Sprint’s Technology Deadend
December 15th, 2010, 6:29pm by KelvinRecently, Jon Rubenstein of HP said in an interview how excited he was about the next gen wireless networks like LTE and HSDPA+. I took that to mean that Palm had no immediate plans to roll out a WIMAX compatible 4G device for us long suffering Sprint users. Does that reflect worse on Sprint or HPalm? Is Sprint not interested in a webOS phone / tablet or is Palm not interested in making a one-off device for Sprint?
It was pretty obvious all along that WIMAX was going to be a niche technology compared with LTE. It’s not really competitive in speed or industry support. Sprint is pretty much going to have to beg manufacturers to make WIMAX handsets. And even then, Sprint is going to need to get their 4G subscriber numbers up to make much of an argument. WIMAX launched about 2 years ago with only modem support, and even now, 6 months after the launch of its first WIMAX handset, Sprint has a total of 2 4G handsets (EVO and Epic). I’d be surprised if Sprint had more than 1.5 million users on it’s 4G network. And I don’t imagine the economics are favorable when your multibillion dollar network is sitting there empty, generating barely any revenue (incremental $10 per month per user).
The only thing WIMAX had going for it vs. LTE was a time-to-market advantage. With Verizon’s LTE launch last week and their timeline to handsets, it looks like that lead time will have been exactly 1 year, and 6 months of that have already been squandered. By mid-2011, Sprint might have an LTE iPhone to contend with.
Seems to me that Sprint is going end up slashing prices to fill their network, since their handset selection will never be competitive. They’ll have the cheapest data plans, but they won’t have the best data-intensive devices. They’ve made some noise about non-Android 4G tablets lately. My guess is the Playbook. Good luck with that!
December 28th, 2010 at 10:55 am
In case anyone cares, WIMAX is apparently live now everywhere Pyslent travels. FWIW, I believe that’s already true also of Verizons’ LTE.
http://m.engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/28/sprint-adheres-to-its-roadmap-turns-on-wimax-in-san-francisco-b/&category=classic&icid=eng_latest_art
January 18th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Jake pointed me to this press release from Sprint announcing that new smartphones activated after January 30 will be subjected to an extra $10/user premium data fee (same fee they’ve been charging for WIMAX phones). That’s pretty much the opposite of what I’ve been saying (that Sprint would need to become the value leader). The timing reeks of hubris– Sprint has an announcement scheduled for the Feb 7 (they tease an “industry first“), so they must be expecting it be a hit. We’d love for it to be a Sprint iPhone, but I don’t see how that’s a first. And then there’s Palm’s big party Feb 9; who knows if that involves Sprint at all.
For an extra $50 per month on our family plan, Sprint no longer seems compelling. They won’t ever have the network performance or phone selection to justify the same pricing as Verizon or AT&T, don’t have international roaming, etc. WIMAX seems like it’s on the road to nowhere, and IMO Sprint’s going down with it.
That said, should we panic and try to lock in 2 years at our current deal by buying a phone before the 30th? My Pre has been causing me all sorts of aggravation lately. It’s the best of phones, it’s the worst of phones.
January 18th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
No way can we jump before those early February announcements– what non-4G Sprint phone would you even consider right now? The Pre might still be the best they (kinda) offer. But yeah, looks like fish or cut bait time will be arriving soon. I’m up in June, suppose that’s the point of maximum leverage when there are 4-5 lines ready to bolt at once. The iPhone 5 will be out by then, a few new webOS devices, a dozen new Android handsets.
January 18th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
It has to be an iPhone being announced. Otherwise, why else would they extend the fee to 3G phones and get all that bad publicity? The 4G transition would have happened by natural turnover, assuming no high profile 3G phone launches. I guess another explanation could be that too many customers were choosing 3G phones over 4G ones to avoid the charge, so they eliminated the temptation. Seems short-sighted, if that’s the case.
You’re right, this fee wasn’t going to affect us anyway since we’re probably going 4G with our next phones. My expectation was/is that Sprint will eventually do away with the 4G surcharge once they lose all their customers to Verizon.