WiMax technology, like those used by Sprint back in the day, was launched many, many years ago and given how far along we’ve come in terms of telecommunications technology, like 4G LTE and with talk of 5G, safe to say that WiMax should have gone the way of the dinosaur by now. But apparently that is not the case.A recent ruling by a judge has resulted in Sprint being ordered to keep its WiMax network alive and open for now. The carrier had originally intended to shut it off tonight, but a last-minute emergency decision will see the network continue operating, at least until a lawsuit brought up by nonprofit organizations against Sprint can be resolved.
For those wondering about this lawsuit, this was brought against Sprint by the Mobile Beacon and Mobile Citizen. The issue they have is that after Sprint had acquired Clearwire and the WiMax technology, apparently the carrier had throttled the speeds. They also claimed that by shutting down the network it makes it impossible for the groups to switch over to the modern LTE standard.
So much so that the judge has decided that the best course of action right now is to keep the network up and running, at least until the lawsuit between the groups and Sprint has been resolved. In a statement released by Sprint, “We hope that Mobile Beacon and Mobile Citizen will take this time to work cooperatively with Sprint to resolve the contract dispute. Our goal is to ensure that our EBS partners and our subscribers can use Sprint’s 4G LTE advanced broadband services as soon as possible.”