Sprint's decision to launch a nationwide Mobile WiMAX network is unquestionably a boon for WiMAX. A commitment from one of the largest carriers in the world's largest telecom market gives the technology not only a stamp of approval but also the momentum to carry it forward into other worldwide deployments.

But by bolstering one technology, Sprint has raised some complicated questions about another. By embracing WiMAX, Sprint is diverging from the well-trodden network evolution paths down which the global mobile industry has ambled comfortably for more than a decade. While Sprint isn't abandoning CDMA, it's introducing an alternative technology option into the long-standing mobility debate, a debate that is already fractured between the CDMA and GSM camps.

No other mobile carrier is rushing out to deploy their own WiMAX network yet, but according to industry experts, they're all watching Sprint closely. If Sprint can meet its own timeline, spur the WiMAX community to create an ecosystem and develop a viable business model for WiMAX that doesn't negate its investments in 3G, Sprint's gamble may turn it into a force with which other carriers must reckon, prompting them to re-evaluate their own future network plans.

Sprint has committed to deploying a Mobile WiMAX network covering 100 million people by the end of 2008 using its 2.5 GHz spectrum, terming the new network “4G.” Mobile WiMAX, however, is anything but the fourth generation of mobile technology. In fact, it's a complete departure from the migration paths laid out by the industry's two major standards bodies, the 3GPP and the 3GPP2. What those organizations would label 4G is years away, and much of the underlying technologies of those standards haven't yet been determined.

Sprint has stuck resolutely to the CDMA migration path since it first launched in 1996, and barely a week before its WiMAX revelation announced plans to upgrade its CDMA EV-DO networks to their next higher-speed iteration, EV-DO Revision A. The 4G equivalent of CDMA, EV-DO Revision C, is still in the discussion stages as its 3GPP counterpart, UMTS Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Sprint can't wait for those new 4G technologies to emerge though. It's facing a tight deadline from the FCC to deploy mobile broadband over that spectrum or risk losing the licenses it's been hoarding for more than half a decade. But even if Sprint was given the option of a reprieve, it might not take it.

“If there's one thing I like to do, it's beat our competitors,” said Barry West, Sprint's chief technology officer and president of 4G mobile broadband. “It's my ambition as president of this new business unit to do exactly that. The access to this spectrum and the access to this technology on our timeline allows us to do it.”

Sprint has always, not inaccurately, regarded itself as a trailblazer, a first-mover that hasn't been afraid of taking risks on an untried technology but no WiMAX product has yet been certified, said Iain Gillott, president of iGillottResearch.

“This kind of reeks of the Sprint of old,” Gillott said. “They love being first to market, the first with a new technology. The problem is while Sprint is good at deploying a new technology when it's ready to be deployed, Verizon [Wireless] deploys new technology when people are ready to buy it.”

When Sprint first set out, it launched an all-CDMA, all-PCS network in a country dominated by TDMA operators. The gambit paid off as CDMA became the dominant technology in the U.S while TDMA fell to the wayside. But its competitors followed Sprint's technology lead and created the largest CDMA carrier in the world, Verizon Wireless. Sprint's competitors are watching the carrier's latest network moxie closely, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to follow the maverick operator into the abyss. Not all of Sprint's projects have been as successful as CDMA. Its attempts to use the same 2.5 GHz spectrum for Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service last decade foundered and its Wi-Fi project has languished.

A Cingular spokesman said that the operator is committed to its own UMTS migration path, building out a nationwide high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) network today and following it up with their high-capacity uplink equivalent HSUPA and eventually LTE. Verizon Wireless, true to form, isn't publicly entertaining any plans beyond its current commitment to upgrading its EV-DO networks to Rev. A.

“This doesn't mean we're not thinking about what we're doing down the road,” a Verizon Wireless spokesman said. “Clearly we think about it. We just don't hold lunches to talk about it.”

Sprint has gotten commitments from its partners Samsung, Motorola and Intel to build an ecosystem of WiMAX products and technology, giving Sprint the devices to populate the network when it first launches in 2007 as well as eventual multi-mode capabilities so it can fall back on its EV-DO network. There is still a big question, however, as to whether those devices will be more than laptop cards. The WiMAX-enabled digital music players, cameras and other multimedia devices are still a ways from arriving.

If WiMAX is just a higher-speed extension of its own business-focused laptop service, Verizon Wireless and Cingular can easily continue to compete with their own 3G networks, said Peter Jarich, wireless networks analyst for Current Analysis. Even if Sprint gets more advanced terminals and offers the services it promised at its press conference last week — video conferencing, media sharing and gaming — those services aren't fundamentally different than what 3G networks are capable of supporting, Jarich said.

“Sprint's competitors can continue on as 3G-only players for a while,” Jarich said. “But if Sprint comes up with something more compelling or if they are able to offer those services at a big price difference, then its competitors will have to respond.”

That doesn't necessarily mean they'll respond with WiMAX, Jarich said. If other carriers face WiMAX pressure from Sprint, they may just accelerate their plans for EV-DO Rev. C and LTE, applying the appropriate pressure on their vendors to bring the technology to market sooner. But if Sprint were nimble enough and WiMAX vendors create their promised ecosystem before the development of Rev. C and LTE, then Sprint may force the issue. If WiMAX was the only available technology to meet those market demands, the carriers may have to deploy it, Jarich said.

There are a lot of “ifs” in that equation though. Sprint may have cracked open the door for mobile WiMAX to the mobile operator community, but it will take a lot more to swing that door open. Qualcomm, whose Flarion technology lost out in the bids for Sprint's new network, said the carrier is in a unique position, holding spectrum that it had to fill with the first available viable technology. Other carriers simply won't face those pressures, said Ronny Heraldsvik, vice president of mobile broadband for Qualcomm.

“Sprint needed to deploy something fast and furiously,” Heraldsvik said. “The WiMAX crowd simply had the earliest TDD solution. We believe that this is a timing issue, not a technology issue.”

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