Posted by Ben Worthen
A new multi-company partnership has breathed new life into Sprint Nextel’s efforts to roll out a high-speed wireless-Internet service. Nothing has fundamentally changed about the viability of such a service since an earlier effort by Sprint collapsed last year, giving the story an interesting subtext about businesses’ long-term attitudes towards emerging technologies.
Sprint, along with mobile startup Clearwire, cable companies Comcast and Time Warner, chip maker Intel, and Internet giant Google, will build a nationwide network that uses a wireless technology called WiMax. WiMax offers a faster Internet connection than the wireless signals found in many homes and coffee shops, and it has a signal that can reach for miles. Sprint and its partners hope to blanket entire cities with WiMax signals.
The problem, of course, is that the service doesn’t exist yet and hence doesn’t have any customers. And while the promise of ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections is certainly enticing, people aren’t exactly taking to the street demanding WiMax. It will take years to build the network, and, in the meantime, other cellular carriers hope to undercut WiMax by offering so-called 3G Internet access over their existing networks. These factors convinced Sprint to dissolve a similar partnership with Clearwire late last year.
The fundamental challenge for Sprint hasn’t changed: The WiMax technology is promising, but it’s still fundamentally an if-you-build-it-they-will-come bet. The only difference is that now more companies have a vested interest in the project. Adding big names to the WiMax effort will buy Sprint time from investors to see how the bet pays off. But it’s hard to see how the chances of the service succeeding are fundamentally different than they were six months ago.
Business Technology : WiMax: If You Build It, Will Businesses Come?
