Why Cable And WiMax Shouldn’t Mix

Via Big Blue Ball:

WiMax is going nowhere fast but that is not stopping a consortium of cable and tech companies from considering a plan to invest $3 billion more into a proposed bailout-through-merger of Sprint Nextel’s WiMax business (known as Xohm) and Craig McCaw’s Clearwire. The consortium that is reportedly being put together would include Comcast ($1 billion), Intel ($1 billion), Time Warner Cable ($500 million), Bright House Networks and Google ($500 million).

This latest plan comes after Sprint Nextel’s disastrous $30 billion write-down last quarter of its Nextel acquisition, and is an attempt to salvage something out of that train wreck. It also comes after Intel recently balked at putting up $2 billion itself. Intel wants to sell WiMax chips and has already sunk $600 million into Clearwire. But even Intel has its limits.