XOHM free: The business case for open networks

As you'll see in today's issue, Sprint has announced that they will publish open APIs and a SDK for their XOHM WiMAX mobile broadband service before the year is out. Couple this with the fact that the service will have no contracts (and subsequently, no subsidies) and you've got the makings of the most open wireless data service on the market. Just imagine how a service like XOHM might enhance your business: you could buy and attach any commodity hardware, as you do now with your wired network, you could write custom apps that would take advantage of the network's advanced features (real-time location data, for example) and best of all, you could run your mobile operation free from the constraints of contracts.

There's no question about it: this kind of openness is good for the enterprise. So why is Sprint doing it? For years, U.S. wireless carriers have been resisting openness--their primary fear is that their networks will turn into another "dumb pipe," leaving them with nothing to sell but bandwidth. The wireless carriers of today don't just sell access to their networks--they sell hardware, services and media--and the idea of openness poses a threat to their current business model. So what is Sprint thinking?

The answer is simple: they just want WiMAX to work. The company is investing a massive amount of money in WiMAX, as are partners like Intel. And given Sprint's current financial situation, the company really needs to get a good return on this investment in order to remain solvent. So how are they going to ensure that XOHM hits the target? Simple: they're giving their target customer exactly what he or she wants.

When XOHM launches in April, it's likely to be a cutting-edge, blazing fast, prohibitively expensive service. So who's going to shell out the cash for it? Those few IT departments and consumers who simply must have the latest and greatest at any cost--the "early adopters," if you will. By and large these folks are hardcore geeks and they want more than just access to the network: they want to attach all sorts of devices, they want to download third-party apps that take advantage the the network's capabilities and many of them will want to write their own applications. And why not let them? If Sprint wants XOHM to be a success, they need to offer customers something they can't get from other carrier. And at the moment, nothing quite fits that bill as well as openness.

Of course, that could all change. Sprint's decisions regarding the openness of XOHM were no doubt influenced by other recent events: Google's totally open Android mobile OS, Apple's forthcoming iPhone SDK and Verizon's "Any App, Any Device" initiative. While it remains to be seen how much follow-through we'll see from any of these companies (Sprint included), the fact of the matter is that openness is on the table and it's not going away any time soon. Sprint seems to be taking a more radical stance on the issue when compared to its competitors but that should come as no surprise--after all, desperate times call for desperate measures. However, if the XOHM experiment proves to be a success, it could usher in a brave new world of open wireless networks--and all sorts of new possibilities for mobile professionals. -Mehan