Sprint announces large scale WiMAX rollout, starts with Chicago and D.C.

Sprint's been rolling this whole WiMAX idea around for quite some time, but it finally looks like all the pieces are actually coming together. The firm chose CES to announce that Chicago and Washington, D.C. should get that coveted 4G service "by year-end 2007, with a larger rollout encompassing at least 100 million people by year-end 2008." Apparently Sprint's not backing down either, as it's named Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Intel, and LG as critical partners for making this happen, which ought to be enough corporate manpower to get something launched, eh? Although we're not positive as to when Chi-town and the Capital City will get their WiMAX fix, we've got just over 11 months to find out, and hopefully by then Sprint will be a bit more forthcoming about who those "other 100 million" are.

[rektide @ Jan 9th 2007 1:02PM]

well, a long time ago, i saw the US distribution of spectrum for wireless carriers. now, i could be off my rocker, but I seem to recall sprint having by far the largest chunk of spectrum. i remember thinking to myself, wtf are they using it for? i presume this is, in part, the answer.

[Jeff @ Jan 9th 2007 1:40PM]

As far as i am concerned, if Sprint doesn't get an Apple iPhone available - yesterday - then it wont matter much.

:P

[Jeramy @ Jan 10th 2007 12:35AM]

hmm.. that scholarship to illinois tech is sounding all the sweeter...

[Shahryar Rizvi @ Jan 10th 2007 9:31AM]

Finally DC's get something first. And my wife's from Chicago so I expect to be spending a lot of time there too! Win, win.

My #1 planned use of WiMAX: listening to web radio in the car while I drive. I'm sick of DC Radio, and I'm starting to get a little sick of XM too (and I'm too lazy to figure out how to [if even possible] swap out my built in XM for Sirius in my '04 Accord w/ Navi)