• CNET News.com, Wednesday, October 10, 2007 12 PM

Following the departure of CEO and chairman Gary Forsee, Sprint may soon be forced to give up its extensive (and expensive) WiMax plans, according CNET. Not that WiMax--a technology that could blanket whole cities with wireless Internet access--is a bad idea, it's just too risky an idea for a company performing so poorly. Two years after merging with Nextel, Sprint shareholders have yet to see any payoff, which has them worried that a risky new technology that faces plenty of competition could put the company deep in the hole.

Unfortunately, Sprint has already dumped more than a billion dollars into WiMax, and it needs to make a decision fast, having pledged a further $2 billion investment in the next year to get WiMax coverage to 100 million people by the end of 2008. In total, the company has pledged $5 billion over the next three years to the project. "They should stop the WiMax rollout immediately," said Patrick Comack, an equities analyst with Zachary Research. "They need to get back to the basics and learn how to run a wireless company. This means focusing more on the present rather than the future."

That said, the wireless industry hasn't been kind to Sprint--whose long-term mobile prospects look "bleak" according to CNET--because cell phone penetration is reaching a saturation point, which means the company would have to steal other carriers' customers to grow, and without a single iPhone or 3G killer on its menu.

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