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ATT - Apple Fight Over WiMaX

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 7 months ago

Sprint, Clearwire fight AT&T over joint venture WiMax licenses

Google and others support the push to provide nationwide WiMax service
by
Matt Hamblen
 

 Aug 6, 2008

 

 

 

(Computerworld) Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. fired back this week at AT&T Inc. over their request before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for radio spectrum licenses that the proposed joint venture can use to provide nationwide WiMax service.

 

Sprint and Clearwire said AT&T was trying to stifle the emergence of a viable wireless broadband competitor. "In an ironic maneuver, AT&T, the largest telecommunications company in the world, seeks to invoke inapplicable regulatory restraints that would stifle and delay the emergence of a new Clearwire," the companies said in a filing made Monday before the FCC.

 

AT&T objected to the request on July 24, partly on the grounds that Sprint and Clearwire were attempting to avoid the FCC review process by minimizing the full extent of their separate spectrum holdings, which they are seeking to transfer to the joint venture. Also, AT&T said the companies omitted information relevant to the FCC's traditional public interest analysis.

 

But Sprint and Clearwire said there are about 100 groups, including education and religious institutions, that have filed comments supporting the joint venture and recognizing the significance of the WiMax opportunity. "As the record demonstrates, the proposed transaction will create a new, vibrant broadband competitor and promote innovation," the companies said.

 

Furthermore, Sprint and Clearwire said that their supporters "celebrate the prospect of finally having [2.5-GHz] spectrum put to efficient use for not only the educational community but the public at large."

 

In addition to the groups cited by Sprint and Clearwire, Google Inc. -- an investor in the joint venture -- filed an opposition paper to AT&T's petition. The new Clearwire joint venture "will exert considerable marketplace pressure on other broadband providers to make openness a part of their standard business and engineering practices," Google said in its filing.

 

A group calling itself the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network Inc. also opposed AT&T's move and said AT&T's interest is to "thwart competition in its near duopoly in the broadband market."

 

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