Remember when Sprint-Nextel Corp. said sayonara to its landline business? Which then became EMBARQ? Then Sprint tapped EMBARQ CEO Dan Hesse to come over to helm Sprint instead?
Now, despite those ubiquitous “become a mobile expert” commercials featuring Hesse in Central Park, Sprint might get right back where it started. As in, Sprint is considering getting back into the fixed broadband game, using WiMAX to do it.
Even though there are plenty of people moving to wireless-only and ditching their landlines, the carrier plans to tap residential and business customers with a fixed broadband solution using Clearwire Corp.’s WiMAX network.
“We want to make 4G a major initiative within the company,” Rowley said. “4G gives us the capabilities to actually start offering home services – voice and broadband services. We’ve seen a big trend of people cutting the cord at home. This allows us to make it a little easier.”