Sprint Nextel on track for WiMAX launch by year-end: Carrier still mulling Xohm financing options

Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to turn on three WiMAX test markets within the next two weeks, meeting its self-imposed deadline to roll out the technology by the end of this year.
Sprint Nextel spokesman John Polivka confirmed that “several hundred” company employees will begin participating in the soft launch by Christmas, using data cards to test out the capabilities of the WiMAX network. The carrier had long planned to turn on the network in the Chicago and Baltimore/Washington D.C. markets by the end of 2007, and those plans are holding up despite Sprint Nextel’s operational troubles and the recent collapse of a deal with Clearwire Corp. to accelerate the deployment of a nationwide WiMAX network.
The soft launch will occur in two stages, according to Polivka: The first phase involving several hundred employees will start in the next few weeks, followed by a second stage during the first quarter of next year that will expand the number of participants.
A commercial launch will follow, with embedded WiMAX devices expected to appear later in 2008, Polivka said.
Since the departure of former CEO Gary Forsee in October, Sprint Nextel has said it remains committed to WiMAX-but at the same time is re-evaluating the business. CFO and acting CEO Paul Saleh told investors at a conference last week that the company still expects to reap benefits from the launch. However, he said the carrier would revisit its WiMAX-related guidance for 2008 to make sure “that’s the right course for us.”
Saleh indicated Sprint Nextel is considering options including forming a separate WiMAX company or finding investors to fund the network deployment.
In a separate announcement, mobile WiMAX chipset provider Beceem Communications said that it had successfully completed initial interoperability testing between its chipset and Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX infrastructure as part of Sprint Nextel’s Xohm launch preparations.
Xohm is the brand given to Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX efforts.
Bin Shen, VP of broadband for Sprint Nextel, said that the carrier was “extremely pleased to see that Beceem has validated initial interoperability of most of the key features for Xohm’s 2008 launch” and called the development “a very encouraging sign for the launch of our Xohm Mobile Broadband network and service.”