Questioning Its Early 4G Lead and Phone Supply, Sprint Ponders LTE

With the WiMax-enabled HTC EVO 4G in short supply, and a shipment date not yet set for the Samsung Epic 4G, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said this week that Sprint is actively considering use of the competing LTE architecture now being adopted by its rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

Also in his interview with the UK's Financial Times, Hesse said that Sprint holds enough wireless spectrum to accommodate both WiMAX and LTE on the same network.

In another interview published this week, Hesse told the Wall Street Journal that supply issues around the HTC evo might hurt the early lead in 4G now enjoyed by Sprint and its WiMAX partner Clearwire.

Hesse apparently didn't mention Sprint's second 4G phone, the forthcoming Epic 4G, the only one out of six planned Samsung Galaxy S-based phones from U.S. carriers to be enabled for WiMAX.

Bedeviled by Component Shortages
In his interview with the WSJ, Hesse placed blame for the evo 4G shortages on supply chain issues around this smartphone's screen. The Evo 4G uses a more generic TFT display, instead of the AMOLED screen showing up in some other Android OS phones, including the HTC Droid Incredible and Google Nexus One.

Meanwhile, though, rising demand, combined with a limited supply base, has now "led to constrained availability of AMOLEDs," said Vinita Jakhanwal, a principal analyst at iSuppli, in a recent report.

The forthcoming Sprint Epic 4G will in fact use Samsung's Super AMOLED screen technology, just like the others based on the Galaxy S: Verizon's Fascinate, AT&T's Captivate, T-Mobile's Vibrant, and as yet unnamed phones from US Cellular and Cellular South.

In addition, the Epic 4G looks to be the only one of the six to be outfitted with a QWERTY keyboard and a front-facing camera, meaning that additional components will come into play.

Although T-Mobile's Galaxy S-based Vibrant is expected to ship on July 21, and AT&T's Captivate on July 18, no date has yet been set for Sprint's Epic.

It's too early to tell whether component shortages will also impact the Epic or any of the other phones derived from the Galaxy S.

At the same time, Sprint's existing evo 4G has been beset by some other problems beyond product shortages, including leaky screens and a faulty software patch.

Sprint Eyes LTE
Apparently, Sprint officials haven't suggested any direct connection between these phone issues and Sprint's newly expressed willingness to consider LTE. Clearly, the situation is much more complex than just that.

However, an abundant supply of fully reliable WiMAX-enabled smartphones surely wouldn't harm long-struggling Sprint in its current efforts to nail down chunks of the 4G market before Verizon and AT&T arrive on the 4G scene with their own LTE networks.

Also this week, Sprint announced the addition of seven more to its growing list of WiMAX-enabled geographic areas, which now number 43. The latest ones include Rochester and Syracuse in New York State, Merced and Visalia in California; Tri-Cities and Yakima in Washington State, and Eugene in Oregon .Yet some of Sprint's existing 4G markets are still only partially ready for WiMAX.

In a statement, however, Sprint officials said they still expect to start WiMAX services in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami by the end of this year

At the same time, Verizon in the US and NTT DoCoMo in Japan also plan commercial rollouts of LTE by the close of 2010.

Will Sprint Merge with T-Mobile?
In his interview with the Financial Times, Hesse also said he sees a "certain logic" to the idea of a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile USA, although he didn't say whether any talks are in the works.

T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest US carrier behind third-ranked Sprint, is currently upgrading its network to HSPA+ in an effort to reach 4G-like speeds.

Sprint Could Dump WiMAX
Russia's Yota has already switched from WiMAX to LTE, noted Bhavya Khenna, an ABI analyst, in another report. "However, don't expect WiMAX to bow out just yet," Khenna advised in a statement.

ABI's report also cautions, though, that WiMAX will face a major threat from TD-LTE, an alternative technology now being championed by China in conjunction with Qualcomm.

"[TD-LTE] can operate on the same bandwidth as existing WiMAX networks. If this technology proves successful, it could see several WiMAX operators migrate to the LTE standard," says the ABI report.

Motorola, Samsung, and China's Huawei Technologies are among the telecom equipment makers that might be tapped for a new Sprint 4G contract, according to the Financial Times.