Sprint Nextel and Samsung Electronics announced that WiMAX services in Washington D.C. and Baltimore have completed the testing phase successfully and are now ready to launch commercially. The companies, however, did not disclose a specific date for when the services will be made available to the public. Sprint spokesman John Polivka said the services will make their full commercial launch sometime "later this year."
"This is a major step towards launch readiness and Sprint is extremely pleased with the performance of the mobile WiMAX network and access devices from Samsung," said Barry West, president of Sprint's mobile broadband network branch, called Xohm. "The collaboration with Samsung and our other partners has created a WiMAX ecosystem that has now proven that it can deliver this new technology to the marketplace well ahead of any feasible alternative."
Right now only PC cards have been used, but mobile devices such as Nokia's tablet are also in the pipeline. Plans to embed WiMAX chips into various personal devices, including digital cameras, have been widely discussed.
Recently, Clearwire, with is merging with Sprint with the help of cable partners, Google and Intel, announced plans to launch mobile WiMAX in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Grand Rapids, Mich., where it has a deal with the government, after it launches in Portland, Ore., during the second quarter of this year. It will do so prior to its merger with Sprint.
For more on Sprint's WiMAX plans in D.C. and Baltimore:
- read this article from Washington Business Journal