Rumor: Sprint Working with Walmart on WiMax Build Out
Here's a rumor that we'd like to see play out if only for curiosity's sake. According a tipster of ours, Sprint has been working with an unusual partner on a project to help build out their WiMax network.
Context & Ripple Effects
Sprint's WiMax commitment has wobbled publicly since 2007, when it first explored options for the technology (Sprint Explores Options for WiMax) and briefly scrapped its Clearwire agreement (Nix WiMax Agreement) before pressing ahead anyway — a leaked 2009 roadmap later named fresh launch cities for that year's rollout (leaked WiMAX roadmap). Meanwhile the corpus confirms a competing technology encroaching on WiMax's wireless-broadband position, and a Sprint executive publicly criticized AT&T's 3G network at the 4G World conference.
Today's item from AndroidGuys rests on a single anonymous tipster and remains unconfirmed: that Sprint is working with Walmart on a project to help build out its WiMax network. What makes the pairing plausible within this coverage is that the two already have a live retail relationship — Walmart has been selling the Sprint-exclusive Palm Pre at $79.99 through Lets Talk since September 2009 — so extending that channel toward infrastructure would be a step up, not a first contact.
First-order effects
- If the rumor holds, Sprint gains Walmart's store footprint and balance sheet for a capital-hungry national build, easing the funding question that has shadowed WiMax since Sprint first explored its options back in 2007.
- Walmart moves deeper into wireless than handset resale: from selling the $79.99 Palm Pre to having a stake in the network those phones run on.
Second-order effects
- Clearwire and other WiMax backers get a de facto vote of confidence in a build whose momentum was questioned after the 2007 agreement collapse — while AT&T and Verizon face a rival marketing 4G through the biggest retail channel in the country.
- Other carriers would feel pressure to secure equivalent big-box retail partnerships, turning store shelves into competitive terrain for subscriber acquisition.
Third-order effects
- The pattern, if it holds, points toward carriers financing next-generation network builds through mass-retail partners rather than alone — retail distribution doubling as infrastructure capital at exactly the moment a competing 4G technology threatens WiMax's window.
- It also sketches a structure where exclusive devices like the Palm Pre become anchors: retailer sells the phone, carrier builds the network, and the exclusivity binds the two.
The trend: US carriers under 4G-era cost pressure are increasingly looking to mass-market retail partners as both distribution and financing leverage for nationwide network build-outs.