Clearwire officially comes to life, with new brand 'Clear'
Published: 2 December, 2008
READ MORE: Clearwire
The merger of Clearwire and Sprint Nextel's Xohm unit, to form the US' first national operator using WiMAX mobile broadband technology, has completed at last, releasing the total of $3.2bn of new investment from stakeholders Intel, Google and three cablecos. Although Sprint has invested considerable marketing dollars and effort into its Xohm brand, this will eventually be replaced with a new common brand, 'Clear'.
This brand will be accompanied by a marketing slogan, 'Let's Be Clear'. Sprint contributes all its 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, giving the new entity over 100MHz of spectrum in most markets, far ahead of any rivals in terms of roll-out of mobile broadband services based on WiMAX or LTE. However, although Clearwire has been the leading cheerleader for WiMAX - making much of the headstart this gives it over LTE supporters like Verizon Wireless and AT&T - the company said in its analyst call that it might consider using LTE in future.
"This is not simply about a time to market advantage, but about having an amazing block of spectrum that is unencumbered by legacy commercial uses and technology," said Clearwire chairman and legendary wireless entrepreneur Craig McCaw. "It is a chance to do something right the first time, with simplicity and incredible efficiencies. We are building a wireless broadband network that will stand the test of both time and competition. This is far and away the most exciting opportunity in wireless I have seen since the beginning of cellular in 1983."
The investors are Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks, and the new company will also receive an additional investment of $10m from Trilogy Equity Partners in the coming months.
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