It looks like Sprint and Clearwire could be heading for a divorce, as three Sprint executives have resigned from the Clearwire board. The real question is: who gets the 4G kids?
The Wall Street Journal said this could pave the way for Clearwire to pursue new options. Sprint owns about 54% of Clearwire right now and it uses the company’s infrastructure as the backbone of its 4G services, which are available on devices like the Epic 4G and the EVO 4G.
Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse, Keith Cowan and Steven Elfman have all resigned from the board but Clearwire said they will be replaced and that it is not about pursuing a deal but because of regulations.
The move comes as Clearwire is clearly in a transitional period. The company’s bread and butter so far has been 4G services with WiMax technology but it looks like the industry is looking at Long-Term Evolution as the standard of choice for the next generation of mobile data.
The company doesn’t have its head in the sand though, as it is testing LTE in a few markets. It is even promising real-world speeds of 20-70 Mbps download speeds.
This is made possible because the Clearwire infrastructure is quite flexible and WiMax and LTE have more in common than, say, CDMA and GSM. The company has said that it could switch to LTE with what amounts to a software upgrade.
The competition is not waiting around for it to make a decision, as Verizon is rolling out its 4G LTE network in multiple cities, as is MetroPCS.
AT&T plans to deploy its 4G network in the middle of next year and T-Mobile is able to squeeze out some impressive speeds with its 3G HSPA+ network. Heck, the T-Mobile G2 with HSPA+ has been shown getting more than 14 Mbps.
[Via The Wall Street Journal]