Time ticking, cash burning

9 November 2009 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

The US carrier s customers are melting away. Yet it has scrimped on capex to double down on wireless broadband. Putting another $1bn into cashburning group Clearwire, while a rival technology is catching up, amounts to a binary bet for shareholders.

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Sprint is close to injecting another $1bn into Clearwire according to report in the Wall Street Journal. The US operator already owns 51% of the mobile broadband company. Clearwire's other partners which include Bright House Networks, Comcast, Intel and Time Warner Cable would add a combined $500m.

Clearwire is spending heavily to roll out its WiMax technology. It expects to burn up to $1.9bn this year and cover of 30m potential customers. Clearwire had 511,000 customers at the end of the second quarter.

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