Several blogs, including Boy Genius Report (BGR) and Engadget are reporting that Sprint intends to launch their version of femtocell service nationwide sometime this month. Sprint has been trialing femtocell technology in Denver and Indianapolis. Sprint’s femtocell product, Airave, sets up a mini cell tower in a subscriber’s home and utilizes the subscriber’s home broadband service as the transport medium into the core network. Femtocells are seen as a potentially disruptive force on the competitive landscape because in theory, they’ll provide better in home coverage for wireless calls. That better in-home coverage may provide enough ammunition for customers who saw poor in-home coverage as a reason not to cut their home wireline service, to go ahead and cut it now.

Sprint will sell the Airave for $99 and tack on an additional $15/month or $30/month depending on the existing wireless plan (individual vs. family, etc.), providing unlimited calls through the Airave. BGR reports that Sprint femtocell service may only be available to customers who subscribe to an unlimited wireless plan. Unlike similar products from T-Mobile, Sprint’s Airave does not utilize Wi-Fi. Rather it uses the CDMA technology present in all of its handsets, meaning any existing Sprint customer will be able to use an Airave, not just the ones with a Wi-Fi enabled handset.

Sprint released its main competitor to the iPhone with an aggressive entry price point. The Instinct, manufactured by Samsung, will be priced at $129.99, a direct shot across the iPhone bow, which is priced at $199 (or $299 for a better version). The Instinct offers many of the same features of the iPhone, minus the fanatical following. Sprint will market the Instinct through their retail footprint, website, and through telesales. It will also be sold through an exclusive retail window at Best Buy from June 20 - August 28.

The Instinct mimics the iPhone in many ways, including a touchscreen, visual voicemail, and advanced data and web friendly features. Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint is marketing the Instinct as their “… first EV-DO Rev A consumer-centric device,” referencing the consumer appeal of the iPhone and 3G broadband capabilities. Sprint needs all the help it can get. We’re sure the iPhone has contributed to Sprint’s customer hemorrhaging problem of late, which has been averaging one million+ customer defections per quarter this year.

All eyes will be on Baltimore this Fall. Barry West of Sprint/Xohm/Clearwire announced that Baltimore will be the launch market for their WiMAX effort in September. It will make Baltimore the largest North American market for WiMAX (for the time being) and a true test of WiMAX’s capabilities on a large scale. West announced the launch at his keynote presentation Tuesday at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress in Amsterdam. The launch is somewhat behind schedule. Sprint/Xohm had targeted Spring 2008 for these initial launches. The Washington D.C. market will follow Baltimore and launch WiMAX in the fourth quarter of 2008 according to West. The details are in this telecoms.com post.

Sprint introduced a new pricing plan that it hopes simplifies its wireless plans. The new pricing plans build on their Simply Everything $99/month plan. They offer a variety of service options, which include voice only, voice with messaging, and voice with messaging and data. Subscribers select an 1) individual or family option; 2) the aforementioned service option; and 3) the total number of monthly minutes to arrive at their monthly price. Depending on options selected the monthly fees range in price from $39.99 to $99.99.

A stated desire of regulators is to foster competition for broadband. They claim that many of their policies are created to achieve such a desired outcome. Sprint and Clearwire are exploiting this desire with regulators with their most recent regulatory filing. They are positioning WiMAX as the desired “third pipe” into the home - a broadband pipe that will compete with the other two dominant broadband pipes, DSL and cable modem. While still a concept, a wireless third pipe into the home is building momentum.

Whether it’s Sprint/Clearwire with WiMAX or Verizon/AT&T with LTE, wireless broadband technology is evolving quickly. Its ability to rival wireline broadband service is approaching – and quickly. I’ve heard the argument that wireless broadband will never really rival wireline broadband services, especially with FTTH gaining momentum. That’s certainly true. But I wonder if it misses the point. Wireless broadband won’t rival FTTH speeds, but it doesn’t have to. All it has to do is provide “enough.” When it does provide “enough,” a fair number of customers will see the same compelling convenience with wireless broadband that they saw with wireless voice. Those customers will cut the wireline broadband cord, in much the same way they cut the wireline voice cord. Will it be everyone? No. But will it be enough to create serious competitive implications. Absolutely.

Sprint is about to launch its latest response to the iPhone craze, the Samsung Instinct. The new Instinct is scheduled to be available on June 20th. Sprint hopes the Instinct may help stop the bleeding of subscribers who are leaving Sprint in droves. Prime beneficiaries of the Sprint exodus have been AT&T and Verizon. The iPhone may be just the excuse that hundreds of thousands of Sprint subscribers need to leave Sprint and go to AT&T. Sprint hopes the Instinct may cause some of those subscribers to pause and evaluate this iPhone “like” option. The Instinct is very iPhone like, offering many of the same features, including:

• touchscreen
• visual voicemail
• up to 8GB of memory
• music and other multimedia options
• web browsing

Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct offers a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint may have some challenges with the Instinct because its scheduled release is right in the middle of the rumored release of the 3G iPhone, rumored to be announced on or around June 9th. The iPhone’s biggest drawback has been the lack of true 3G type wireless broadband speed, which handicapped the many web enabled applications of the iPhone. With that problem solved, the iPhone may be even a more formidable adversary than it has been in the past, which wouldn’t be good news for its competitor’s or the wireless providers who do not have access to it.

Embarq has decided that its wireless partnership with former corporate parent Sprint is no longer attractive. Embarq was hoping to gain 1 million wireless customers and has only achieved 112K to date. They've essentially decided to let the wireless business "die." They'll continue selling devices and plans until everything runs out, and then shut the business down. Existing wireless customers will probably migrate over to Sprint. The move isn’t an encouraging one for the MVNO model, at least as it applies to large carriers like Embarq. When hearing news like this, it’s easy to dismiss the MVNO model entirely, but I’m not ready to do that yet. It’s also bad news for Sprint, at least from a PR point of view. Embarq joins Qwest in ditching Sprint as a wireless partner. Sprint’s MVNO business has suffered highly visible partnership failures, including Qwest, Pivot Wireless, and now Embarq. To be fair, probably the most successful North American MVNO play, Virgin Mobile, is also affiliated with Sprint.

While the Sprint MVNO model hasn’t worked for Embarq, for many smaller ILEC’s, the MVNO model is the only game in town, provided a pure play ILEC wants to get in the wireless business. It’s a difficult business to crack. The ILEC partner, particularly small ones, are at the mercy of the larger wireless carriers, and are usually low on the totem poll in priority. Finding the right business model, where both wireline and wireless partner can prosper to their respective expectations has proven to be elusive. Yet, it’s still too early to give up. Wireline carriers recognize that the future of the business lies in wireless and broadband, not in wireline voice. Most ILECs have the broadband part covered. Those who want to also hedge their bets with wireless need to find an MVNO model that works. Early indications suggest that wireless can help maintain competitiveness. AT&T and Verizon are only beginning to maximize their competitive advantage with wireless, and their future looks promising. Recent news also suggests that the cable industry intends to find the right wireless strategy as well. So while MVNOs are taking a lot of heat of late, there could and should still be a positive future with them, provided those who are interested work to persevere and find a winning business model. Good luck!

Update - May 7, 2008: It's official. Sprint and Clearwire announced the formation of the "new" Clearwire, as discussed below in the original May 6th post.

A mega deal which involves Sprint, Clearwire, Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Brighthouse Networks is on the verge of being announced according to the Wall Street Journal (subs. req.). The deal will merge Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX assets into a company valued at $12 billion. The company will retain the Clearwire brand and will be led by Clearwire's CEO Ben Wolff. The cable company investments totaled over $1.5 billion, led by Comcast who ponied up over $1 billion. The deal has been rumored for months. It is expected to be announced as early as Wednesday.

It appears as if WiMAX will now have the foothold it needs to become a 4G wireless force in the North American market. Cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Brighthouse will now have access to a legitimate broadband wireless network and begin the long process of integrating wireless opportunities into their core business. The deal will allow cable companies to sell broadband wireless under their own brand. It's somewhat surprising that cable companies and Sprint are partnering for another wireless venture, given the failure of their previous joint effort, Pivot Wireless. Perhaps Pivot's demise was intentional to make way for Clearwire. It's not clear what this development means for cable's AWS spectrum holdings. Regardless, this new WiMAX momentum will provide interesting competitive observations. Sprint will conceivably gain a considerable 4G lead over their main competitors, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, who have all tagged LTE as their 4G technology of choice. It will be at least a couple years before we see them bring something to market though. It's some welcomed news for Sprint, which has seen nothing but rumors focused on their troubles swirling for the past few weeks.

Qwest is announcing a new five year wireless resale arrangement with Verizon Wireless. Qwest was previously partnered with Sprint for a similar wireless deal, which obviously didn’t work out. Qwest CEO Ed Mueller announced early on in his tenure that he was unhappy with the current Sprint deal. The terms of the agreement are somewhat sketchy, but here are some interesting tidbits:

• Qwest customers will have access to the full line of Verizon Wireless handsets, smartphones and BlackBerry devices, as well as high-speed broadband wireless services for e-mail, Internet access and multimedia services
• Residential customers will be able to choose “wireless only” and be billed directly by Verizon Wireless, or include Verizon Wireless service as part of a Qwest bundle with their home phone, Internet and video services, and receive one bill from Qwest for all services
• Once billing systems are coordinated, residential customers will be able to elect to have their Verizon Wireless service charges included on their Qwest bill

Wireless has been a crutch for Qwest, and resale agreements, while not being ideal, provide the best remedy when nothing else is available. Qwest appears to be warm to resale arrangements. They’ve very publicly said they would rather resell DirecTV than build their own triple play network. Resale seems to be there mid-term, and maybe long-term, strategy for wireless as well. Maybe Verizon offered them a better deal than Sprint. Maybe Qwest sees Sprint as the Titanic and didn’t want to get caught on the top deck listening to the string quartet band while sinking with them. Qwest obviously needs a wireless play to remain competitive. Time will tell if this is the right move. The reality suggests, it might have been their only move.

It’s official. Pivot Wireless, the wireless joint venture between Sprint and the cable industry is dead. The three major cable partners, who included Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox, have decided to move on. Sprint announced back in October that it would stop marketing Pivot. All existing Pivot wireless subscribers will migrate over to Sprint. There are no firm numbers on exactly how many subscribers the venture had obtained. All joint venture participants had previously complained about Pivot’s provisioning and integration complexities. It almost seems that it was doomed from the start.

The real question is what’s next for the cable industry in regards to wireless? They are sitting on a “boatload” of spectrum obtained from recent AWS and 700 MHz (Cox is the lone national cable provider with 700 MHz) auctions. In some regards, Pivot was almost a distraction. With it removed from the equation, the cable industry may start moving more aggressively on a true facilities based wireless platform. Gigaom.com is reporting that Comcast has hired a seasoned wireless executive to start building the framework for their own wireless launch. There has also been speculation that the cable industry was interested in investing in Sprint’s WiMAX play, Xohm. That seems highly unlikely now, given the Pivot blow up. Whatever the case, the cable industry needs to move fast on their wireless strategy. If they don’t, they may arrive to the wireless party too late (which may already be the case), and spend billions on building a nationwide wireless network, only to find out that subscribers are quite content with their current wireless provider.