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Aug. 19, 2009

In the fast and furious race to 4G technology implementation, Sprint is cashing in on its investment less than a year after it contributed its entire 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings to Clearwire’s mobile WiMAX effort.

Sprint confirms that it has launched its new 4G service in Las Vegas, Portland and Atlanta over Clearwire’s Wi-MAX network.

The wireless carrier previously announced that it would launch 4G service in 17 new markets in 2009. The new markets are concentrated in Texas, with deployments also planned in Charlotte, N.C.; Boise, Idaho; and Bellingham, Wash.

For 2010, Sprint expects to launch 4G service in several market including Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The company also plans to roll out its device ecosystem with a single-mode 4G data card, embedded laptops and a 4G handset.

Sprint is taking aim at the enterprise segment with unlimited 4G and 4G/3G data plans available exclusively to businesses. The unlimited corporate accounts come with several restrictions, including an off-network roaming threshold of 300MB per month and peer-to-peer file-sharing applications.

The unlimited accounts are currently not available to mobile service consumers.

The wireless carrier claims its 4G service is three to five times faster than the 3G service offered by any carrier today, based on average download speeds. According to Sprint, its mobile WiMAX service delivers peak downlink speeds of more than 10 Mbps and average downlink speeds of 3-6 Mbps.

Clearwire is also in the midst of a massive buildout for its 4G mobile WiMAX network. To date, the company has spent a little over $645.8 million on the effort and says it is on track to reach its previously stated goal to cover 120 million people in 80 markets by next year.

Clearwire investors Time Warner and Comcast have also begun reselling the service.

It is now very clear that the race to 4G technology rollout has reached a frenzy and there's no signs of easing at least for now.

Late yesterday, Verizon Wireless confirmed it has completed its first successful LTE data calls in Boston and Seattle. Verizon's LTE technology is based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard.

Verizon also said it does not want to repeat the same mistakes that AT&T did last year when it rolled out Apple's new iPhones on a 3G network that dosen't offer the higher bandwidth requirements that the iPhone needs to run smoothly.

It will be interesting to see these developments continue to unfold before our very eyes, as the race to 4G deployments rages on and accelerates over time.

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Source: Sprint Nextel.