Clearwire polishes up WiMAX brand

As US operators Sprint Nextel and Clearwire complete the merger of their next generation wireless internet businesses, the mobile WiMAX pin up known as “the new Clearwire” has unveiled its service brand – “Clear”.

Late Monday, Clearwire said that in the coming moths, the Clear brand will replace the Xohm service name previously used by Sprint in the Baltimore area and will apply to all mobile WiMAX services to be offered by Clearwire in the US.

The company name will remain Clearwire.

Under the deal between Sprint and Clearwire, the company has received $3.2bn in investments from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks. The company will also receive an additional investment from Trilogy Equity Partners in the coming months.

With the merger of assets complete, Sprint has transferred its entire 2.5GHz spectrum holdings to Clearwire, giving the service provider 100MHz or more of spectrum in most markets across the US.

“In the landline world, service providers can’t deliver broadband without a big enough ‘pipe,’ and in the wireless world that means having enough of the right kind of spectrum,” said Benjamin Wolff, Clearwire’s chief executive officer. “Our significant spectrum holdings provide Clearwire with unmatched, dedicated network capacity for data services that will enable us to deliver true, mobile broadband services in ways never before possible.”

Wolff said Clearwire’s service would provide average download speeds initially of 2-4Mbps, and peak rates that are “considerably faster”.

Sprint’s two most senior WiMAX leaders have also joined Clearwire’s management team. Barry West, who served as Sprint’s chief technology officer and Xohm business unit leader, is now president and chief architect of Clearwire, and Atish Gude, formerly senior vice president of Sprint’s Xohm operations, is now senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Clearwire.