WTH? Sprint officially talking about changing 4G Network?

[Q-fugee]

A switch to LTE means consumers lose. WiMax = open standard, developed by IEEE. LTE = closed standard developed by cellular companies. LTE is the Apple Computer Corp. of the mobile broadband world.

The WiMAX standards bodies were really careful to avoid patent troubles and keep things cheap. In fact, the uplink differences that I mentioned earlier are entirely due to Qualcomm patents. But this took so long and kept equipment makers so scared that it really ate into their first-mover advantage.

When the 3GPP standards body saw the direction WiMAX was taking, they wisely pushed for and received no-cost pledges from the patent holders. The specter of patent trolling still looms over LTE, but for now equipment makers have neutralized the cost advantage of the open standards around WiMAX.

What the LTE patent holders really pledged is to keep chips cheap and not sue each other. What they have NOT promised is to avoid suing WiMAX makers anyway. Even if WiMAX is free and clear it could take years to prove it in court.

Either way, don't be afraid to buy WiMAX handsets and aircards right now. The biggest LTE patent troll, Qualcomm, is making WiMAX chips, too, just in case

--Q-fugee.

 

[Aero]

Sprint has done it before. My first SprintPCS phones were GSM. In fact they left us high and dry converting to CDMA and not even offering us credit for the old phones which at the time typically cost $400 subisdized. I had two phones which cost me $800 9 months before the conversion (back then you expected to keep them three years or so) . We successfully sued sprint in a class action to get credit gien that they knew long before the public announcement.

I don't think you should have such a worry with EVO. Equipment ages and loses value much faster nowadays.

But I do I think the main worry would be if you live and or work in areas with no coverage. I would bet they do plan to slow deployment.

There are other subtle problems. yes the same spectrum and towers can be used, but with wimax not uptaken by other carriers worldwide, and LTE gaining, relative costs to Sprint for wimax support increase. Also handset makers are always looking at economies of scale and this will affect their plans. This feeds a kind of viscous circle in favor of LTE

 

[SPL15]

I really wouldnt blame Sprint for going LTE. It provides them with data roaming partners to increase their apparent network size. Also LTE operates on a lower frequency spectrum which can penetrate further from the towers and means they can have a less dense cell tower network for cost savings.

LTE makes sense financially & logistically for Sprint. I wouldnt blame em at all for doing it. I had Nextel & Dropped it for lack of service, I had sprint before & dropped it for lack of service, I moved to the city & they put up towers in my old stomping grounds and now I could not be more happy. For the general public (non phone geeks), signal strength is the KEY & FINAL point in whether they stay or go from a wireless provider. For Sprint, using a technology that gives them a larger apparent network via roaming partners, it makes sense to follow the crowd.

Also, Sprint owns the bandwidth for WiMax & I think it will make them a great amount of money with municipalities using it for communications. They will not be moving out of Wimax in the near future because local governments are adopting it for their communications. Suddenly dropping it would really be a hotdog in the hole for all the communities that adopt clearwire's system. There are contracts with local governments to ensure support for it in the future so it wont be going anywhere for a while

Sprint was supposed to end iDen a ways back... Pretty sure it's still kickin with new phones being released for it. Why? it is a huge service for construction. Why will Sprint keep WiMax? It will be a huge asset for government communications. Why will Sprint adopt LTE? Because it will be a huge asset for roaming agreements, users per towers & better user experience where they dont have towers or a dense sprint owned tower network

Plus these days, a tower is a tower with an array of different antenna tunings. I'd guess that to upgrade to a new wireless technology, it costs more in software licensing & logistics than actual hardware needed.

 

[Aero]

Plus these days, a tower is a tower with an array of different antenna tunings. I'd guess that to upgrade to a new wireless technology, it costs more in software licensing & logistics than actual hardware needed.

Not necessarily for them and perhaps also not for users. A LTE roll out will certainly take funds from Wimax deployment which means those with wimax handset and paying $10 will get a slower or stopped rollout, whcih doesn't even cover now most of the populated areas (current about 30%) never mind most of the country geographically (current about 5%).

For me handset ownership,. like all consumer electronics, is shorter than ever. But if you are on a family plan, even with premier, you are still looking at two years for subsidy, so some consumers at some point will be saddled with devices that are wimax when sprint moves to LTE.

 

[Q-fugee]

you are still looking at two years for subsidy, so some consumers at some point will be saddled with devices that are wimax when sprint moves to LTE.

Unless the base station equipment they are testing is dual-mode. As I said before, all the major chip vendors are making dual-mode chipsets and sampling them to vendors now. They are pushing 3GPP and IEEE to merge the standards, which really only differ in the uplink channel right now. Any LTE base station Clear rolls out will still support WiMAX. You can buy WiMAX stuff now without worrying about it.

--Qfg

 

[Aero]

Unless the base station equipment they are testing is dual-mode. As I said before, all the major chip vendors are making dual-mode chipsets and sampling them to vendors now. They are pushing 3GPP and IEEE to merge the standards, which really only differ in the uplink channel right now. Any LTE base station Clear rolls out will still support WiMAX. You can buy WiMAX stuff now without worrying about it.
--Qfg

I am not worried about buying a wimax handset at the moment. It is more about the costs to Sprint and hwo it will affect the roll out speed which is well behind schedule (in 2006 they announced they would have 40 major metors in 46 by the close of 2007). They have stopped and delayed 4g by years now due to ever present lack of funds. In the long term, all things being equal, I am optimistic about sprint and 4g. But they are in a competitive market with richer bigger and more powerful competitors.
.

 

[rawvega]

Well they originally anticipated having 170 million POPs covered by the end of 2010. They've adjusted that figure down to 120 million POPs, so yes they're behind their original timetable by 50 million POPs, but not insurmountably so imo.

 

[Q-fugee]

I am not worried about buying a wimax handset at the moment. It is more about the costs to Sprint .

The multimode chips are cheaper. In fact, by the end of the year they'll be the only ones available to equipment makers, whether they deploy them as LTE or WiMAX. Cheap multimode chips in the base station is Clearwire's plan to catch up.

The chip makers don't want to make two chipsets for what is basically the same thing save a patent spat. Whether the uplink channel uses the same space or a separate channel is a software switch in the base station. 3GPP and IEEE can dig in their heels all they want; Samsung and Beceem will merge the standards for them.

So if you're a consumer, go ahead and buy that EVO. If you're a Clearwire investor, they aren't wasting your money.

--Qfg