Friday, October 7, 2011

Sprint To Kill Off WiMax And Go LTE - This Could Hurt

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he did a few things that were considered unpopular at the time.  He looked off products – including the popular Newton PDA and eMate, good products that were not selling well.  Today, Sprint did something similar – it killed WiMax and in its place promised to build out an LTE network of its own.

What will happen to all those WiMax devices and hotspots?  Well, it's like they'll be able to keep using their WiMax wireless access for some time, at least until Sprint can finish its LTE network.  Sprint has said it will stop selling WiMax devices after 2012.  

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111007/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_sprint_network

And Sprint had no choice.  And things might get worse before it gets better.  Therefore, it's why it has placed a huge bet that the iPhone will help ease the pain.  Interestingly, it has not said anything about the millions of Android users on its network with a WiMax device and what will happen to them after that.

They can likely fall back on the slower 3G CDMA network.  However, that isn't going to make them very happy once WiMax services ceases.  It's possible that Sprint could offer them LTE equipment upgrades in two to three years.  

Let's hope that Sprint is able to deliver and make the transition as smoothly as possible.  

Note:  I wonder why now.  Why not six months before or a year ago?  

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