Sprint's Xohm CTO aggressively defends WiMAX

Network World — WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barry West, the CTO of Sprint's Xohm businessdivision, hit back at WIMAX skepticsTuesday by delivering the message that "WiMAX is here now, and it works.

During his presentation at the Wireless Communications Association,West acknowledged that deploying WiMAX had been "much more difficult" than he thought it would be, but still asserted that WiMAXwas a "revolutionary" technology that would bring consumers andbusinesses high-speed wireless broadband two years before Long TermEvolution (LTE) becomes widely deployed.

Xohm, which serves as Sprint's high-speed wireless Internetdivision, began its soft launch of WiMAX technology in Chicago,Baltimore and Washington D.C., earlier this year, with a wider launchplanned for other major U.S. cities slated for later this year. Thetechnology has faced criticism over the past year as an over-hypedtechnology that isn't as reliable as High-Speed Packet Access 3Gtechnology, and even as a "disaster by Garth Freeman, the CEOof Australian WiMAX operator Buzz Broadband, who described problemssuch as latency, jitter and poor indoor service. WiMAX equipment vendorAirspan, however, said Buzz Broadband cut corners in its deployment,and that is failure should not reflect on WiMAX.

West took the WiMAX critics head-on at the WCA today, particularly companiesthat have adopted LTE as their next-generation wireless broadbandtechnology. Noting that LTE services are years away from hitting themarket, West accused the LTE camp of "not having anything to offer"forthe time being, which is why "they're trashing the system that's outthere working." West also noted that WiMAX was far ahead of LTE interms of having partnerships within the industry, with "19 companiesoffering chipsets, 28 companies offering devices, and 29 companiesoffering infrastructure."

While West wouldn't commit to a firm date for officially launchingWiMAX commercial services within the United States, he did say thatXohm was slated to do it "later this year." Other than the three citiesthat Xohm has committed to in its soft launch, West declined to nameany other cities that would be part of the commercial WiMAX launch.West also said that he expected to see the first WiMAX-powered deviceapproved within the next 60 days, and that "we're going to see WiMAX injust about everything"by the start of 2010.

According to West, the big drivers for WiMAX have been enterpriseusers, whom he said wanted a wireless Internet service that had theconvenience of Wi-Fi and the ability to properly secure and encryptdata sent over the air. Additionally, West said that WiMAX couldprovide enterprises with secure hotspot coverage both inside andoutside the office, thus allowing workers to connect to "a hotspot thesize of a city." During a question-and-answer session after hisaddress, West declined to comment on recent rumors that Time WarnerCable and Comcast are negotiating a deal to invest in a new nationwideWiMAX company that would be jointly operated by Sprint Nextel andClearwire, and said that "the big announcement is that WiMAX is here and it works."

Sprint and Clearwire had previously signed a letter of intent tojointly build out a nationwide WiMAX network last summer, but thencalled off their plans months later, as the companies said they "could not resolve complexities" involved in the original plan. Former interimCEO Paul Saleh told an investor's conference last year that theoriginal plans with Clearwire fell apart because having a WiMAX networksplit between the two companies had simply become too complicated, andthe companies were worried that it might confuse customers. So far, Sprint has dedicated roughly $5 billion to rolling out WiMAX nationally.