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Sprint not ditching WiMAX yet, still open to Clearwire alliance


While we already knew that Sprint was pondering a Clearwire alliance in order to potentially please investors and garner more value from its massive WiMAX expenditures, it doesn't seem that ditching the effort completely was ever truly on the table. According to a followup from Don Stroberg, VP for global broadband strategy at Sprint-Nextel, the company "is not getting out of the business of WiMAX by any means," but he did leave the possibility of a joint venture open for discussion. Referring to Clearwire's markets that "bump up against" Sprint's own, Don stated that "it would make sense to cooperate on how to utilize spectrum, how to coordinate on cell-site builds, on benchmarking, and so on," and concluded by proclaimed that "we wouldn't have to imagine too far to see how those things could work into other types of cooperation." Take it as you see it, but it doesn't sound like the higher-ups at Sprint would object to a partnership at this point in the game, no?