Friday, February 17, 2012

Clearwire Still Facing Uphill Battle

Bellevue-based Clearwire is still facing an uphill battle, as the wireless services firm looks to diversify its base beyond Sprint, and transition its network to LTE. In its latest financial reports, released Thursday, Clearwire said it is needs to "greatly expand" its revenue base by signing up more wholesale partners, with the implementation of LTE as a key part of that plan. Currently, Sprint is the firm's only customer, and Sprint recently said it, too, will be moving to the LTE standard, which has been adopted by all of the other major wireless operators in the United States. Clearwire said it's unclear how much revenue its LTE network will generate, and what revenue its WiMAX network will generate after 2013. The firm said it expects it will have to raise "substantial" additional capital to fund the business beyond the next 12 months. Clearwire has announced plans to start implementing LTE on top of its existing, WiMax network, and effort which is being funded by agreements with Sprint. Clearwire reported an operating loss of $2.3 billion on revenues of $1.25 billion for 2011.