CTIA: WiMAX, Full Steam Ahead

WiMAX was a hot topic at CTIA, with announcements of new devices, a new player and new affirmations from Sprint Nextel giving the topic steam.

Although he keynoted the conference, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse did not, as had been widely anticipated, offer any details this week as to the recently announced intention to form a joint WiMAX venture with Clearwire Corp. and the cablecos; the omission was notable considering that the deadline Sprint set for Time Warner Cable Inc. and Comcast Corp. to pledge investment to a JV was Monday.

Nor did he offer much good news otherwise: In fact, the launch of the Xohm WiMAX network will be a bit delayed until later this year. Nonetheless, he reaffirmed the carrier's commitment to the promise of the technology: "The walled-garden wireless company is the company of the past," he said. "At Sprint, we want to be the easiest to work with and the most open provider." He also noted that Sprint would be offering open-source development for Xohm applications via new SDKs.

As for devices to run those apps, Hesse spoke about Sprint's ongoing vision to have wireless broadband embedded in everything from camcorders to game consoles to portable video players.

And Nokia on Tuesday unveiled the N810 Internet tablet with WiMAX, the first announcement that goes towards Sprint's commitment to having 10 devices available for the Xohm network by launch. Xohm division President Barry West told reporters that the review pipeline Sprint has in Herndon, Va., to evaluate potential WiMAX devices is so full that it has had to stop accepting prototypes for the time being.

"WiMAX will allow Internet services that are simply not possible in a fixed environment," said Nokia North America head Mark Louison at a press conference, equating today's handsets to newspapers: an idea whose time is waning.

Meanwhile, a small service provider called Xanadoo unveiled a fully operational, commercial 802.16e network, located in Springfield, Ill. Based on gear from Cisco Systems Inc., the network is the first fruit of Cisco's fall 2007 acquisition of WiMAX vendor Navini Networks.