The merger of Clearwire and Sprint Nextel's WiMAX business, which has been in the works since May, has been finalized, according to reports across the Web. The new Clearwire Corp. assumes Sprint's
"Xohm" brand and will now operate its service under the name "Clear." Despite the many challenges it faces -- including a weak economy and questions about whether WiMAX can compete with standard
high-speed Internet offerings -- the new entity managed to cobble together $3.2 billion in Phase I funding from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks.
Clearwire is the brainchild of Craig McCaw, a telecommunications pioneer who bought spectrum licenses long before big telcos like AT&T realized that mobile wireless would be the wave of the future. It
is often described as "WiFi on steroids" because it can deliver high-speed wireless Internet over vast distances.
According to Ars Technica, Clearwire now face the considerable task of
"Pushing out WiMAX fast enough and competently enough to provide an effective alternative to 3G networks, while working with its technology partners to continue to advance the technology's speed and
drop its cost before LTE (Long Term Evolution -- a fourth generation mobile broadband standard) hits the market in 2010 or 2011." The company will spend billions on this effort, "and the $3.2 billion
investment, on top of billions already raised and spent, is still just a down payment on the ultimate cost of the network."
Read the whole story at Ars Technica »