ybw1-5551212

Sprint-Nextel and Samsung announce domestic U.S. WiBro testing agreement

Reston, Virginia
September 26, 2005

By Marc Strassman
Reporter
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Sprint-Nextel and Samsung Telecommunications America agree to test "WiBro" advanced wireless broadband technology in U.S.

According to a press release issued on September 16, 2005, from Reston, Virginia:

"Sprint and Samsung Telecommunications America have agreed to engage in joint wireless broadband technology efforts to test the IEEE 802.16e standard and drive the development of advanced wireless broadband services.

"The agreement involves testing of prototype terminals and supporting core network equipment to help substantiate next-generation wireless network infrastructure requirements for future wireless interactive multimedia services. The collaboration will involve lab trials at company facilities and field trials with customers, as well as interoperability testing with Sprint ecosystem partners in order to verify the specifications of 802.16e technology.

"'The agreement with Samsung will help align technologies and validate requirements for future wireless offerings,' explained Barry West, Sprint chief technology officer. 'We are evaluating multiple options for 2.5GHz applications and fostering strategic relationships with ecosystem partners who are vital to progress on next-generation wireless broadband access and infrastructure.'

"'Once again, Samsung is working closely with Sprint to drive the next generation of wireless services,' said Thomas Jasny, VP of Wireless Broadband Networks for Samsung Telecommunications America. 'The 802.16e standard will help support the deployment of true wireless broadband.'

"Samsung has been a key driver of the 802.16e standard and intends to be the first company to give a trial performance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit this year and commercially launch high-bandwidth wireless data access technology early next year in Korea. Wireless Broadband (WiBro) and Mobile WiMax are services enabled by the standard and are seen as offering mobile/portable solutions, high performance, wide-area services and global standardization. Samsung will utilize the experience gained from this research to drive ongoing development of WiMax equipment for the global market, including the United States."

A week later, Sprint also specifically provided WiBro World with this statement regarding the company's plans in the 802.16 mobile wireless broadband space, saying:

"We want to deploy one of the technologies in our spectrum after an economic analysis and haven't made a choice yet. There are a number of investigations underway, which could be our CDMA 1X network extension (release A) or EV DO could evolve to multi-carrier (base radio) equipment; we had Flash OFDM trials with Flarion; UMTS TDCDMA (IP Wireless); FDD variants (wideband CDMA) and of course WiMAX. WiMAX has a fixed (802.16d) and mobile (802.16e) versions and we want to be in the mobile world. 16e is under study but presently there are no provisions for hand-offs (necessary as you travel). Motorola and Samsung are at the forefront of mobile solutions, each with a different approach so we are testing what the standards will yield. Our goal is to select the best service at the best cost."

Some WiBro background links

You can get a good start towards understanding WiBro from the wiki article "WiBro".

For a comprehensive and well-illustrated introduction to WiBro from Soon Young Yoon at Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd.'s Telecom R&D Center, go to his September 10, 2005, presentation : "Introduction to WiBro Technology."

A very good briefing on WiBro is provided in a November 9, 2004, presentation prepared by Yong Kuan Loong, a consultant with Technology Group, IDA (Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore), entitled "WiBro Portable Internet."
For a posting from Taiwan about a WiBro presentation on June 15, 2005, in Singapore, that includes information clarifying the relationship between WiBro and WiMAX, go to "Samsung WiBro to be launched by April 2006 in S.Korea."

To access an August 29, 2004, press release from Samsung about WiBro "hand-over technology," the transfer of connectivity from one base station to another while WiBro users speed along their way, go to: "SAMSUNG Demonstrates WiBro Hand-over Technology."

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