Clearwire Still Pursuing Spectrum Sale

Clearwire Corp still hopes to raise as much as $2 billion in new financing by selling excess wireless spectrum, according to its Erik Prusch, Clearwire CFO. That option would in many ways be less messy than possibly having T-Mobile USA join the ownership group.

Clearwire Corp. originally though it could raise as much as $2.5 billion $5 billion, so the current talk of "perhaps $2 billion" might suggest a bit less interest than earlier had been thought.

AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel Corp. have been rumored to have some interest.

Clearwire earlier was said to be offering spectrum up to 40 Mhz of bandwidth per market. While an argument can be made for bids from any number of potential companies, T-Mobile USA is in some ways the most-motivated. It badly needs spectrum to support its own 4G efforts, has considered leasing capacity from LightSquared, and even if money were no object, would find daunting any other spectrum to buy in the near term, even though at some point other former TV broadcast spectrum should be made available for auction as well.

Time Warner Cable, for its part, could emerge from the process as the only U.S. cable company with its own, fully-owned national wireless footprint, were it to win the auction.

Sprint Nextel, if it actually is bidding, could be signaling it wants to distance itself from the Clearwire relationship, at least in part. Owning its own 4G spectrum would allow Sprint to better control both of its costs, its timetable for upgrades and deployments, as well as its ability to package services. Full control of its own spectrum would allow Sprint to move immediately to build a 4G network using the Long Term Evolution air interface, a move that will at some point allow Sprint Nextel to leverage production volume of LTE handsets and devices.

Verizon and AT&T historically have emerged from most spectrum auctions as key winners, and as the leaders in the U.S. market, arguably have the greatest strategic interest in protecting their lead, at least in part by locking up spectrum that could be used by a competitor. All of that suggests the chances of T-Mobile USA succeeding later, if it does not try to get the Clearwire spectrum, might not be so great.

Also, as the providers with the biggest customer bases, both Verizon and AT&T have the greatest need for more spectrum, and should already be considered front-runners for winning the re-purposed TV spectrum.

Clearwire eyes selling up to $2 billion spectrum | Reuters