Sprint Embraces Wi-Fi

Sprint in the US is not and has never been a UMA operator. Still, I’ve written about the company before. Now, Sprint is making things a little more interesting for the dual-mode handset market.

"Sprint is embracing WiFi in all its major devices going forward," Jeff Clemow, the carrier's director of business product marketing, was quoted in a recent article in Fierce Wireless.

"It is now a requirement for all our PDA equipment suppliers to include WiFi," Clemow said, pointing to the new Palm Pre, which sports Wi-Fi, as evidence of the carrier's new position. "Several quarters ago we made a conscious decision to require all of our PDA suppliers to support Wi-Fi."

We have to say it. Sprint is behind the eight-ball on this whole “Wi-Fi is the way thing.” RIM has been leading the device market with Wi-Fi (and UMA-enabled) BlackBerries for some time, and spoke about how it was inevitable back in May 2008. The whole European market’s been bullish on Wi-Fi for some time now. In a study published in summer 2008, the European Union reported that within the EU27, 46% of households with internet access have Wi-Fi.

Even with a femtocell service, Sprint is realizing the best way to provide offload is with Wi-Fi. Now let’s talk about UMA…