Ok, with Clearwire on board WiMax might just leave the world of dreams and become a reality. We have certainly been hearing about it for a long time now...Just think, soon you may be able to browse atvflorida almost continuously...at least where cell phones work.
WiMax Gets Real
Elizabeth Woyke, 05.07.08, 2:00 PM ET
Mobile gamers, YouTube watchers and BlackBerry addicts, take notice. A $14.55 billion joint venture between telecom and technology heavyweights promises to speed the rollout of ultra-fast wireless Internet service in the U.S.
The deal, which was announced Wednesday and is expected to close during the fourth quarter, pairs the wireless broadband units of Sprint Nextel (nyse: S - news - people ) and Kirkland, Wash.-based technology firm Clearwire (nasdaq: CLWR - news - people ) with $3.2 billion from a combination of Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ), Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and cable companies Comcast (nasdaq: CMCSA - news - people ), Time Warner (nyse: TWX - news - people ) and Bright House. The new company will take the Clearwire name and be headed by Clearwire Chief Executive Ben Wolff. Sprint will have a 51% equity stake, and Sprint Chief Technology Officer Barry West will serve as president.
The aim: to build a national wireless broadband network based on a technology called WiMax that offers connection speeds on par with cable and DSL--much faster than even the most advanced wireless networks available today. Sprint had championed WiMax since 2006 and recently established trial networks in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Chicago but has lacked the billions needed to take WiMax nationwide.
The new deal, which has been under discussion for months, was spearheaded by Clearwire and Intel, which holds a 20% stake in Clearwire and spied a bonanza in building WiMax-enabled chips. The cable firms came to the table looking for a way to provide high-speed mobile data applications to their customers without relying on telecom competitors such as AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and Verizon (nyse: VZ - news - people ).
Wireless data networking has become a source of enormous attention over the past year, driven in part by the recent highly competitive auction of wireless spectrum conducted by the Federal Communications Commission. The auction outcome likely shaped the decisions of the companies that joined the new Clearwire consortium, suggested Jeff Thompson, chief executive of Towerstream (nasdaq: TWER - news - people ), a Middletown, R.I.-based firm that provides WiMax service to businesses. Verizon Wireless and AT&T were the auction's big winners, a result that may have unnerved the cable companies and Google, which has major wireless ambitions and wants unfettered access to consumers and their mobile devices.
AT&T and Verizon's plans to build next-generation wireless networks on the spectrum using a technology that will compete with WiMax, called Long Term Evolution or LTE, heightened the rivalry, say analysts. In the days leading up to the deal, Sprint grappled with rumors of an acquisition by Deutsche Telecom and a spinoff of its ailing Nextel unit.
Wednesday's announcement, with its roster of heavyweights, is a way to strike back and has lent WiMax some much-needed heft, pending approval from Clearwire stockholders, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. "It validates the technology," says Towerstream's Thompson. "These very large players will make sure this network gets built." Thompson estimates that WiMax will cover tens of millions of people in a handful of major cities within a few months. The consortium said it aims to cover 120 million to 140 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2010.
The rest of a long story is here:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/05/07/clearwire-intel-sprint-tech-wire-cx_ew_0507clearwire.html
