The US cellular operator revealed these plans at an event called Sprint Ahead Technology Summit, held at its Reston, Virginia HQ. It gave attendees some details of its timetable for the WiMAX wide-area wireless technology that will complement its EV-DO cellular business, plus a foretaste of its Pivot services, which its mobility with fixed-line connectivity from cable TV partners.
The branding for the WiMAX service is XOHM (pronounced ZOAM). The soft launch will take place in Chicago and the Baltimore/Washington markets, will full commercial availability through the middle of next year.
Last month Sprint Nextel said it would share WiMAX network infrastructure with competing spectrum holder Clearwire. They intend to build a network covering 100 million people by the end of 2008, 70 million of them in the Sprint footprint and 30 million in Clearwire’s.
Sprint also said it would extend its coverage to 125 million people by the end of 2010, giving it a potential market of 48 million households, five million SoHo subscribers and 130 million consumer electronics devices.
