Sprint and Samsung Declare Mobile WiMAX
Technology Is Now Ready for Commercial Service
Sprint and Samsung Electronics Corporation
Ltd. announced that a new broadband wireless
network offering the speed and mobility of WiMAX
has met Sprint’s
rigorous commercial acceptance criteria
including overall performance, handoff
performance and handoff delay. This key
technical milestone has been passed after
extensive evaluation both in the XOHMTM
lab environment and with the commercial service
network being built in the Baltimore and
Washington D.C. area. Sprint plans on launching
commercial WiMAX service in those cities later
this year.
Samsung has been working with Sprint in the
United States to test and build Sprint’s
XOHM mobile broadband Internet service compliant
to the mobile WiMAX standard. Since finalizing a
supply agreement in 2007, the two companies have
steadily made progress on the extensive project
with previous key milestones including first
data session in the lab (June 2007), first data
session on the live network (October 2007) and
successful interoperability testing with
multiple other device vendors (April 2008).
“This is a major
step towards launch readiness and Sprint is
extremely pleased with the performance of the
mobile WiMAX network and access devices from
Samsung,” said Barry
West, XOHM president. “The
collaboration with Samsung and our other
partners has created a WiMAX ecosystem that has
now proven that it can deliver this new
technology to the marketplace well ahead of any
feasible alternative.”
Last month, Samsung announced the
introduction of several WiMAX-enabled devices.
The Express Card (E100 PC Card) and WiMAX
embedded UMPC (Q1 Ultra Premium Mobile PC)
underscore Samsung’s
position as the leading provider of end-to-end
mobile WiMAX network systems. With the
technology proven to be ready, the Samsung
mobile WiMAX systems being deployed for Sprint
in Baltimore and Washington D.C. support the
commercial introduction of XOHM service
anticipated to begin later this year.
“The wireless
subscribers in the United States are ready to
step up to the next level of a truly broadband
wireless network that surpasses the performance
of existing wireless networks today,”
said Dr. Hwan Chung, senior vice president of
Samsung Telecommunications America.
“Sprint’s
acceptance of Samsung’s
WiMAX technology shows Samsung’s
strong commitment to meet our customers’
needs for the most reliable, seamless, and
fastest wireless network. Samsung’s
mobile WiMAX expertise will help Sprint answer
the mobile broadband needs of U.S. wireless
subscribers.” he
added.
Samsung is the global leader in delivering
mobile WiMAX technologies and offers an
end-to-end solution including chipsets,
infrastructure, mobile devices and consumer
electronics, including devices capable of
accessing both mobile WiMAX and other wireless
technologies.
The XOHM business unit within Sprint
specifically focuses on developing the WiMAX
ecosystem and standards to bring the latest
broadband wireless technology to the U.S.
marketplace. Sprint is utilizing the significant
spectrum holdings at 2.5 GHz that were combined
in the Sprint Nextel merger to deploy mobile
WiMAX technology from Samsung and other vendors.
