Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
This week, Sprint Nextel finally quit playing aloof and put in an offer to pick up the remaining stake in Clearwire that it did not already control. The offer, which totaled approximately $2.1 billion, would place the remaining minority interest in Clearwire that Sprint Nextel does not already control firmly in control of the nation’s No. 3 operator.
For those not familiar with the shared history of these two, Clearwire’s current existence is based significantly on Sprint Nextel, which several years ago “donated” a vast warehouse of 2.5 GHz spectrum it picked up through a controversial acquisition of Nextel to Clearwire, which to that point had been a regional fixed wireless broadband provider. Along with that donation, Sprint Nextel and Clearwire also managed to convince a handful of big names (Google, Intel, Comcast) to throw in billions of dollars to help form the new Clearwire and fund the build out of a WiMAX network.
(It should also be noted that the forming of this new Clearwire meant the end of Sprint Nextel’s own WiMAX efforts under the awesomely named Xohm brand. Xohm!)
As we now know, this plan was doomed from the start. Sure, there was a lot of money involved and the promise of high-speed mobile broadband services was truly ahead of its time, but that promise of early-time-to-market leadership quickly vanished. Also vanishing was support from most of those initial investors, which seemed to trip over themselves to somehow extract their names from the venture.
All except Sprint Nextel, which had become reliant on Clearwire’s far-from-far-reaching WiMAX network to power its boldly branded “4G” service offering that was quickly garnering smartphone users. Sure, Clearwire managed to sign up a handful of start-ups looking to offer mobile broadband services, but the scale – and more importantly, funds – needed to continue supporting the WiMAX build quickly dried up.
Even Sprint Nextel started playing hard ball with Clearwire, threatening to stop funding the partner and announcing its own LTE plans that seemed to undermine Clearwire’s whole existence. Clearwire seemed to take the change in fortune hard, threatening to find funding from other sources, even going so far as to say it would be willing to sell off some of its “excess” spectrum holdings that were “donated” from Sprint Nextel as well as the whole basis for its claim to having spectrum depth unmatched in an industry that someday would be defined by spectrum depth.
Compelling stuff. Sure, there was no overweight child or deranged chef involved, but when it came to wireless this was good stuff. And now, like a can’t-miss cable television series you hope will never end, but know will, this drama could all be coming to a close.
All I can hope for is that Clearwire makes the right decision and says no to this offer. Not because it’s not a good offer (heck, offer me $2.1 billion and see what I will do), but because it would put to end what has become one of the most compelling (sad) soap operas (reality shows) going in the wireless space.
Who among us has not nearly come to tears at times witnessing Clearwire seeming to cry out for someone, anyone to throw it a bone? It was like a new cliffhanger every week. I can’t tell you how much popcorn and Kleenex I went through listening to Clearwire’s quarterly financial conference calls trying to decipher the true meaning of what was going on like watching “Twin Peaks” or anything else connected with David Lynch.
The thought of losing that sense of drama and suspense is disappointing; more so as it comes ahead of the holiday season. What about the children? How are we to explain the loss of this to them?
(Also, who do I build ramps for now?)
Come on Clearwire, don’t let this be the end to a wonderful train wreck we all can’t turn away from. I know you still have more dramatic twists and turns in you for at least one more season, if not two? Don’t let it end this way.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Speaking of wireless soap operas, Dish Networks finally received approval this week to use 30 megahertz of spectrum in the 2 GHz band to launch a terrestrial-based wireless service. Sure, Dish wanted to have access to all 40 megahertz it initially thought it should rightly have access to, but hey, 30 megahertz is still a significant chunk of wireless spectrum.
Unless of course you are trying to then flip that wireless spectrum, at which point that extra 10 megahertz can mean billions of dollars. Not that Dish would have gone through all the trouble to gain FCC approval to use spectrum initially set aside for satellite services to then turn around and just sell it to the highest bidder. That would be crazy. Heck, Dish’s own CEO came out recently touting the company’s plans to become a disrupter in the mobile space with innovative service offerings that will free consumers from the tyranny of the establishment.
No, unlike others that have spent billions of dollars on wireless spectrum and threatened to invade the mobile space with innovation (Comcast, Cox, NextWave, LightSquared) I just know Dish is in it to win it. I mean, what’s that saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, … .
–Wait, all this hype around wireless charging, and it’s really not wireless? Why I never … .
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