Sprint today revealed its entrance into the wireless mesh arena just a few short months before divesting its own local access business. Sprint’s local group, which will spin off as Emarq later this year, is launching a trial Wi-Fi mesh network in Henderson, Nevada, targeting primarily at public-safety and government use.

The trial in the Las Vegas bedroom community is the first time an incumbent provider has launched a municipal Wi-Fi access network. While Verizon Communications launched a pilot program in New York City and other many wireless operators have been in the hot spot business, citywide Wi-Fi networks have been championed by the cities themselves or independent ISPs like Google and EarthLink. And for good reason: municipal Wi-Fi networks could cannibalize the DSL services of most local exchange carriers, leading the incumbents to challenge most mesh networks in their territory as Verizon did in Philadelphia.

While stressing that the launch is only a trial up until May, Sprint officials said that they believe municipal Wi-Fi networks could be complementary to its traditional broadband services. Ultimately the Henderson trial will give Sprint the data which it will use to evaluate municipal Wi-Fi as a technology capable of running in tandem with its DSL and other broadband services, said Kenny Wyatt, vice president of business marketing and product development for Sprint.

While targeted at Henderson’s public sector, Sprint is also making the network available to any resident, business or visitor free of charge. The network will be built in partnership with the city itself in two one square mile ‘hot zones,’ the first in downtown Henderson and the second in a high-traffic commercial area known as The District. Sprint is paying for, installing the network though it didn’t disclose the cost of the project. It is using BelAir radio gear for both the Wi-Fi access and mesh backhaul equipment and NetNearU for authentication and management. Wyatt said Sprint chose BelAir due to the straightforward topography of Henderson—the flat desert with no tall buildings, but future deployments would use different vendors’ gear.

“We’re looking at a wide range of vendors,” Wyatt said. “If you look at our footprint in 14 states, there is a wide range of topographies.”