Sprint Nextel 4G decision coming ‘in next several months’.

SL10

Sprint Nextel 4G decision coming ‘in next several months’

By Kelly Hill
May 1, 2006

NEW YORK—Lehman Bros. Equity Research analysts said that they expect Sprint Nextel Corp. soon to make public plans for the carrier’s vast 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings, and Sprint Nextel confirmed that the operator is working on making its decision.

“We expect to make a 4G technology choice decision within the next several months,” said Sprint Nextel spokesman John Polivka.

As part of a report on the upcoming spectrum auction and its implications for wireless equipment vendors, Lehman Bros. analyst Jeff Kvaal noted that given Sprint Nextel’s healthy spectrum position, it is unlikely to be a major participant in the auction.

“We believe, however, that Sprint is likely to announce its technology decision for its 2.5 GHz spectrum over the next several months,” Kvaal added.

He went on to say that the new spectrum licenses are likely to spur investment in network equipment, and that Lehman estimated that “a greenfield nationwide network, such as a T-Mobile [USA Inc.] W-CDMA network or Sprint’s 2.5 GHz build, could cost [about] $4 billion.”

Sprint Nextel has been conducting various technology trials for its 2.5 GHz spectrum, including WiMAX solutions from Motorola Inc. and Samsung Telecommunications America L.L.P.; IPWireless Inc.’s UMTS TD-CDMA solution; and Qualcomm Inc.’s Flash-OFDM technology.
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EVDO Addict.

jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1131

Let's get the speed thing going, I miss my 4.5 Meg Comcast connections...

xchpstang · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject:

That 3Mbps+ cable modem like wireless connection is not gonna happen, not in this decade. To give you a taste of 4G, locally there is Clearwire, an ISP that runs FLASH-OFDM which is one of the options for Sprint's 4G options. Clearwire runs in this same 2.5 GHz frequency and I bet the crystal ball says Sprint buys out Clearwire IF Sprint chooses this technology for 4G(They have done the dirty work with smaller and midsized cities so definitely a prime candidate for buyout) Well I tried it out and when there is a signal it is decent, consistent 1.5 down and 256K up, about 2-3 times the throughput of EVDO rev 0. That was with a decent signal. A weak 1 bar signal puts you at somewhere 1XRTT and EVDO Rev 0 speeds which is not stellar. Point being that 4G is still not going get anyone out of their cable modems specially with the likes of Comcast, COX, TimeWarner, now offering 6Mbps connections.