While the long-term vendor ramifications of Sprint Nextel Corp.’s plan to deploy a WiMAX network remain uncertain, it’s clear that the early winners are Intel Corp., Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.-while the biggest losers are Qualcomm Inc. and its Flarion Technologies Inc.-developed Flash-OFDM technology and IPWireless Inc.
Ronny Haraldsvik, vice president of marketing for mobile broadband at Qualcomm, played down Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX push, saying, “Sprint’s announcement doesn’t take away from their plans to upgrade to Rev. A, and it doesn’t impact Verizon’s plans for Rev. A.”
Prior to being acquired by Sprint Corp. last year, Nextel Communications Inc. trialed Flarion’s Flash-OFDM offering in North Carolina. And although Qualcomm didn’t bring home Sprint Nextel’s lucrative 2.5 GHz spectrum contract, Haraldsvik pointed out that the carrier’s plans include offering dual-mode handsets, which will be laced with WiMAX and Qualcomm chips.
Qualcomm spokesman Jeremy James reiterated Haraldsvik’s sentiments. “There are hundreds of operators around the world, and Sprint’s decision doesn’t take anything away from our roadmap. Nothing stops, everything continues.”
James also noted that Verizon Wireless is set to launch Qualcomm’s MediaFlo mobile TV network by the end of the year. “Verizon will be offering mobile TV over our network before anyone has access over a WiMAX network.”
Another part of Qualcomm’s high-speed wireless broadband plans could very well include collecting on OFDM licensing agreements, as the company has long argued that its OFDM technology forms the basis of WiMAX technology. The company already has a couple of OFDM royalty-bearing license agreements under its belt, and the expansion of such a scheme could force Intel and other WiMAX vendors to pay Qualcomm nonetheless.
The `ecosystem’ asset
But Qualcomm isn’t the only technology developer that lost out on Sprint Nextel’s business. Barry West, chief technical officer at Sprint Nextel, said during the company’s press conference that the carrier had also been looking into IPWireless’ UMTS TDD, or TD-CDMA, which the carrier tested last year in Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia. The company even pumped about $14 million into IPWireless.
But ultimately, West said the decision came down to which technology was best suited to function in Sprint Nextel’s vast spectrum holdings in the 2.5 GHz band as well as which technology included the necessary components such as handsets, infrastructure and chipsets-all available for deployments by early 2008.
“WiMAX is already where other 3G technologies are headed,” boasted Ed Zander, chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola, at the press conference announcing the technology decision.
Clearly, Intel, Motorola and Samsung are early winners as Sprint Nextel expects to dole out about $1 billion on WiMAX in 2007 and between $1.5 billion to $2 billion in ’08.
Round 2 hopefuls
However, other infrastructure vendor deals are imminent, and the most likely winners will be those who have been aligned with Intel as it pushed WiMAX along-namely Nokia Corp. and Nortel Networks Ltd. Both companies have been highly active in the development of WiMAX and are in the final stages of tweaking their solutions, which are expected to be approved by the WiMAX Forum relatively quickly once submitted for certification.
Nokia CTO Tero Ojanpera explained that the company’s WiMAX offering works in its modular Flexi W-CDMA base stations, which allows upgrades to WiMAX through simple card installations. And Nortel’s Bruce Gustafson, senior director of WiMAX marketing, noted that Sprint Nextel chose vendors “with end-to-end solutions initially, but the infrastructure business is still open.”
Gustafson said Nortel has been working with Intel and Sprint Nextel for some time and feels confident that the company’s mobile WiMAX gear will be a part of Sprint Nextel’s network. He said Nortel’s inclusion of Multiple Input, Multiple Output technology qualifies its equipment as “WiMAX compliant,” whereas WiMAX gear available today, such as Samsung’s, is pre-WiMAX technology and has not been certified by the WiMAX Forum.
Furthermore, Gustafson commented that “this is not a niche implementation. We see a day where there will be WiMAX networks in every country.”
