First, Clearwire's founder and Chairman Craig McGraw resigned in February. Now CEO Bill Marrow has resigned and the rest of the C-Suite has been re-shuffled. (see story here). Clearwire is in negotiations with Sprint and out looking for capital before it runs out of cash.Lightsquared is also in talks with Sprint about a partnership on Lightsquares 4G network build. MetroPCS thinks that Lightsquared would make a good partner too.
Leap Wireless is about to undergo a board shake up. Why? Too many missteps. Leap Wireless is a great takeover target for CenturyLink.
Sprint is in talks with DT to merge with T-Mobile USA. The problems are the valuation of T-Mobile; the fact that DT has over $28B into T-Mobile USA; and how much ownership DT will have in the combined company. (FYI, Vodafone owns 45% of VZW). Other issues are capital to build out the 4G network; integration (something that Sprint is horrible at); no iPhone; Clearwire in the mix; and Lightsquared at the edge.
The problem in cellular that is mainly a 2 horse race: Ma and Pa Bell. Everyone else is so far away as to be in a different race. Of course, Ma and Pa Bell are the only ones with a wireline division that helped fund and power the cellular company.
There are spectrum issues; radio and signalling caompatibility; and most importantly the integration issues. Interesting to watch.
