Communications company Sprint Nextel said Tuesday it was investing up to three billion dollars in what it claimed would be the United States' first nationwide 4G high-speed wireless broadband network.
Sprint said the network would rely on WiMAX technology and offer coverage to 100 million people by 2008. It said in a statement that it was teaming up with Intel, Motorola and South Korea's Samsung to develop the network.
Sprint said it would work with the other companies to also develop "mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices."
The communications player said the 4G, or fourth-generation, wireless network would offer consumers faster connection speeds at lower costs.
"We'll give customers the power to harness business information and personal entertainment easily and inexpensively … and in ways that they will one day wonder how they lived without," said Sprint Nextel's chief executive officer Gary Forsee.
Ki Tae Lee, president of South Korea's Samsung Electronics' Telecommunication Network Business, said: "I believe Sprint Nextel's decision to deploy Mobile WiMAX as the 4G network technology will set a milestone in the US telecommunication industry's history."
Sprint said it hopes to launch a partial rollout of the network in certain trial markets by late 2007.
It said it would invest one billion dollars to set up the network in 2007 and between 1.5 and 2.0 billion in 2008.
WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access.
