Sprint Xohm: No Contracts, No Termination FeesBut the service will cost less for long-term subscribers? ( old news - 09:12AM Thursday Sep 27 2007) tags: prices · business · wireless · alternatives · bandwidth · Sprint Telecom · Sprint Mobile Broadband · Sprint Broadband DirectSprint says that unlike traditional wireless phone service, the company won't force customers of their Xohm WiMax service to sign contracts in order to subsidize the cost of hardware. In other words, you will be paying full price for your WiMax cards, but you won't be locked into long term deals. That means the company won't have early termination fees, either. Speaking at the Wimax World USA 2007 conference, Sprint WiMax unit President Barry West said the message to customers is "You don’t owe me anything, I don’t owe you anything." Sprint clarifies their pricing plan somewhat to Computer World: A Sprint spokesman explained that the proposed pricing will rely on subscriptions, but not contracts in the sense associated with typical cellular contracts. And the longer the subscription a customers buys, the cheaper the service will be, he said. West said Sprint will announce pricing early next year, but also said it will probably be based on tiers of service Speeds are expected to be somewhere around 2-4Mbps downstream and 1-2Mbps upstream. Pricing estimates we've seen have ranged anywhere from $30-$55 monthly. One report says Intel is pressuring WiMax vendors to reach a $30 per month price point.
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 pabster
join:2001-12-09
Waterloo, IA | Sounds great... ...But will the coverage deliver?
I like the idea of buying the hardware up-front, at full price, with no contract or commitment. This could really set a precedent. | |
|  | xenophon
join:2007-09-17
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Sounds great... Sprint plans to rollout to 70m pops by end of next year and Clearwire to do about 30m, for a total of 100m by end of 2008. They will supposedly roam seamlessly to each other.
Sprint's map...
Clearwire's current fixed service, which will expand quite a bit next year to mobile...
»clearwire.com/store/service_areas.php | |
| | | 
AZwldcats
Ummm That's Right
join:2001-02-20
Tucson, AZ
clubs: | Damn 2009-2010 Bring it on sooner... lol | |
| | | | xenophon
join:2007-09-17
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
edit:
September 27th, @12:43PM
| Re: Damn 2009-2010 said by AZwldcats  :Bring it on sooner... lol ClearWire will be doing others next year, like Seattle, Portland and I'm guessing Denver, Minneapolis and Atlanta.
Nearly all of the major markets should have WiMAX by end of 2008 to early 2009. EVDO will still be a decent backup for those who get a combo WiMAX/EVDO laptop card or phone. | |
| | | | | SD6
join:2005-03-26
edit:
September 27th, @03:48PM
| Re: Damn 2009-2010 said by xenophon :said by AZwldcats :Bring it on sooner... lol ClearWire will be doing others next year, like Seattle, Portland and I'm guessing Denver, Minneapolis and Atlanta. Nearly all of the major markets should have WiMAX by end of 2008 to early 2009. EVDO will still be a decent backup for those who get a combo WiMAX/EVDO laptop card or phone. Thanks Xenophon. Earlier this year, Sprint awarded the network buildout contracts for Seattle, Portland and Denver to Nokia. »gigaom.com/2007/03/26/sprints-li···details/
But those cities don't even appear on the map you posted. Do you know what happened to the contract? Is the map from Xohm or did you get it from another source? | |
| | | | | | xenophon
join:2007-09-17 | Re: Damn 2009-2010 I think the date of that article is before the agreement with Sprint/Clearwire to share the rollout and not overlay each other in a makret. I thought I've read Clearwire would be doing Portland/Seattle since they are already there with fixed WiMAX. | |
| | | | 
baileysl
join:2000-11-06
Hopewell, VA | Same here. I'm in Hopewell,VA. Hopewell is part of the Richmond cover area. | |
| | CMoore2004
i r teh smarts
Premium
join:2003-02-06
Jonesville, MI
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·HughesNet Satellit..
| I imagine the coverage will deliver. I've guessed for a few years now that Sprint would be trying to migrate everything to IP (as would the other carriers), so I imagine one way or another you'll get covered, assuming you're not too far from telephone service and/or electricity.
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Charter 5M | Windows XP MCE SP2 | Mobile AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | 1.5GB RAM | ATI Mobile Radeon X600 128MB | 120GB HDD | |
| | | xenophon
join:2007-09-17
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Sounds great... »www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar···004/1002
quote:
Xohm currently has 10,000 sites in preparation for WiMAX infrastructure, 1,750 base stations ordered for delivery this year, 20,000 antennas ordered, 2,000 backhaul links ordered from third parties and 8,000 Sprint backhaul links in deployment, West said.
“We’re not building one network, we’re building two,” he said. WiMAX requires a much faster backhaul than traditionally used T1 lines to truly deliver on its capability, West said, and as such Sprint-Nextel Corp. is building a new backhaul network as well.
With that backhaul system in place “we’ll be able to deliver three to five (Mbps) on the downlink and two to four (Mbps) on the uplink,” he added.
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| | | xenophon
join:2007-09-17
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
edit:
September 27th, @10:31AM
| No subsidized devices Since WiMAX will potentially get on any type of consumer electronics device, it wouldn't make sense for Sprint to be the one who sells the device. It would be like a WiFi provider subsidizing every type of device that could work on their network. Sprint says they want to sell the service, not the devices.
WiMAX devices and accounts need to be thought of more like WiFi networks, not cell-based networks.
You may also have a dozen or more devices on one account down the road... Laptop, Garmin GPS with maps/POI that autoupdate, iPod Touch, Portable internet streaming radio, PSP, PS3, camera, camcorder, car, phone, DVD player with streaming video, refrigerator, etc. Sounds like it may be up to $50-$55/month for unlimited devices per personal account. Since there is no contract, you could dump devices or the entire account at any time.
Will be interesting to see how they would price a WiMAX camera that would rarely use the service and is the only WiMAX device on someone's account. I'd image you just pay an hourly charge or per byte. Though it would probably be a WiFi/WiMAX camera, meaning you use WiFi if available or WiMAX if you need to. We'll see how they structure pricing early next year. | |
| 
MarkyD
Premium
join:2002-08-20
Oklahoma City, OK
clubs: | OKC in 2009 Not too bad. I am happy with my EVDO rev a for now. | |
| 
Fox McCloud
Ron Paul Enthusiast
join:2006-07-23
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Verizon BroadbandA..
| This is good It looks like Ohio gets the special treatment again; Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati, Columbus, and it looks like Dayton, and possibly even Lima.
For some reason, Ohio seems to hold a special place in Sprint's heart, as Ohio has the best EVDO Revision A coverage (for its size) in the nation...go figure (not that I mind, of course!).
Either way, hopefully they'll cover the places in between these cities too (though I have doubts)....I'd definitely dump by (of late) piece of crap EVDO for this; backhaul for XOHM only (as opposed to sharing it with cellphones), and a lot larger backhaul so more users can use one tower (my problem, right now). Plus, if the price was $30, I'd be saving a lot of money, per month, vs. my current $50.90.....plus, latency would probably be lower, too.
Let's hope this turns out well; if Sprint plays their cards right, they could be the national dominator for WiMAX, and turn it into the next "killer app" that nearly every technological device around the nation will use, one day.
I'm just glad its Sprint doing this and not Verizon or AT&T....as both of those companies have been known to screw people over in terms or price jacking and restrictions. | |
| steveymacjr
join:2001-01-25
Matthews, NC | nothing in the souteast wow, nothing in the southeast...you'd think they'd atleast have Atlanta..oh well.. | |
| | xenophon
join:2007-09-17
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: nothing in the souteast That's just the Sprint map. Clearwire may be doing some of the SE. Sprint and Clearwire are sharing the rollout and have an agreement not to overlay each other in same market. They are actually swapping spectrum to give each other more spectrum for their markets. | |
| | | | | steveymacjr
join:2001-01-25
Matthews, NC | Re: nothing in the souteast oh wow, didn't know that... thanks for the update | |
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