The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint could roll-out its first WiMax-based phone at next week’s CTIA show in Vegas. According to the reports, the device will be produced by HTC and is dubbed the Supersonic. The phone will run on Clearwire’s WiMax network, in which Sprint holds a 56% stake.
More details from the WSJ report:
The new phone marks the beginning of an aggressive push to sell Clearwire’s service…Clearwire says its network currently reaches 34 million people and it plans to cover up to 120 million people by the end of the year. The company says it will need to raise additional money to expand its network beyond this year. “It’s now or never,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. “[Sprint] won’t have an exclusive on the 4G marketing message indefinitely.”
The Connected Planet Take, Kevin Fitchard:
The Journal is confirming our suspicions that Sprint and Clearwire want to make a big splash at CTIA Wireless by redirecting all the 4G excitement surrounding LTE back on WiMax. While Verizon and MetoPCS are still building their 4G networks and AT&T is focused on 3G, WiMax has a limited amount of time to make a big impression before it gets overshadowed by a much larger LTE ecosystem.
The big question is how much of an impact would a 4G handset make? Unless Sprint has a bunch of unique high-bandwidth services to offer on the new phone, it might wind up looking much like an ordinary smartphone. That smartphone may be able to download a song faster, load Web pages instantaneously and spend less time buffering video, but offering the same applications as the iPhone and the Droid—just a little faster– may not be all that compelling to consumers. Bottom line, Sprint better have something else up its sleeve besides a new device.
That’s our take on this, let us know what you think in the comments below:
Sprint has made being out of style a lifestyle choice. I just dont get why they dont come out with a hand set that can compete with the likes of iphone. Even the verizon droid that I had the pleasure of tinkering around with stands head and shoulders over what sprint already has.
Sprint foray with the Pre was not as bad as most might think, they definately did better than Verizon. Now they will have a repertoire second to none, on top of their WebOS, Android, Windows based phones they will have the most advanced platform based on Wimax, which in turn will become Wimax 2 when Verizon and its cohorts begin launching their INFERIOR LTE platform. Verizon might dream about having a LTE phone in 2010 but their is no way in hell that they will have a working LTE phone before the latter part of 2011. On the other hand Wimax already has a mature ecosystem with functioning phones. Wimax 2 is a simple upgrade without any interference in the legacy product and its download speeds are way in excess of 100Mbs. Now my question to the Verizon spinmasters is how do you answer that? With probably more spin.
awsome response zorozster. I\’m for wimax as well. I dnt believe wimax well be easily duarfed by lte when it starts it\’s comercial foot print as mostly everyone else seem\’s to think. 2 or 3 yrs frm now I thnk peoples attitude tourds wimax n sprint well be much difrent. N I do believe sprint\’s bet on wimax well pay off very well for them. Hands, it\’s nt a bad time to start buying sprints 3 dollar stock while it\’s this cheap