Clearwire hints at LTE build with Sprint

During Clearwire’s (NASDAQ:CLWR) Q1 earnings call Wednesday, interim CEO John Stanton said Clearwire is in discussions with primary shareholder Sprint (NYSE:S) about hanging Clearwire’s future mobile broadband networks off of Sprint’s new technology-agnostic radio architecture. But Stanton said nothing about whether those potential networks would be WiMAX.

Clearwire executives focused primarily on the extraordinary growth Clearwire experienced in the first quarter, adding 1.8 million new subscribers, all but 155,000 of which came from its wholesale customers like Sprint. But Stanton spent a good deal of time talking about Clearwire’s possible future strategic options, particularly its relationships with Sprint and its wholesale partners.
“We’re now in discussions with Sprint regarding their network modernization,” Stanton said. “We believe we have the spectrum in urban areas they need to fulfill their promises to their customers and differentiate them from their competitors.”

Sprint’s new Network Vision program will replace all of its CDMA 1X base stations with next-generation Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and Samsung infrastructure capable of hosting any technology: CDMA, WiMAX or long-term evolution (LTE) (CP: Sprint lays out vague path to LTE with $5B network modernization). Sprint has been purposely unspecific about its mobile broadband evolution plans, but it has pointed out that with the new network it could transition to LTE relatively easily, either using its own spectrum or another operator’s through network sharing agreements. It has also left the option open to hosting Clearwire’s WiMAX network on the new architecture and has even required its two vendors without an WiMAX product line to license Samsung’s mobile WiMAX baseband technology (CP: ALU, Ericsson licensing Samsung WiMAX tech for Sprint network upgrade).

But on Wednesday Stanton said that Clearwire would deploy whatever network technology Sprint and its other wholesale partners required if it were to enter into a network sharing agreement with its majority owner.

“We’ve already implemented a 4G network,” Stanton said. “We’ve started at the head of the pack with a WiMAX network, and I think we’re comfortable with that. We need to continue to evolve our network technologically as well as geographically. We’re going to do that in response to the needs and desires of our customers. We’re going to listen very closely to our customers, particularly our wholesale customers, in making that transition. Sprint is obviously our largest wholesale customer as well as our largest shareholder, and we’ll continue to work very closely with them as they go through their processes.”

When pressed by analysts as to whether that means Clearwire would convert to LTE to support Sprint’s future 4G plans, Stanton said Sprint would have to reveal its own strategy, which it’s expected to do this summer.

More: Laying the groundwork for next-generation network