Sprint will delay the commercial launch of WiMAX in key U.S. metropolitan areas by a couple of months. A soft launch of the wireless carrier’s Xohm-branded mobile Net service is already under way in the Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas.

Sprint Nextel spokesperson Jeff Chaltas said the hiatus is primarily to improve the backhaul side of the network. The upgrade will enable Sprint to more efficiently handle the huge amount of details traffic it expects when the wireless broadband service launches, he said.

“You need a lot of backhaul capacity to do what’s due for WiMAX,” Chaltas explained in a telephone interview. Backhauling refers to transporting traffic from central points to clients.

additional Breathing Room

Sprint’s commercial deployment snafu had nothing to do with recent reports about an unsuccessful WiMAX trial in Australia, Chaltas noted. He said the Australians were not only using a different technology than Sprint, but additionally applied the technology in a

different way. “It’s like comparing apples to oranges,” Chaltas observed.

The pause will give the wireless carrier some additional breathing room to host its Xohm Application Developer Program, tentatively slated for May. According to Sprint, the event will supply WiMAX developers with tools and processes for creating and launching products for Xohm’s customer base.

Yet another positive outcome of the delay “is that we anticipate several more mobile WiMAX devices will be available at commercial launch, making for a better experience and a wider range of devices for our XOHM customers,” Chaltas said.

For example, Samsung’s Xohm-targeted E100 PC Card, which was unveiled at the CTIA Wireless 2008 exposition in Las Vegas, is not expected to be ready for release until fall.

Gearing Up

Nokia plus came to Las Vegas that month to show off its new N810 Web Tablet for Sprint’s Xohm network. However, the pocket-sized…

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