Sprint badly needs to accomplish two goals: sign up new customers, and keep the customers it already has. The first part of Sprint's one-two punch strategy to accomplish these goals went into effect in October, when it began offering Apple's iPhone for the first time. On Wednesday, Sprint wound up the second punch, which it will deliver by the end of June: the HTC EVO 4G LTE smartphone.

The EVO 4G LTE will be one of the first devices offered by Sprint that's capable of accessing its forthcoming LTE network. Sprint has promised it will launch LTE in six markets by mid-year, and the EVO 4G LTE's availability will likely coincide with the network's arrival.

Equipment Vendors Investing to Capitalize on Benefits of 802.11

Recent announcements by Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and Ericsson all point to a renewed interest in the potential of Wi-Fi as a critical technology for 4G wireless networks.  Wi-Fi, once viewed as a solution only enterprises, hot spots or digital cities could embrace with any sort of passion, is quickly becoming a darling technology of not only operators but also “carrier-grade” infrastructure vendors. 

Initially shunned by operators as unwieldy to manage, insecure and generally unreliable, Wi-Fi is emerging today as a clearly viable contender for 4G access.  Almost all smartphones and tablets currently being shipped support Wi-Fi access for high speed wireless broadband, as do most laptops and notebooks, as well as an increasing number of non-mobile devices such as televisions and M2M-enabled solutions.  Beyond its seemingly ubiquitous presence, Wi-Fi also brings with it the benefits of being standards-based and unlicensed.

Industry standards promote cross-industry adoption, lower costs and higher revenues The growth of the M2M market depends on the development of specialized solutions for each industry application cluster such as automotive, transportation, security, utilities/energy, public safety and healthcare. These solutions frequently require custom hardware or software, which typically results in longer time to market, higher development costs and higher operational and support costs. Little progress has been made to date in achieving interoperability across industry sectors for M2M applications. Several of the leading global standards development organizations have recently come together and announced plans to form a global initiative for M2M standardization, with an initial focus on the "service layer" and the development of common specifications, use cases and architecture principles across multiple M2M applications. This initiative will help drive multiple industries toward the goals of lowering operating and capital expenses, shortening time to market, creating mass-market economies of scale, simplifying the development of applications, leveraging the worldwide network for enhanced potential of services, expanding and accelerating global business opportunities, and avoiding standards overlap. In addition, the initiative will focus on cooperative efforts with other standards organizations representing multiple aspects of M2M applications, including: The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) of the U.S. The Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) and the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan The China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) The Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea The TIA recently announced TIA 4940-005 – the first of a planned series of standards that address the M2M space. The widespread adoption of the TIA standards can facilitate the adoption of "common modules" (building blocks) that can help drive volume up and cost down for M2M modules. Wireless security is another integral part ...