Should We Be Expecting Sprint’s 4G WiMAX Network on Google’s gPhone?

Sprint recently announced that they will be shipping a version of Nokia’s N800 Internet Tablet that will be able to access their 4^th generation WiMAX network. Hopes are high that Sprint’s new network will be widespread enough for a large number of people to make good use of this new iteration of Nokia’s N800.

It would make a lot of sense for some sort of agreement like this to materialize during the design of the phone, as it would require the special WiMAX chips. If Sprint decides to lease bandwidth on its WiMAX network to other carriers it would also make it a more viable option. In a dream world though, Google would just partner with Sprint on this and start making use of all that “dark fiber” Google was buying up a while back.

So let’s look at the facts as we have them so far:

1. Google constantly states that it is their policy to get people the information they want where and how they want it as fast as possible, I don’t know of any faster or, once the network is established, more widespread.


2. Sprint has similar goals with all of their networks, especially their data networks.


3. In the end, Nokia’s N800 meets all the requirements of a potential gPhone excluding the ability to make calls, GPS, and Bluetooth, all of which could, I assume easily be added.

I think that even if Google’s gPhone wasn’t a modified, open source version of the N800, it should still definitely have access to Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network. At the very least they should not make the device exclusive to any one carrier so that it could possibly be connected to Sprint’s network.