by Robert Herron
Sprint 4G Rollout Updates
Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 9:49 AM MST

On Wednesday at CES in Las Vegas, Sprint VP of Product Development, David Owens declared that Sprint "won't be introducing anymore WiMax smartphones." Sprint will be focusing its product development efforts from here forward on it's LTE line up. Mr. Owens further went on to say, "April, May, June, July, August, those will be very aggressive times for us". Is this some indication that we can expect LTE devices to start selling in April? Let's hope so!

Although the end of WiMax device releases is not a surprising move, there have been rumors of at least one more WiMax device hitting the market. Perhaps the Samsung Galaxy Note. Now those rumors have been squelched. Although the Note still may appear on the Now Network this year, it would likely be an LTE variant.

Sprint will continue to roll out future hotspots with WiMax support in tandem with 4G LTE, like the Sierra Wireless hotspot unveiled this week at CES. However, the end of the road has been reached for WiMax and smartphones. It's kind of sad to consider, but we all have high hopes for Sprint's future LTE network. Except for maybe some of you haters! :azn:

David Owens went on to say that Sprint is not wild about Windows Phone at the moment saying that Microsoft is not doing enough to promote the product. He said that Sprint may carry Windows Phone products in the future as the OS matures, but not in the very near future. My guess is this has more to do with Sprint trying to make sure that they don't further divide up sales that could go to the iPhone. Sprint has a lot of iPhone sales to make in the next four years.

In perhaps the best news of all, Mr. Owens said that Sprint is being more cautious in its announcements for Network Vision and LTE build out. Instead of under delivering on it promises like in the past with 4G WiMax, Sprint is focusing on under promising and over delivering with its new 4G LTE network. The first few markets are going to be announced slowly in the first half of 2012, with a ramp up in the second half of the year.

Photo Courtesy of Engadget