Sprint Gets Ready To Go Airborne
By Kathleen Cholewka, Inter@ctive Week
August 16, 1999 9:23 AM ET
After collecting a big handful of licenses to operate broadband wireless networks, Sprint last week set up a new business division to manage those properties once the company's acquisitions are cleared by federal regulators.
The Broadband Wireless Group's marching orders are to get into local markets as soon as possible with fixed wireless access products and services, Sprint says. The group will be responsible for building a broadband fixed wireless network and for bringing to market a high-speed Internet service for homes and small businesses that will compete with cable data offerings and with Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services from Bell companies and local competitors.
Hmmmm, does this mean they are going to be providing >2Mbps before 3G is approved by the ITU?? Much less deployed..
"We want to be self-sufficient," says Tim Sutton, president of the new division. "We want to eliminate the critical dependencies that some parts of a business have on the main part of a large business."
Prior to his appointment, Sutton served as vice president of technology and corporate development at Sprint.
Under Sutton, the group will have all the resources it needs to design its network, create local marketing initiatives and negotiate new spectrum holdings - including the acquisition of more companies with licenses to operate Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) networks.
Oh they aren't finnished buying 200 MHz channels cheap??
Local marketing efforts will be key to the success of Sprint's wireless broadband initiatives, Sutton says. He plans on using the channels already in place via Sprint's booming personal communications service business.
"We'll use those resources, but it's not the only thing we'll do," Sutton says. "There are always new ways that the Internet is bought and sold."
Let the revolution begin!!
Sutton says his group will use cellular towers that already exist in Sprint's cellular coverage zones to build out broadband wireless networks.
They better talk to Qualcomm this won't work!! You can't cellularize 2.5 GHz!!
"We have a pretty intensive build-out effort focused in major cities," Sutton says. "We can go into a market, put up eight or nine towers and cover the whole metropolitan area."
IT won't work according to SI Investors in QCOM
Broadband wireless could emerge as a big part of Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network initiative. According to Sutton, ION has already been more of an upscale product since it has been tied to DSL. "The facilities we are creating for the wireless broadband infrastructure will significantly expand the reach of ION," he says.
Could?? It will...... |
