Sprint Nextel plans to use a single core infrastructure for all its networks, including the WiMax wireless broadband system coming later this year, and to capture information that will help third parties customize services.

A common optical backbone, IP (Internet Protocol) network, cell-site infrastructure and IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) will serve all of the carrier's networks, said Ben Vos, vice president of core technologies at Sprint, in a speech at the VON.x conference Tuesday in San Jose, California. The carrier will also give third-party software developers and content owners access to that infrastructure through common APIs (application programming interfaces).

All this is necessary to deliver a consistent experience to subscribers using multiple devices, Vos said.

"You need to have a unified service architecture at the heart of the network that is agnostic of those underlying technologies at the edge," Vos said.

For consumers, it means they should have a consistent type of experience when they access Sprint's services from a mobile phone, a PDA (personal digital assistant) and a laptop computer, for example.

In building this single architecture, the ailing Sprint is taking on yet another ambitious project on top of its nationwide WiMax rollout. Many service providers are working on building overarching service platforms using IMS and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), but those technologies are still in their infancy and there are numerous legacy systems already in place. Sprint has three separate networks, counting CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), the iDEN cellular network from Nextel and WiMax. Meanwhile, the third-place U.S. mobile operator has suffered numerous subscriber complaints about its customer service and billing, according to news reports.

Along with the common service infrastructure and APIs, Sprint wants to make information about subscribers available to developers so they can offer customized services to individual subscribers, Vos said. For example, service developers could access a customer's location or presence status to present valuable real-time information, he told reporters after the speech. These types of information could also be used to provide detailed billing for third-party content providers on a Sprint bill. Ultimately, information about the people driving along a particular stretch of highway could be used to control what's displayed on a digital billboard, Vos said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.