This morning in a special shareholder meeting, shareholders for the current Clearwire have approved the merger of Sprint’s XOHM division with the aforementioned service provider, creating the new company which will still be known as Clearwire after the transaction is finalized at the end of the month.
Sprint’s XOHM division is currently operating in Baltimore and the network will folded into the new company along with future XOHM networks in Washington DC, Chicago, and Dallas Ft. Worth.
The new Clearwire will also receive capital investment from Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner while the total valuation of the company is expected to be $14.6 billion in capital which is almost three times the expected target value when the merger was first announced in September.
Hmm, thats odd.. I dont see any Sprint haters in this thread…
Its great new for the US and world really…
Dont worry im sure chris will post
So Sprint is basically out of the WiMAX biz now. Qualcomm is killing CDMA. No LTE announcements from Sprint. Where does that leave them now?!
No of course not , but clearwire will run it, sprint has xohm. read the article
To clarify things… Clearwire will become a Sprint-owned company. XOHM and Clearwire will combine networks, into one large (and eventually, national) WiMAX network.
I can’t get into the specifics at this point, which eventually will clear things up for you. I know many want to know if XOHM will become Clearwire, or if Clearwire will be re-named as a part of XOHM… those matters will be decided after the merger is finalized.
It is not clear if Clearwire will “run” Sprint’s WiMAX network, or if Clearwire will eventually just fade away into Sprint’s network. It doesn’t really matter either way, to the consumer there will be no difference in a year or two.
For now, XOHM and Clearwire will become one network, marketed under both brands, just like how AT&T Wireless and Cingular were when they first merged. Eventually, much like AT&T Wireless and CIngular, both brands will probably be consolidated into one (again, Sprint-owned) brand.
Keep in mind that this will take time… Clearwire’s WiMAX network is of an older generation than XOHM is. Once the merger is completed, Clearwire’s entire network will have to be upgraded before it can be accessed by XOHM customers.
Lte is heavily based off of cdma just like hspda. So Qualcomm will still be making boatloads of cash. Wimax should help sprint increase US market share and make more cash. I doubt it will be enough to presuade handset manufacturers to make a wimax version of every handset so Sprint may need an Lte addition as well for phones.. The catch is by the time Lte is even figured out sprint will have a wimax network that will give dsl, cable, sat, and vzw fios a run for its money.. So if that has enough clout to make wimax versions of all the top phones like the wimax version of the htc touch hd than sprint will be doin great. I think they may need to go Lte just because virtually the whole world is. just my 2 cents…
Celz, LTE has no basis in CDMA either in implementation or theory. LTE is based off of orthogonal multiplexing of radio spectrum which has been used in shortwave and microwave burst data transmission and works best at either really high frequencies for maximum data throughput or really low frequencies for expansive coverage past the cellular level.
well if its not based a great deal of the patents are still gonna apply i havent read all specifics on lte yet cuz the true def has yet to be totally defined but i do know qualcomm will be making a ton of money off gsm carriers just like they are now…
Celz, not as much as one would think.
Years ago, I was chatting on Google’s campus, trying to explain WiMAX. This was shortly after I wrote back in 2005 that Sprint would use WiMAX over competing technologies… which they announced years later.
At the chat, I said that WiMAX was basically Wi-Fi using spread spectrum technologies, founded on the ideas in CDMA.
Since then, things have become easier to explain. Both LTE and WiMAX are driven by OFDMA technology. OFDMA uses a multiplexing technology that basically used CDMA’s spread spectrum as a foundation.
Wikipedia explains this connection best: “OFDMA resembles code division multiple access (CDMA) spread spectrum, where users can achieve different data rates by assigning a different code spreading factor or a different number of spreading codes to each user.”
Qualcomm really doesn’t benefit tech-wise from LTE versus WiMAX. Qualcomm’s expertise would give them a technical edge on either platform. The reason that Qualcomm has embraced LTE instead of WiMAX, is due to the consortium, politics, and companies backing LTE.
However, your argument that phone makers will be hesitant to make WiMAX variants of phones, is a bit suspect. Nokia has signaled that supporting WiMAX will not be an issue, and that it’s more of a matter of carrier demand, and how much open access will change how users buy devices.