Computerworld - Sprint Nextel Corp. has been erecting WiMax gear in Boston, Philadelphia and Dallas-Fort Worth in addition to three other cities where it had previously announced plans to launch its Xohm wireless service, a spokesman confirmed today.
The cities for which plans had already been announced include Baltimore, where the service will go live sometime this month, as well as Washington and Chicago, where Sprint has said service will go live in the fourth quarter of the year.
No date for the Baltimore launch has been given. The spokesman said a planned joint venture with Clearwire Inc. for WiMax deployments nationally is expected to be set up by the end of the year, pending a Clearwire stockholder vote.
The spokesman added that WiMax deployments are a month ahead of schedule and that Sprint recently erected its 1,066th WiMax base station and has been transmitting from those sites.
In an interview with Sidecut Reports, Sprint Nextel President Barry West promised average download speeds of 3Mbit/sec. to 5 Mbit/sec. inside areas of network coverage. Devices supporting WiMax that will be available at the time of the Baltimore launch include modems from Zyxel and ZTE and two laptop devices, a USB device from ZTE and a PC card from Samsung. A WiMax tablet from Nokia is expected to debut after the Baltimore launch, he said.
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