Sprint Nextel unveils another WiMAX device, market expansion with Clearwire

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and partner Clearwire Corp. (CLWR)continued their full-court WiMAX press this morning announcing a trio of new markets where service is available as well as a new device set to launch later this year.
Both companies said they are now offering WiMAX service in Salt Lake City; St. Louis; and Richmond, Va., pushing their total market coverage to around 40 markets. The Sprint Nextel offering is marketed under its “4G” brand, while the Clearwire service is marketed under its “Clear” brand.
In addition to the extended coverage Sprint Nextel unveiled details of its second WiMAX-enabled smartphone, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Epic 4G. The device is based on Samsung’s Galaxy S platform and joins the recently launched HTC Corp. Evo 4G with access to Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX service.
Samsung said the Epic 4G device will include a 4-inch AMOLED screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, run Google Inc.’s Android 2.1 operating system, a 5-megapixel camera as well as a front-facing camera and is powered by a 1 GHz Samsung processor. Sprint Nextel is working on a Android 2.2 update for later this year and said it would announce availability and pricing for the device in the “coming months.”
Sprint Nextel began selling the Evo 4G earlier this month and noted that it was the fastest selling device in its history, though the carrier did not provide hard numbers.
A recent report from In-Stat noted that while worldwide revenues from WiMAX services could top $30 billion by 2014, future growth could be impacted by the decision of a number of infrastructure providers to pull back support for the technology in favor of LTE.