Sprint reins in wireless broadband plans

WESTWOOD, KAN. - Sprint is scaling back its planned rollout of Multichannel Multipoint Distribution System technology, a broadband wireless service the carrier is pushing as a residential and small-business alternative to DSL and cable modems.

Sprint offers MMDS in six cities and is launching the service in Denver this week. MMDS, which was first developed about 20 years ago as a wireless TV technology, operates in the 2.1- to 2.7-GHz bands. Sprint's MMDS service gives users speeds ranging from 500K to 1.5M bit/sec.

Originally Sprint had planned to have MMDS in 35 to 45 markets by the end of next year, Sprint spokesman Russ Robinson says. Now the company plans to launch services in 13 markets by the end of the first quarter. "Over the remaining three quarters of 2001 we'll concentrate on those existing sites and see how the market reacts," he says.

Meanwhile, WorldCom says it's still on track to roll out MMDS service in 30 markets by the end of 2001. This week, WorldCom will launch its first commercial MMDS service in Memphis, Tenn., (eight months after the service provider started trials there), Baton Rouge, La., and Jackson, Miss.

There are three reasons for Sprint's slowdown, Robinson says.

The first is Sprint wants to see how high demand for MMDS is before committing to a larger deployment. Secondly, Sprint wants to reduce capital costs. Lastly, with new MMDS technology that requires no line of sight between an end-user dish and an MMDS tower scheduled to appear in the second half of 2001, Sprint doesn't want to spend a lot of time and money upgrading MMDS sites from current line-of-sight technology to the new technology.

Robinson says Sprint sees MMDS as a complement, not a competitor, to Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network (ION) service. Both services will be available in some cities, he notes, including San Jose, San Francisco and Houston.

While ION is geared toward companies and converged voice and data services, MMDS will concentrate on residential and small-business customers wanting a high-speed data pipe, Robinson says. The only overlap in the services would occur with Sprint's ION Direct offering, a 1.5M bit/sec data-only product. Even then, he says, MMDS will complement ION, because ION Direct is only available to customers up to 12,000 feet from a central office.

Christopher Whitely, an analyst with telecommunications market research firm Insight Research, says it makes sense for Sprint to delay its rollout, because second- and third-generation MMDS equipment will transport voice and video as well as data, in addition to requiring no line of sight.

Jamie Mendelson, an analyst with Strategis Group, says that despite the delayed rollout, MMDS should be a viable technology, especially in areas that can't get DSL or cable modem access. In areas that do have DSL and cable modem alternatives, Mendelson says success will likely depend on pricing and deployment speed.

"If I have a choice of DSL or fixed wireless and they cost the same, if the DSL provider tells me installation will take two weeks and the fixed wireless guys give me two weeks, I'll go with the fixed wireless," he says.

Network World Senior Editor Denise Pappalardo contributed to this story.