Clearwire raises $715.5 million toward LTE buildout

Clearwire's gone from down-and-out to top-of-the-world. Its big plan to sell common stocks to raise funds to deploy super-fast 4G LTE technology on top of its 4G WiMax network brought in $384.1 million, it announced yesterday, which additionally activated Sprint's promise to contribute to a successful Clearwire equity offering (CP: Clearwire and Sprint announce agreement worth potentially $1.6 billion).

In total, Clearwire's net new capital, as of yesterday's closing, was $715.5 million. Success!

"This equity raise is a critical step for Clearwire to achieve its long-term business plan of creating the first wide-channel TDD-LTE (time-division duplex) 4G network in the U.S.," Erik Prusch, president and CEO of Clearwire said in a statement.

"The added resources will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

Sprint will of course be one of those wholesale customers. On Dec. 1 the pair announced a deal in which Sprint will pay Clearwire up to $350 million in a series of payments over a period of up to two years — if Clearwire can achieve its LTE built-out targets and specifications by June 2013, which the new cash should certainly help it to do.

Overall, the deal gives Sprint peace of mind that it can offer 4G service to subscribers, particularly its rather pricey new iPhone users (CP: Sprint defends iPhone decision, will need up to $7 billion in financing help) and, if Clearwire can run like a well-oiled machine, potentially put a grand total of $1.5 billion into its coffers over the next four years (CP: Clearwire and Sprint announce agreement worth potentially $1.6 billion).

Still, Clearwire may wind up shopping for a few additional customers. According to Cnet, part of Verizon's deal with cable companies Time Warner and Comcast is that the cable boys will stop reselling Clearwire's wireless service.

"Both companies will slowly wind down their Clearwire business over the next six months," Roger Cheng reported Dec. 2, "and plan to move their existing customers to other options."