Overview: At long last, Sprint has confirmed it will be turning off of its WiMAX service on or around November 6th, 2015. That’s a little over 1 year for owners of WiMAX mobile devices (including laptops with WiMax cards/dongles) to switch to LTE . WiMAX mobile devices will still work in 3G mode after that, but one doesn’t buy a 4G device or interface to use it in 3G mode, especially after a few years of ownership. The time frame for the shutdown was originally reported by a blog on Android Central this past weekend, which cited an internal Sprint memo detailing the company’s network plans. Yesterday, Sprint spokeswoman Adrienne Norton confirmed the date to FierceWireless. In April, Sprint said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it would “cease using WiMAX technology by the end of 2015.” As part of that effort, Sprint said it identified approximately 6,000 “redundant sites that we expect to decommission and terminate the underlying leases.” This author long ago forecast the demise of mobile WiMAX, because no other major wireless telcos or mobile device makers (except Samsung) were supporting it. In a September 2006 blog post, we asked “Will the Real “Mobile WiMAX” please stand up!” What’s Cooking Now in Sprint’s Wireless Broadband Kitchen: Sprint says […]
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