Mobile Broadband – Google NewsClearwire Sinks Further
Clearwire Sinks Further
Well it looks like Clearwire’s financial problems are beginning to take front and center stage again. Clearwire has now announced that it plans to miss a $237,000,000 loan payment that is due in December. The reason for this they say is that they want to conserve cash by putting off the payment till the end of their 30 day grace period, which would be January 1, 2012.
This may be bad news for Clearwire, but more to the point is how nervous it will make Sprint. The reason for this is that Sprint is one of Clearwire’s major investors and in 2008 they turned over large block of spectrum to Clearwire for their 4G build out, which Sprint would share in. Without this large block of spectrum Sprint will have a very hard time dumping WiMax and transferring to 4G LTE on its own.
The reason this should make Sprint nervous is that the block the spectrum they signed over is now part of Clearwire’s assets and if Clearwire should declare bankruptcy that spectrum could go up for auction and the lost to Sprint for good. That would not be a good day for Sprint.
Now if I was a betting man I would say that this announcement is as much a ploy to get Sprint to ante up more money to keep Clearwire going as it is to achieve the stated purpose of conserving cash. Any way you look at it though it does not make Clearwire or Sprint look any better in the eyes of the marketplace, which will make acquiring any future cash infusions even more difficult to come by.
Stay tuned I’m sure this will become more and more interesting as time goes by.
