Well, what do you know? Sometimes even the most repetitive of rumors finally comes true. Barely 12 hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that a deal between Sprint, Clearwire (and just about everyone) else was dangerously close to going down, it seems as if the bottom lines have indeed been signed. Details are pretty light at the moment, but we definitively know that Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. will be merging their "next-generation wireless broadband businesses to form a new wireless communications company." Quite simply, the new WiMAX-pushing outfit will be called Clearwire, even though Sprint will hold around 51-percent of the firm, while existing Clearwire shareholders will own 27-percent and the new investors will hold 22-percent. New investors? Ah yes, Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will collectively invest $3.2 billion in the new company, but that figure is "based on a target price of $20 a share of Clearwire's common stock, and is subject to a post-closing adjustment."

[Via CNN]

We've definitely heard this one before, but the buzz around a proposed $12B WiMAX partnership between Sprint, Clearwire, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, and Google is deafening right now, all based on a report in the Wall Street Journal. The plan is for Sprint to merge its XOHM wireless broadband division with Clearwire, and then take a total of $3.2B in investments from a host of other players: $1.05B from Comcast, $1B from Intel, $550M from Time Warner Cable, $500M from Google, and $100M from Bright House. The resulting company will be worth some $12B, and the WSJ says investors have given their final approval for the deal -- a rumor we've already heard with no meaningful result, so take it with a grain of salt. Or a whole salt lick, actually. We're not certain why Big Cable is so eager to dump money on Sprint after two previous ventures both folded recently, but if this goes down, it's a pretty big boost for WiMAX, which was looking pretty sickly lately. Still, asking consumers to have faith in Sprint and Comcast and Time Warner Cable is pretty ballsy -- between the three of them, they've probably burned everyone in America. We'll see where this goes -- we should have something official pretty soon, according to the Journal.

Time Warner Cable, which just endeared itself to New Yorkers with a whole mess of HD channels, is finally getting a full break from parent company and all-around media conglomerate Time Warner. This has been speculated about for years, and a portion of TWC was spun off into Bright House Networks in 2003, but the clean break should give both companies a good shot at doing what they both do best: raking in obscene amounts of cash. There's no word on the timeline or method for the spin off just yet, only a promise to finalize an agreement "soon." [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

Hey, we hate lawsuits just as much as the next guy, but we're finding it hard to fault Verizon for this one. Verizon and Time Warner Cable arrived in court on Wednesday to settle a tiff over some ads that Verizon claims offer up misleading info about Verizon's FiOS service. Listed among the complaints include supposed false implications by TWC that FiOS requires a satellite dish, doesn't include phone, broadband and video, and that Time Warner's network is better. Time Warner Cable is naturally calling the lawsuit "without merit." Verizon wants TWC to stop running the ads and issue a retraction, as well as compensate them for lost revenue. We're not positive which ad Verizon is referring to, but if it's anything like the ad after the break -- which has some downright false implications about Time Warner Cable using fiber optics "for over a decade" -- then Verizon very well might have something here. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

Update: Reader Max sent us in a version of the ad in which it's actually implied that Verizon requires a satellite dish for its FiOS service. Seriously, you can't make this crap up -- well, apparently TWC can. Ad after the break.

As unlikely as this sounds, rivals Time Warner Cable and Comcast are apparently in talks with Sprint and Clearwire over establishing a nationwide WiMAX network. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the companies are scrambling to get a deal wrapped up by CTIA -- which takes place at the beginning of April -- and could see an influx of cash from both Google and Intel in excess of $1 billion. It seems the odd-couple partners are keen to cut into heavyweights Verizon and AT&T's ever-expanding range of at-home and mobile services by offering their own take on a high-speed data and voice system to consumers. Clearly this combination would deflate AT&T and Verizon's big FCC bandwidth-nabs a little (and it explains why the cable players weren't interested in the 700MHz auction), but it's questionable whether this rag-tag team of wild card players would seriously court the public's eye. They say America loves an underdog -- even if it's a gigantic, super-rich, corporate underdog.

[Via mocoNews]

You want to know -- nay, you deserve to know -- which service provides the most HD content. Engadget HD's got the answer, see how your HD provider stacks up.

While Time Warner Cable (partly owned by Time Warner, parent company of AOL, which owns Engadget) won't go down as the first cable company to modify the oh-so-lovable fast-forward feature, at least the latest hamstringing won't affect those willing to pay up. Dubbed "Look Back," the newfangled DVR feature will reportedly come "without a monthly fee," and will only allow customers to skip ahead and back in predetermined chunks of time; moreover, it will be limited to programs that are watched back before midnight of the day they air. The firm plans to test it out this October in South Carolina before "gradually introducing it around the country," and it was also noted that this -- along with the "Start Over" feature that functions exactly as it sounds -- would not require viewers to "remember to record programs," but alas, it also eliminates the ability to keep a library of stored content onboard. Ah well, so long as we diehard DVR users can keep on coughing up the dough required for a fully-functional FF button, we've no real qualms with this option joining the fray.

The seesaw match between DirecTV and Time Warner (parent company of AOL, which owns Engadget) over those blasted "superior HD" spots has reached another milestone, as a US appeals court has "upheld a lower court's decision that prohibits the satellite television operator from airing advertisements that claim superior service in markets where Time Warner Cable operates." Notably, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit did, however, "set aside part of the lower court's order, saying the way it had been worded could be construed to prohibit the unfavorable comparison of even Time Warner Cable's analog programming." Ah well, it's not like those ads were exceedingly enthralling to begin with, right?

Yeah, Sprint unveiled the UpStage today, but the other sorta big news is that they officially took the wraps off of Pivot, the new name for their new quad-play service bundling up wireless, voice, broadband, and cable TV as a single package (they've been offering service in a handful of markets for a while now, they're basically just rebranding everything). Sprint's partners in Pivot are a handful of different cable providers, including Comcast, Cox, and our arch-nemesis Time-Warner Cable (which is owned by our parent company's parent company -- not that it's done a damn thing for the totally awful cable TV and internet service we get at Engadget HQ). All the big telcos are pimping these triple-play and quad-play packages -- they see them as a way to lock-in subscribers by offering them lower prices than consumers would pay for each service separately -- but Sprint's big selling point is that they're also promising some intergration across services, like the ability to program your DVR box from your cellphone (which we've already seen from AT&T), check home email and voicemail from a single interface, and make unlimited calls between your home VoIP line and your mobile phone. Anyway, Pivot is currently available in eight cities now, with another 40 more set to launch this year. Pricing will vary by market.

Click on for a few more shots of the cellphone/DVR interface.

Remember how TiVo recently sent that letter to the FCC and cable operators telling them to be prepared for the Series 3 rollout, partly because of reports that some providers were refusing to hook up beta testers with the necessary CableCARDS? Well now it looks like the company's concerns may be completely legitimate, as a complaint on the website ConsumerFury contends that Time Warner Cable's Raleigh division responded to a recent customer inquiry on the matter by stating that "Time Warner Cable of Raleigh does not provide support for or allow TiVo devices on our cable network...CableCARDS will only be installed on cable-ready, CableCARD-slot-available television sets." Pretty harsh, especially considering the fact that Time Warner's policy may not even be legal: federal regulations concerning CableCARDS seem to indicate that providers must support them for any unidirectional TV, set-top-box, or recording device connected to a digital cable system. We certainly understand that cable companies see TiVo as a direct competitor to their own DVR offerings, but we're not sure that alienating customers with such a hard-line stance is the best move; after all, isn't a customer who brings his/her own DVR to the table better than no customer at all?

[Via TiVoBlog]