Sprint sees 'open' model for WiMax
Note: Now thats what I like to hear. With so much too do with a mobile broadband connection, I see no reason from the consumer point of view to lock access. It's a fact that the more you let people do with any service the more they will use it.
"Sprint Nextel wants its WiMax wireless service to look more like home broadband and less like cellular, but it may take a while to get there. The carrier plans to start rolling out WiMax late this year and reach 100 million U.S. residents by the end of 2008. The standards-based technology is designed to offer megabits per second of throughput to a device over a range of several miles. Subscribers should be able to use it on many different kinds of devices, including notebooks, handhelds, and gaming devices."
Sprint's WiMax plans are closely watched because it is the first major carrier to commit to a large national rollout of mobile WiMax.
Sprint announced last August it had chosen WiMax for its 4G technology to supplement 3G (third generation) cellular service. The technology was chosen to meet the needs of the service, which will have a business model different from cellular's, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint, at the Wireless Communications Association Symposium in San Jose, California. Whereas 3G involves taking cell phones and putting more data on them, 4G is an Internet data service from the beginning, Gude said.
Cellular services tend to use a "walled garden" where users can only access certain services provided by the mobile operator. With its 4G service, Sprint is aiming for an "open" model in which subscribers can go anywhere on the Internet, Gude said. But the carrier hasn't yet decided whether to start out the service open or gradually open it up. Also, carrier-specific offerings would make more sense on some hardware platforms, such as gaming devices without keyboards, Gude said.
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Posted to WiMax