Sprint XOHM Will Soft Launch "In A Few Days"
Sprint Nextel will soft launch its XOHM WiMax network in the next few days according to Bin Shen, VP of Product Management and Partnership Development. Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore will all go live at soft launch …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sprint put a name on its mobile WiMAX effort back in August with the XOHM branding, but the months since have been turbulent: CEO Gary Forsee departed in November, the Clearwire partnership was called off, and SK Telecom's investment-and-management offer was rejected, all while rumors swirled about whether the WiMAX program would survive the shakeup.
This week's announcement from product chief Bin Shen answers those rumors directly — a soft launch within days across Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore makes XOHM the first concrete proof point that Sprint's next-generation network bet survived the leadership churn and the Clearwire breakup intact.
First-order effects
- Sprint gains the first live mobile WiMAX footprint among US carriers, with Chicago, DC and Baltimore subscribers able to access the service before any rival fields a comparable mobile broadband offering.
- The soft launch forces Sprint to stand up commercial operations — devices, pricing, support — for a network whose business case had been tied to the partnership structure it abandoned in November.
Second-order effects
- Clearwire, freshly independent after the failed Sprint tie-up, now faces a former partner turned competitor racing to claim the same early-adopter wireless broadband market.
- Equipment and chip vendors banking on WiMAX get their first US commercial deployment to design against, sharpening the stakes on device availability heading into 2008.
Third-order effects
- If the three-city launch holds, Sprint's path runs through a capital-intensive solo buildout at precisely the moment its finances are strained — making XOHM a test of whether an operator in distress can lead rather than follow the 4G transition.
- A working soft launch also pressures other carriers' roadmap timing: being first to market with mobile broadband sets the benchmark competitors must answer in their own next-generation plans.
The trend: US carriers are staking out next-generation wireless territory through pre-commercial city launches even as the partnerships and leadership backing those bets come apart.