For all the talk of Sprint’s new WiMAX business model, rival carrier T-Mobile is paving the way for just the type of service Sprint is likely to launch over WiMAX using a much lowlier technology: Wi-Fi.

T-Mobile is partnering with Sony to launch multiplayer gaming services and Web surfing for the PlayStation Portable gaming console over T-Mobile’s nationwide hotspot services, basically turning any Starbucks and Kinkos--not to mention a slew of hotel lobbies and airport lounges--into connected wireless gaming stations. Admittedly the service will have its limitations. T-Mobile’s hotspots are in a lot of places, but the average teenage gamer isn’t going to be hanging out in the American Airlines Admiral’s Club to challenge his friends to an over-the-air death match. Still it’s not inconceivable that the coffee-addled youth of America today would be spending their free time in Starbucks, feeding their gaming nerves with jolts of mocha frappaccinos.

What’s significant about this experiment, however, is its context. T-Mobile just isn’t offering unbridled dumb-pipe access to the Internet wirelessly. It’s wirelessly enabling a specific data service, used by specific device.

That sounds exactly like what Sprint is talking about with its 4G business model: an open Internet network, where any company can provision access for their services, whether it’s Kodak with digital cameras, Apple or Dell with digital music players, or Sony with the PSP. In a sense, it’s still a dumb-pipe service--T-Mobile’s main contribution to the service is plain connectivity. But it’s also a service that exists outside of the exclusive club of carriers, one that carriers don’t have to create, market and generate interest in. The demand is there--the carriers will just provide the network to meet it.

If this venture between T-Mobile and Sony is successful, don’t be surprised if they try to replicate it over a wide area network, where gratification for the customer--and revenue for the carrier--would be more instant. It’s not a stretch to imagine Sony putting UMTS chips into a PSP, and it’s almost a definite that WiMAX will eventually wend its way into devices like PSP. The difference is that WiMAX consumer devices are still years away. T-Mobile has a chance to test the waters today.

Contact me at kfitchard@telephonyonline.com.