HSPA: King of Wireless Broadband → ah yes, but the US market will remain a splintered mess.

Why don't Sprint and Verizon get with the program and join the rest of the free world with HSPA? Their antiquated CDMA2000 needs to be dumped for WCDMA.

because stock holders dont want to see their money spent on future proofing the network when the existing one makes them more money in the current.

they aren't spending their money on future proofing? Someone needs to tell Sprint that since their quarterly charges on wiMax (failure in the making) seem to contradict that.

Not until 4G is there any hope at all of possible unification of the CDMA and GSM/WCDMA worlds. At least the two camps are talking to each other in the 4G planning meetings. Of course 3G isn't completely off the ground yet so waiting for 4G will probably take us well into the late 201x's.

they said that shit about 3G....unification never happened. It won't happen until someone with deep pockets buys sprint and verizon and forces them to convert.

WiMax will most likely be sold as a WiFi replacement for a long time, and not an EVDO/1x replacement.

WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA competes directly with CDMA2000 (1x/EVDO), and I don't think anyone would want to do an about face... Sprint would be the most likely candidate though. Verizon Wireless would do well, as Vodafone would be very happy with that relationship.

Wasn't that GSM 1x

You are correct on the fact that HSPA family has more speed than current EV-DO offerings. I am sure nobody has to repeat themselves that also their simply isn't enough capacity per tower to handle the load.

I think you should at least give Sprint-Nextel some credit for at least stepping up to the plate for at least trying to bring 4G broadband networks towards the U.S markets.

I also find it a good idea to start backing away from Qualcomm as current customers must pay royalties and the Qualcomm chipset ban is also hurting specific models that are EV-DO capable.

You can't say WiMAX is a failure in the making as HSPA has not proven to live towards it's standards either. Under optimal conditions both technologies have tremendous speed for wireless and although WiMAX can be considered as long range WiFi for outdoor use, if you are connecting at 11mbps, we are talking about a transfer rate of at least 600KB/sec. Which can be compared to a 6.0mbps dsl line from Bellsouth.

54Mbps or 802.11G can transfer at around 3.0MB/sec at full rate, if WiMAX can operate at 70Mbps the technology has plenty of space to grow for at least a few year's down the road with improvements as the new technology ages.

Believe it or not but Cingular/AT&T need a push and Sprint-Nextel is giving it to them. That's what competition is for and if Sprint continues to push ahead and starts to improve it's overall numbers you better believe the deployment of HSPA will start to appear in more places sooner rather than later.

A company like AT&T will not move unless they absolutely have too.

By the way are you referring to this about the whole Sprint/Nextel buyout?

»www.engadget.com/2007/07 ··· -nextel/

And what is your reasoning for this statement? Look at any stock valuation method, Discounted Cash Flow, Free Cash Flow, Dividend Discount Model, all of them focus on pricing future growth and income. Key word being FUTURE. The capex(capital expenditures) on "future proofing", as you call it, would be well received by all shareholders, as it would allow for sustainable growth in cash flows received both in the form of dividends and capital gains.

The actual reason this is not done is due to the loss of management incentives as they would, more than likely, be unable to meet their goals, probably in the form of net income or cash flow goals.

This is known as the Principle-Agent problem.