Craig McCaw's Clearwire may have backed off its initial public offering plans, but the company has received a vote of confidence from the funding world - securing a $900 investment commitment. Of the total, $600 million will come from Intel Corporation's capital arm. Motorola also is on the list of backers.
Intel's $600 million investment marks the largest single investment the company has made to date, according to Clearwire.
Motorola's portion of the remaining $300 million investment is not being disclosed by the companies. Motorola also announced plans to acquire Clearwire subsidiary NextNet Wireless, a supplier of fixed and portable non-line-of-site (NLOS) wireless broadband equipment.
The investment is designed to help accelerate the adoption of WiMAX technology. As part of the funding agreement, Motorola has signed on as a supplier of wireless broadband equipment for Clearwire's existing and future networks. Intel has agreed to work to enable the inclusion of WiMAX chipsets in next-generation mobile computing platforms, Clearwire says.
Clearwire first launched its pre-WiMAX service offering in 2004 to a limited audience. Since then, the company has ramped up its rollout efforts to include 27 markets. Clearwire owns spectrum in the 2.5GHz band in the United States and the 3.5GHz band in Europe. The company boosts download speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps and upload speeds up to 256 kbps.
Clearwire has been planning a $400 million IPO, but recently scrapped the idea.
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