Clearwire, a troubled wireless company, will be getting some help from Sprint Nextel, the country’s third-largest cellphone carrier. The companies said Thursday that Sprint would pledge as much as $1.6 billion over the next four years so Clearwire can expand its network.
The partnership will enable Clearwire to upgrade its network to a faster, next-generation standard called Long Term Evolution. In exchange, Sprint will have access to Clearwire’s networks to sell services to its own customers.
Sprint has been Clearwire’s largest investor, and already resells Clearwire’s network service as Sprint service in 71 markets across the United States.
“Today’s announcement further cements the mutually beneficial relationship between our two companies,” Erik Prusch, president and chief executive of Clearwire, said in a statement.
Clearwire has primarily offered cellphone service through a network technology called WiMax, which promises to deliver Internet speeds as fast as the broadband connections used to surf the Web on computers. The company has faced scrutiny in the last year as customers filed a lawsuit alleging that Clearwire was deliberately slowing down its service to increase its profits. Clearwire later admitted it “throttled” its network, but said it was only to relieve congestion.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=13309715dbca40373fcda2eceba27a37
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