From PC World: A court ruling has put off the end for Sprint’s WiMax network, which was scheduled to shut down on Friday after a rocky seven-year history.
Two low-cost service providers that serve schools and nonprofits won Thursday a preliminary injunction in a Massachusetts state court, putting off the closure. They say Sprint would be breaching a contract if it shut down WiMax before approximately 300,000 mostly low-income users could switch to LTE.
The WiMax system was the first true 4G network in the U.S. but got left behind when other carriers chose LTE. It was originally built and operated by Clearwire, with Sprint as its main wholesale customer, but the two companies didn’t get along. Sprint, still struggling to compete with larger rivals, eventually bought out Clearwire as part of its own acquisition by Softbank in 2013.
By then, the two companies had followed the crowd and committed themselves to LTE. Sprint announced last year it would shut down the WiMax network on Nov. 6.
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