Published in August 27th, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday it will work with Sprint Nextel Corp. to bring fourth-generation high speed wireless Internet to New York City.
ADVERTISEMENT Samsung said in a statement it was chosen by Sprint Nextel to provide infrastructure for New York, part of the Reston, Va.-based wireless provider’s plan to launch the network in several U.S. cities based on an emerging mobile wireless technology called WiMax.
Sprint Nextel had already picked Samsung to provide infrastructure and equipment for similar networks planned for Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston and other cities.
“New York is an important milestone for Samsung as we continue to expand the deployment of (WiMax) technology around the world,” Choi Gee-sung, president of Samsung’s telecommunication network business, said in the statement.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Sprint will “go for a commercial launch of our service starting in Washington in April of next year,” said Barry West, president of the company’s WiMax business.
He added that service in other cities would follow “with New York probably in the fourth quarter of next year.”
Sprint Nextel said two weeks ago it would spend $5 billion through 2010 on the WiMax network, to be sold under the brand Xohm. It also said it expects the network, which promises fast wireless broadband connections and mobile roaming at high speeds, to generate between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in revenue by that time.
The costs could have been higher, but Sprint Nextel last month said it would team up with competing provider Clearwire Corp. to help build the WiMax network, reducing the company’s outlay by up to 70 percent.
Similar to the Wi-Fi technology used in airports and coffee shops, WiMax, short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, can provide coverage to much larger areas.
Besides Samsung and Clearwire, U.S. companies Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. are cooperating with Sprint Nextel, which has operational headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., to commercialize the technology in the United States.
Sprint Nextel and Clearwire said last month that 100 million people would have access to the service by the end of 2008.
