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Sprint has entered into talks that could result in the acquisition of Clearwire and control of the company’s 4G WiMAX network. Sprint currently holds the largest share of network partner, but it will need to coax the remainder from cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner, and Brighthouse. Sprint’s biggest competitor in acquiring Clearwire comes from that group, with Comcast also in discussions to provide the necessary funding for building out and upgrading Clearwire’s 4G network as it shifts from the WiMAX standard to LTE. Sprint has already established LTE plans with partner LighSquared, but a further commitment to the wireless standard already adopted by AT&T and Verizon could come in the form of $600 million check made out to Clearwire.
[via VentureBeat]
this should be interesting. it would be nice if we could see all the carriers move to one standard within the same range of frequencies so that consumers could be free to choose what is right for them.
Google! It’s just 600 million, go buy it!
Clearwire is worth MUCH more then 600 mill. Kevin just has some reading comprehension issues. The 600 mil refers to the price of upgradint to LTE for clearwire.
this technology has proven to be inconsistent. meh.
After all the multi billion Dollar aquisitions/transactions/lawsuits/deficits that I’ve been reading about over the last months $600 mill seems like pocket change. I need an Advil.
Sprint… Wimax is not the problem but its the coverage of the Wimax and penetration in to building for the most part. There isnt even coverage in San Jose metro unless you are in downtown or Cupertino area. There are towers in east San Jose hills and I got blistering speed of 10Mbps. Normally got about 2-3 Mbps
I use WiMAX all day in San Jose at my office building on Technology Drive (between First St and the airport). I can see the 4G signal all the way down past Monterey & Bernal.
why havent sprint designed a frequency that can penetrate in buildings like t-moblie, they would gain a lot more customers
They did, its the IDeN 700-800mhz and they are shifting their network over to move it from IDEN (Think Nextel) to CDMA. The Evo 3D is the first phone that Sprint has released that can take advantage of that freq which should be live at the end of this year. Now you know
It would be much more than 600 mill for anyone else to buy, as sprint already owns more than 50%. Meaning that 600 mill is about half the market worth most likely.
Is this a good thing or bad that Sprint is in talks with Clearwire
good thing that is if AT&T eats up t-mo as it would keep competition going
This is just what Sprint needs. They wold be in control over their own 4G real estate. That is the only problem with jumping to Sprint, you are in limbo. If they could take control over their 4G landscape, customers would not be hesitant to join. Sprint has not increased their 4G landscape in over a year, that sucks. Good Luck, hope they can pull it off.
With Clearwire’s spectrum and LTE research on top of their special access to LightSquared’s LTE, I don’t see why they wouldn’t make this happen if they could. It just makes sense for a lot of reasons.