Oh what a difference a few months can make. At the spring CTIA show last March, Sprint Nextel was put on the defensive with AT&T’s announcement of its intentions to purchase T-Mobile USA. Since then, things have changed, with the U.S. Department of Justice making its move to block that merger. (For more see AT&T/T-Mobile Merger On The Rocks). However, last Friday at its "Network Vision Strategy Update" conference, preceding this week’s CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference, Sprint was flexing its own muscles.

Sprint executives said they intend an aggressive LTE rollout with rapid deployments beginning mid-year 2012, with 1900-MHz devices also available at that same time. And Sprint also seemed to distance itself from its commitment to Clearwire, saying only that it will continue to sell WiMAX devices throughout 2012.

Clearwire quickly defended itself with this statement:

“As the largest wholesaler of 4G capacity, with unmatched spectrum, Clearwire is uniquely positioned to offer capacity to Sprint, and other carriers, particularly in urban areas where demand is high and their 4G spectrum will be inadequate. Sprint remains dependent on Clearwire for 4G and nothing about today’s announcement changes that. Even with their re-allocation of existing spectrum, it’s obvious that their spectrum resources are insufficient to meet the long-term demands of mobile data, but this is not unique to Sprint. Data capacity will clearly stress the capabilities of the low capacity 4G deployments of other carriers due to their spectrum constraints.??

“We are also working globally with other members of the Global TDD-LTE Initiative (GTI), including China Mobile, to develop a low-cost, highly scalable device ecosystem that will work across various LTE networks and frequencies. As demand for mobile data increases, Clearwire remains the only viable 4G wholesaler with an operating 4G network, substantial spectrum resources, and a global technology road map to serve this growing market"

Other Wireless News

With the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference set to begin tomorrow in San Diego, other wireless news has made some waves.

AT&T announced its “AT&T Toggle,” an application it says separates and safeguards business data on employees’ mobile devices, creating a distinct work mode apart from the personal mode. AT&T projects availability of the app before the end of 2011.

When in personal mode, the app permits employees to send text messages to friends, to watch TV shows and movies, and to play games on their mobile devices. In work mode, employees can access corporate email, applications, calendars and other work-related sites.?

"When it comes to connected devices, one size doesn’t fit all," notes Chris ?Hill, vice president/Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. ?"People want to use their own smart phones and tablets for work, but that ?practice can create major headaches for businesses’ IT departments. AT&T? Toggle helps resolve the issue in a simple, affordable manner."??

AT&T Toggle offers a Web portal that allows IT administrators to:

  • ?Manage which employees have access to which company resources.?
  • Add, update and delete business applications on employees’ personal devices.
  • ?Wipe all corporate information stored in work mode if an employee leaves the company or loses his or her device.

In other enterprise wireless news, Motorola Mobility subsidiary 3LM ?has collaborated with unnamed “major” handset manufacturers to protect their Android OS-based devices. IT administrators can activate the functionality through an enterprise server console available as part of a complete end-to-end mobile device management platform 3LM is launching this week, which includes:??

1. Enhanced Android Device Security

  • ?Device encryption, including full memory and SD card encryption as well as? selective encryption of corporate applications only
  • ?A whitelist/blacklist of applications and control applications’ access ?to corporate resources?
  • Strong password enforcement
  • ?Full device and selective (i.e., corporate data) remote wipe??

2. Optimized Device Management

  • Enables enhanced security and control of device, OS and applications?
  • The ability to remotely install mission-critical enterprise applications,?with the option to make such applications irremovable on the device as well? as the ability to remotely uninstall/disable applications
  • ?Device location and “breadcrumb tracking”??

3. Secure Remote Access (VPN)

  • ?Remote access to internal enterprise resources for selected? domains/resources
  • ?Remote device health and status checking?
  • Each device is identified by a unique IP address, tracked as a ?network endpoint?.

-Linda Hardesty

The Daily

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