps for upstream while moving (50mph) on the Chicago River of Chicago city. Heard that it covered only 0.8miles of river by 4 Base Station Towers, you can imagine that what area can cover 1 base station, but it is only a demonstration. But Sprint said that they will begin their service for customer only in Q2 of 2008. Sprints demo videos on Chicago.