Sprint Nextel Thursday announced that WiMax has met its commercial deployment standards and is due to be launched commercially later this year.

Sprint says it has been using several metrics to test its WiMax technology, including its overall performance, its handoff performance, and its handoff delay. The tests, which began in June 2007, have been carried out primarily in the laboratory environment of Sprint's Xohm business unit and on its prototype commercial-service network that has been deployed in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. 

Sprint says it conducted its first data session on the commercial network in October 2007 and started interoperability tests with WiMax-device vendors this past April.

Samsung, which has been one of Sprint's biggest partners in creating WiMax-enabled mobile devices, helped conduct the WiMax compliance tests, Sprint says. Last month, Samsung introduced several new WiMax-enabled devices, including an E100 PC Card and a WiMax-embedded Ultra-Mobile PC. The company says it plans to have its WiMax devices available to coincide with Sprint's WiMax commercial launch later this year.

"This is a major step towards launch readiness, and Sprint is extremely pleased with the performance of the mobile WiMax network and access devices from Samsung," says Barry West, president of the Xohm unit. "The collaboration with Samsung and our other partners has created a WiMax ecosystem that has now proven that it can deliver this new technology to the marketplace well ahead of any feasible alternative."

WiMax recently received a big boost when Sprint and Clearwire announced they will be combining their WiMax businesses to create a $14.5 billion mobile-broadband company. As has been rumored for the past few months, the new company will be focused on deploying a nationwide WiMAx network that will provide 4G coverage to consumers, businesses and government public-safety services in urban and rural markets.