To investors who thought Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) would be hunkering down and taking a conservative path to turn around its business: Guess again. Based upon its announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, the struggling carrier is speeding ahead with its next-generation broadband wireless initiative called Xohm.

At the CES show, Sprint Nextel reiterated that it is continuing with tests of the service in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. It also announced a partnership with Amdocs (NYSE: DOX) and a host of other companies to support the platform. While these are trials with friendly employees, the company is planning a commercial launch in certain cities in the second quarter of 2008.

The rollout of its new network based upon WiMAX technology has been the subject of debate lately, especially since Sprint Nextel and Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR) scuttled their partnership framework aimed at accelerating a nationwide network buildout.

Actually, it would be unwise for Sprint Nextel to put the brakes on its next-generation platform -- the company will need differentiated offerings to recover what was lost recently to leaders Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone, and AT&T (NYSE: T). Even with the ongoing investments, Sprint has options to reduce the burden on the company. Some speculation even swirls around Sprint spinning out its WiMAX group into an independent entity that could seek outside funding.

The good news is there is still strong, global support for WiMAX. Computing giant Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is still beating the WiMAX drum. After dumping $600 million into Clearwire in 2006, Intel has helped similarly finance other network rollouts around the world. And a common interest in tweaking the telecommunications status quo could even bring Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) into the WiMAX camp.

While I've recently argued that Sprint Nextel may be struggling for some time, its WiMAX efforts appear far from dead. No doubt, there will be very interesting developments in the next several months that could change the wireless landscape dramatically.

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