Clearwire: Almost home

“When you add in Sprint’s recently launched Baltimore market along with all of the additional mobile WiMAX POPs that Sprint and Clearwire have in various stages of design and development, the combined company has markets in development covering 100 million people,” Wolff said.

To build that footprint, though, Clearwire needs funding and is counting on the $3.2-billion infusion from Google, Intel and cable operators once the deal closes. In fact, the preliminary design and engineering has been burning Clearwire’s limited cash, leading the company to scale back on marketing and new-customer acquisition in the last few quarters to save money. Clearwire added only 8300 customers in the third quarter and reported a remarkably high churn rate of 3%. Clearwire expects that transition to continue in the fourth quarter but for marketing spend to pick up in the first quarter of 2009 as the new Clearwire begins to promote the WiMAX service.

Exactly how that new service will be promoted is another point of uncertainty. While Sprint initially indicated the new company would market services under the Xohm brand created by Sprint, Clearwire hinted today that may not be the case. When Portland goes live in 2009, it will be accompanied by a new branding campaign.