Clearwire's cash cow
Clearwire and its other majority backer, Sprint Nextel, reckon they will have the first 4G mobile broadband network in the U.S, whilst the rest of the wireless industry bides its time and waits for LTE (Long-Term Evolution) to metamorphose out of a PowerPoint slide and into reality. This is no doubt helped by the fact Clearwire hogs oodles of valuable spectrum in the US.
But while Clearwire keeps repeating that it plans to cover 80 markets with WiMAX by the end of 2010, the firm keeps begging for more cash from its sponsors, saying it still needs $2.3 billion for infrastructure and maintenance of the network until it can actually turn a profit from it. This, despite the fact it already has $2.4 billion cash in hand.
Some might find it a tad cheeky that, after having the gall to profess a certain amount of wireless tech agnosticism, Marrow still seems to be expecting the likes of Intel to fill Clearwire's seemingly bottomless piggy bank.
Even more so in light of the fact both Intel and fellow investor Google lost significant sums on having to write down much of their investments as Clearwire's stock plummeted.
Back in February, Intel's executive vice president, Sean Maloney said his firm would certainly not be stumping up more cash for its ever-needy WiMAX partner, claiming the firm had quite enough money to get to work with already. "They've got a pretty fat piece of capital to go out and build the network," he said.