Will Sprint start offering dual WiMAX/LTE handsets?

It has been rumored that Sprint was going to eventually dump WiMAX in favor of LTE technology.  Yes, dear readers, it looks like the WiMAX technology is going to be eventually orphaned.

Sprint championed WiMAX over LTE and HSPA+ and that may have been an expensive decision.  I wrote about a deal that Sprint signed with LightSquared where Sprint would help LightSquared expand its LTE network and also become its biggest customer.

I thought at that time that Sprint would start releasing LTE handsets and just dump issuing any more WiMAX phones.  It now looks like Sprint is trying to keep the best of both worlds.

WiMAX, aside from Sprint, has not caught on well in the United States.  In other countries, WiMAX does have a respectable following.  So Sprint may be offering dual-mode handsets to take advantage of their existing WiMAX infrastructure and still handle the LTE.

There are companies that are offering dual-mode chipsets.  Huawei is the first company to do so and their product supports dual mode networking and allows global roaming while automatically switching between the two technologies.

The next thing that needs to be accomplished is to bring down the cost of the chipset.

Clearwire is also another company who bet on WiMAX to win over LTE.  They have joined Sprint in keeping WiMAX alive.

They will have to either expand the technical support groups or outsource the maintenance of the LTE and/or WiMAX networks.  However, I believe this will be a lot cheaper than just throwing out the WiMAX network; Sprint needs to retain its infrastructure.