Sprint, Clearwire Clarify WiMAX Plans

Sprint-Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. have clarified the plans for Sprint’s launch of Sprint 4G service in Clearwire WiMAX markets this year. While Sprint will indeed offer an alternative WiMAX service to Clearwire’s, the two plan to target different types of customers, with Sprint particularly going after the business opportunity.

A Sprint spokesperson told xchange that it that the carrier will be launching a tandem service in Clearwire’s WiMAX footprint by reselling the Clearwire network, characterizing the relationship as “mutually beneficial” and “more complex than an MVNO.”

“There are – and will continue to be – two WiMAX 4G services available: ‘Clear’ WiMAX service from Clearwire and ‘Sprint 4G’ service from Sprint,” she explained. “Each company will develop and market various and different (and maybe similar) devices to operate on what will eventually be a nationwide WiMAX network.”

She said Sprint sees the launch as a significant development for its business and public sector customers. “We see business industries such as real estate, construction, government/public safety, transportation, retail, insurance, health care and education institutions seeing immediate and measurable benefit by using Sprint 4G,” she noted.

Sprint will offer the 4G service as a solution for enterprise mobile computing via 4G laptop cards and the ability to enable rich content, larger file transfers and streaming video for productivity enhancements, as well as a way to connect remote business locations, offices and mobile workgroups with integrated voice and data solutions. There’s also low-latency, remote access to video for security, alarming, public safety and progressive learning solutions.

Sprint also plans to compete with laptops with WiMAX handsets that “have the processing power, applications and now the network connectivity to replace the laptop paradigm,” she noted.

And so, the two services will be sufficiently differentiated as to capture different customer bases, avoiding a cannibalistic paradigm between Sprint and its partner, in which it owns a 51 percent stake.

“When Clearwire sells, we benefit and when we sell, Clearwire benefits,” the spokesperson told xchange. “The two services will be branded differently, and we will offer different products to different customer bases. What service a customer chooses will depend on a customer’s technology requirements.”

The clarifications came into xchange after an analysis posted earlier today musing on the possible nature of Clearwire and Sprint’s tandem 4G situation, sparked by press materials that conspicuously lacked any mention of Clearwire, reselling its network or acknowledging the fact that Sprint was launching in the identical markets that are planned for by its joint venture.

Sprint’s statement also kicked off with this: “Sprint 4G offers turbo-charged mobile broadband – peak downlink speeds of up to 12mbps in Baltimore today and average downlink speeds of 2-4mbps – three to five times faster than today’s 3G service from any carrier.”

Baltimore is a market in which Sprint built out a WiMAX network before spinning off the “XOHM” WiMAX operation to Clearwire. A Clearwire spokesperson told xchange that despite the perception that Baltimore is a Sprint market, Clearwire, in fact, is running the Baltimore network and selling service under the old XOHM brand. Clearwire will rebrand the Baltimore service as “Clear” later in the year, he said.

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