Finally some WiMAX news. While Clearwire and Sprint’s 4G services continue to confuse everyone as to each one’s jurisdiction, its good to know that some parts of the United States actually are getting WiMAX. According to the usual run-of-the-mill boring press release, Sprint will be bringing its WiMAX support to Las Vegas, NV; Portland, OR and Atlanta, GA. Th. If Sprint manages to stay on schedule, it may well follow through on its WiMAX roadmap. As for pricing, Sprint’s 4G broadband mobile plan will cost you $69.99 per month for unlimited 4G (includes 5GB of 3G data) and $10 day passes are available.
here, here and here (yes all of them!)
Sprint has recently announced a pair of wireless routers that will soon become a must-have for subscribers in the WiMax-covered region. The Personal Hotspot PHS300S (pictured above to the left) and the Cradlepoint MBR-1000 each support 3G (EV-DO Rev. A) and 4G (WiMAX) connectivity and combine to cover consumer and enterprise markets. The PHS300S is a 3G/4G portable hotspot that supports up to 4 simultaneous WiFi connections. The MBR-100 as an enterprise solution will definitely be welcome. As for pricing, the Personal Hotspot PHS300S goes for $159.99 via telesales, online and in retails stores while the Cradlepoint MBR-1000 costs $249.99 via business channels. Both routers are currently available and require a 3G or 4G data plan ranging from $39.99 to $79.99 per month.
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LTE is becoming a clearer reality in the U.S. with every passing day and Sprint is the one carrier who hasn’t made any recent announcements about how it plans to deal with that reality. So finally we’re pleased to hear something of Sprint and its efforts to bring some sort of reason to subscribers to stay on board, WiMAX. It’s not official, but a possible leaked roadmap tells us that that rest of 2009 may come with more action that we anticipated. There will be a WiMAX rollout starting from Baltimore via some kind of service update and then moving on to a New York, LA, or San Francisco launch. Sweet.
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4G may have been out there for a month but Clearwire has only just now made its own WiMAX presence known to the people of Atlanta. It is among the other 15 cities to be covered or are already covered between now and the down end of 2010. It looks to cover around 1200 square miles and 3 million people, so this may as well be one of the biggest launches to date. Atlanta is a city where the airways are thick with traffic and the airport is frequently off schedule on good day so those of you waiting for an obviously expected delayed flight will no longer have to pay the airport people for WiMax usage especially when you prefer to hiss at them anyway. Atlanta is offering the WiMAx at $20 per month for a home plan, $40 per month on mobile and day passes at $10.
Rumors of a tri-mode handset supporting CDMA/WiFi/WiMax, from Sprint have been circulating for quite a while now but let’s talk reality for a second. Welcome everyone to “the Sprint reality check”. As opposed to just believing that a carrier can magically offer a tri-mode handset all over the place to what it actually has the capacity to offer. Truth of the matter is that Sprint needs to confirm all this for it to have any substantiality to it. Sprint is the only carrier in the U.S. currently with live 4G and that too not with 100% cuss free coverage so what’s the deal? To be or not to be?
Now that the Pre is out and about, the next thing on our wonder-list is what will Sprint do to save its neck further. Market analysis from Smart Trend has reported that n unnamed Sprint spokesperson revealed a tri-mode handset coming down the pipeline sometime in 2009/2010. The phone in question will be sporting CDMA, WiFi and WiMAX compatibility, which would provide a healthy mix of CDMA coverage and awesome data speeds where WiMAX is available. Analyst also think that this tri-band handset will be Android-powered, but we’ll currently just stick to the tri-band handset possibility. So while we keep hearing ‘the first wireless 4G network” in all of its commercials, it would be nice to see a 4G handset out in the open.
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Clear (formerly Clearwire, formerly Xohm) has decided to expand its network. If you thought the days of WiMax were over, think again. Manufacturers are also not one to stand by and not reap in the revenues to be had from the US expansion. In this regard, Samsung has just let slip information on its SWD-M100 Mondi, which the company claims is the first handheld WiMAX device for the States. Coooool. It’s a slider QWERTY and let’s just hope it has better luck than the Nokia Internet Tablets. The SWD-M100 Mondi also packs a d-pad and a touchscreen to fill that insatiable 3G internet addiction of yours. No official word as to when this baby will be launched or for how much.
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Back in January, we reported that Nokia had pulled the plug on the N810 WiMAX Tablets. All the Finnish company said at the time was that the Tablet had reached the end of its lifecycle. The real story that everybody suspected was that Nokia had turned its sights LTE-ward. Now we have some pretty solid confirmation that all that speculation wasn’t just dinner table gossip. An executive from Nokia has recently stated, “WiMAX has some place in the market, but we do believe it’s a niche play,” we get the message. Also, senior manager of technology marketing at Nokia James Harper has said that Nokia intends to release LTE devices as early as next year. Will these be internet tablets? Mobile phones? Laptops? No clue yet, but just imagine, LTE is just around the corner of 2009.
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