Clearwire and Sprint join forces for WiMAX network

It wasn't too long ago that I asked "True mobile broadband, where art thou?" Looks like someone out there decided to heed my call: Sprint and Clearwire, the two front-runners in the WiMAX race, have decided to join forces in order to speed up the building of their WiMAX networks. "Sprint Nextel and Clearwire have announced that they will jointly construct their WiMAX networks and eventually sell the services jointly under one brand," our sister publication FierceWireless reported. "The deal still needs to gain approval by the Department of Justice and the FCC because the companies plan on exchanging selected 2.5Ghz spectrum license assignments." According to current targets, the companies will be able to offer WiMAX service to 100 million people by the end of 2008 (which, as you'll recall, is the same number Sprint has been tossing around for a while on its own). This is good news for both carriers, not to mention consumers, as it should help make WiMAX widely available much sooner than any of us expected.

For more on this story:
- see this FierceWireless article
- and this press release

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