MCI INTERVIEW
MCI INTERVIEW
Western Philosophy
Barry West, the man in charge at Xohm, tells Mike Hibberd that he has to make
good on the promises of Sprint as well as the wider WiMAX community.
�y the time you’re reading
this, Sprint Nextel will have
launched its Xohm-branded
mobile WiMAX service in the Eastern
Seaboard city of Baltimore. So says
Barry West, president of the Xohm
business unit and formerly Sprint
Nextel’s CTO. And when the somewhat
complicated creation of the ‘New
Clearwire’ is finally achieved, West
will assume control of that business
as its president.
Speaking to MCI last month, West
named September 29th as the go-live
date for the Xohm service, allowing
the firm to meet its revised pledge of
a September launch with only hours
to spare. The debut of the service was
originally scheduled for April of this
year, with Sprint giving inadequate
backhaul as the reason for the delay.
But the financial difficulties of its
partner Clearwire, and the lagging
development of the embedded devices
central to the business model were
widely perceived to have added to
the drag on the launch.
West is an industry veteran who
spent 35 years at UK incumbent BT,
overseeing the deployment of the
Cellnet GSM network (now Telefonicaowned
O2). In mid-September 2008 he’s
in chipper mood, talking a big game for
his new WiMAX network and offering
characteristically measured assessments
of the prospects for LTE.
West concedes that the September
launch is effectively a test. With 166
sites live in Baltimore, Xohm has
coverage enough to offer service to
75 per cent of the city’s 1.6 million
inhabitants. There are no plans to
artificially restrict sign-ups—“we
will take as many subscribers as
want service within the coverage
area,” says West—but the launch
is being contained because “you
always get one or two things that
you don’t expect, and you have to
make tweaks.”
Just how many subscribers will
want service in the initial stages
Barry West says 3G LTE is "sleight of hand"
remains to be seen. By West’s own
admission, the firm has done “very
little” spadework on market awareness,
largely because it wants the
freedom to iron out any wrinkles
that may reflect badly on the launch.
In part, though, a nationwide carrier
like Sprint can’t make a high
impact debut in a city of just 1.6
million people.
The firm is waiting for final approval
of the deal that will create the
New Clearwire—in which Sprint’s
fellow investors (collectively holding
49 per cent) will include Intel,
Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable
and Bright House Networks—before
unveiling “the grander launch plans”
at which West hints.
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“It’s my expectation that
Xohm will launch in Baltimore
and then Clearwire will launch
in the other markets that we and
they have been working on. But
we’re not yet ready to make announcements
on when that will
be,” he says.
Under the Xohm banner, a
brand and operation that will be
absorbed by the new Clearwire,
all being well, Sprint is currently
working on five other cities. It
has 226 sites live in the Washington
DC area, 558 in Chacago,
119 in Dallas/Fort Worth, 119 in
Boston and 52 sites in Philadelphia.
West says he’s on track to
have 2,000 sites deployed by the
end of 2008.
Embedded devices are central
to the Xohm business
model, but none are scheduled
for availability at the Baltimore
launch. Instead, West says,
an aircard from Samsung, a
USB device from ZTE and a
modem from Zyxel comprise
the firm’s lead trident. But in
mid-September, West reveals,
there are still concerns over
the last of these three. “We have
one or two issues with the Zyxel
modem. We haven’t completed all the
testing and there’s a little question
mark above it, but I’m sure it will
be ready.
“On October 8th we will be announcing
a number of embedded
devices, some which will be available
right away and some that will
come later.”
There will be no dual mode cellular/WiMAX
devices available at
this stage, West says, but one is in
the pipeline. “The initial devices are
standalone WiMAX but Sprint is
working on a WiMAX/1Xev-do air
card which we’re hoping to launch
later this year. That will be Sprint
branded, probably. The other devices
will be Xohm branded,” he says.
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