Sprint’s decision to launch a nationwide Mobile WiMAX network may not have shaken up wireless vendors yet, but it certainly gave them a rattle. Sprint has validated WiMAX as mobile carrier technology (see story in this week’s Telephony), which could have broader implications for wireless vendors if other operators follow in Sprint’s footsteps. A bolstered WiMAX could create infrastructure giants out of also-rans and send other vendors scrambling to expand their infrastructure portfolios.

The two immediate winners emerging from the deal are Samsung and Motorola, though for different reasons. Samsung gains its first major U.S. network foothold after years of unsuccessfully trying to break into the market with its CDMA technology. As WiMAX is a completely disruptive technology, Samsung isn’t pinned down by already existing network agreements held by CDMA incumbents like Nortel Networks and Lucent Technologies. Furthermore, the Sprint deal added to live WiMAX deployments in Korea set up it up as one of the first movers in the industry—one of the few vendors with commercial base stations and handsets on the market.

Samsung Telecom Americas vice president of wireless and broadband networks Tom Jasny said Samsung isn’t abandoning its CDMA equipment efforts in the U.S., but it will re-center it’s focus on WiMAX, where the bigger growth opportunities lie.

“CDMA is a mature market,” Jasny said. “WiMAX is not only opportunity for us to be a leader in the U.S. market, but a leader globally.”

For Motorola, the WiMAX deal shifts the focus of its ailing networks division from 3G to a brand new infrastructure sector—one from which dominant players have yet to emerge. The Sprint contract is by far the largest one announced to date, but Motorola has other wins to lord over its competitors: a nationwide deployment in Pakistan, a trial with Softbank in Japan and most notably a locked in global broadband wireless customer in Clearwire. Motorola has established itself early as a WiMAX mover and shaker, and it plans to keep that momentum going, said Paul Sargeant, director of marketing for the vendor’s MotoWi4 product line.

“This puts WiMAX on firm footing,” Sargeant said. “Sprint played the same role in 1996 with CDMA, providing the scope for the technology to grow. They’ll provide us with the same scale. There will be some teething issues, but this will give other carriers confidence to move forward with WiMAX.

Perhaps the biggest benefactor of the Sprint deal is Intel. Though Intel is not officially supplying any specific infrastructure to the project, Sprint named the chip vendor as a technology partner though it isn’t supplying any key elements to the new network. Ultimately though, Intel will supply the chipsets that will power many of the devices and a nationwide network of this scale will only help Intel its worldwide efforts to push WiMAX forward. In fact, Sprint said it wasn’t necessarily sticking only to Motorola and Samsung for its equipment, meaning all of the vendors Intel has partnered with for WiMAX technology could benefit from the deal. “We are planning a nationwide network, so we'll be inviting other suppliers to be part of that process,” said Bin Shen, vice president of broadband at Sprint.

The significance of the Sprint deal is more ambiguous for other equipment vendors outside of Motorola and Samsung. Sprint raises the possibility of WiMAX competing with 3G technologies for future mobile network deployments, greatly expanding the potential scope of the technology while possibly threatening the market for traditional mobile infrastructure. While Ericsson, the world’s leading mobile networks vendor, has been adamantly anti-WiMAX, other vendors that have been on the fence about the technology are now speaking up. Nokia was one of the WiMAX forum’s founders, but it dropped out of the forum before the initial certification rounds only to rejoin last year Though ostensibly now a proponent of Mobile WiMAX, the vendor has not yet released any commercial products targeted for Forum certification, putting it behind it’s competitors. But that’s about to change now that there is clear evidence WiMAX will has legs, said Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s chief technology officer.

“The selection of WiMAX by Sprint is making it a viable alternative,” Ojanpera said. “We’re following where the markets are going, and we’re watching where WiMAX is going. Now that we see there is a stronger demand for WiMAX, we are ready to deliver.”

Meanwhile vendors of competing ‘4G’ technologies may have to readdress their strategies. IPWireless acknowledges investing a lot into winning Sprint’s 2.5G trials, which could have given the small vendor its most significant contract yet for its Time Division-CDMA technology. With the Sprint contract going to WiMAX, IPWireless is now refocusing its efforts on Europe where most of its commercial deployments are centered, said Jon Hambidge, vice president of marketing.

“Obviously it was disappointing—it would have been a huge value-creation event for the company,” Hambidge said after Sprint’s announcement. “Until last week we had a very good shot at winning, but it’s hard to compete for a contract this big when you’re a private company and you’re going up against the Intels of the world.”

However, Hambidge added that the Sprint trials were definitely not a wasted effort. The media and industry attention focused on the trials brought TD-CDMA into the spotlight in the U.S. where it was practically unknown before. And much of the research and development IPWireless invested into the technology to meet Sprint’s exacting requirements will be channeled into its development of IPWireless’s next-generation long-term evolution product line, Hambidge said.

There are few other commercial builds IPWireless can compete for in the U.S. until the victors of the AWS auction are revealed. But on the public safety side, IPWireless has developed private data networks it hopes to use to break into the U.S. government market, Hambidge said.

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