Sprint, Weighing the 4G Future, Eyes T-Mobile for Help
According to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, Sprint's board of directors is trying to decide the best course of action for its future with respect to their WiMax network. Sprint and Clearwire are together building out a nationwide WiMax 4G network. Sprint owns 54% of Clearwire. Clearwire, however, doesn't have the funding available to complete its portion of the network buildout. Sprint's dilemma is to decide whether or not to come up with the funding itself, or seek outside help. The Journal's sources have indicated that at least some of the members of Sprint's board are considering the idea of allowing T-Mobile USA (owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom) to invest in Clearwire and help fund the rest of the 4G WiMax network. The Journal says that some of Sprint's board members are adamantly opposed to the idea of seeking help from a competitor. T-Mobile has problems of its own. T-Mobile has a growing HSPA+ footprint across the U.S., and expects to have 200 million Americans covered by the end of the year. However, T-Mobile has no 4G strategy. It doesn't own the spectrum necessary to build out a Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G network of its own. Both Sprint and Deutsche Telekom have made overtures before about finding ways to help one another, but the matter has become more urgent, reports the Journal, as Clearwire will need more cash by the end of 2010. On top of that, both Sprint and Clearwire have made public statements that put the future of WiMax as their 4G networking technology to question. Management of both companies have indicated that they are open to the idea of potentially switching from WiMax to LTE. Neither Sprint, Clearwire, nor T-Mobile has confirmed the Journal's story.
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