Sprint - Clearwire WiMax agreement falls apart

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire are abandoning their plans for a nationwide WiMax network that would have reached 100 million people by the end of 2008. The departure of Sprint's CEO, Gary Forsee presumably complicated the closing of the transaction. This is a real blow to the burgeoning ecosystem being created around WiMax. There were great expectations from the recent WiMax Forum with regards to Sprint's Xohm service that was expected to be available in mid-2008. Perhaps Sprint's investors want to see them improve their overall revenue picture before launching down a $3 billion+ CAPEX road. This is a major setback to Craig McCaw's Clearwire. One option under consideration was a spinoff of Sprint's WiMax business and merging it with Clearwire. I'm not sure Clearwire can make it on its own because estimates of infrastructure build out costs continue to increase (from $600M to over $1 billion). Sprint also has been working to get things going with Google, although nothing has been launched. Sprint is without a leader and clearly that affects their ability to get strategic deals completed. Don't be surprised if other companies in the supply chain come with investment money to help Clearwire survive - Intel, Motorola and Samsung to name a few. The shakeup of the weak WiMax players is well underway.