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The $5 billion price tag to create Sprint's WiMAX service, Xohm, looked like a deal-killer when the former CEO was forced out. A spark of life exists. At the not-a-typo >play Conference in Berkeley, a Sprint executive spoke what many telecom observers likely thought would be unlikely. Efforts to bring Xohm to market appeared in Jeopardy in early October.

But the Berkeley Digital Media blog said Sprint's Rick Robinson categorically stated Xohm would tear down the wall to complete, wireless Internet access:

Sprint Nextel is clearly not afraid of being reduced to a bit-pipe (a reason most often attributed for the restricted Internet access from your phone). They are confident that a new content delivery model that is Ad supported, will let them earn from the Ad delivery and distribution.

As to the future of that ad support, one need look no further than Sprint's Xohm portal partner, Google. Though Google has only been announced as the portal builder for Xohm, one has to believe Sprint would want to tap Google's advertising expertise to monetize the service.