NSN loses Dallas Xohm contract to Samsung

Nokia Siemens Networks has lost its initial Xohm network contract in Dallas to WiMAX rival Samsung as Sprint has opted to accelerate that market’s launch with excess while NSN is still in commercial production of its Flexi base station. Both Sprint and NSN, however, said that the NSN is still very much part of the Xohm vendor ecosystem and will deploy networks in future market launches after the NSN gear is fully commercialized.

“It’s certainly not a slight to Nokia Siemens,” a Sprint spokesperson said. “We had the opportunity to accelerate the Dallas deployment with equipment we had available.”

Samsung was the first operator to deploy what would eventually become a WiMAX network, Korea Telecom’s WiBro service, in 2005, which has given the Korean vendor an edge in product development and market timing. Sprint assigned Samsung the eastern seaboard for its initial network launches, and so far the majority of new contracts have gone to Samsung in that region, including the prestigious New York City contract. The Dallas deployment now extends Samsung’s reach into Texas, the region originally assigned to Nokia Siemens.

Conversely NSN was the last major vendor to produce its WiMAX product line and was awarded its contract with Sprint a full six months after Motorola and Samsung were given the green light. As a result, NSN didn’t submit the Flexi to the WiMAX Forum for the first certification round of U.S. equipment, leaving Motorola and Samsung with the only official standardized products in Xohm’s networks.

NSN North America region head Sue Spradley said the Flexi base station is now out of the development lab and will soon be rolling off production lines. After it goes through testing and final software tweaks, NSN will rollout its first commercial networks in other areas of the globe in the 4^th quarter and submit the base station to the Forum for the next round of certification testing. Spradley said NSN never intended to match Samsung and Motorola’s product development schedules. Not only was NSN the last company out of the gate with WiMAX, it planned enhancements to its base station line that would distinguish it from it from its competitors gear even if that meant being later to market, Spradley said.