What will Wall Street's reaction be to a standalone fixed-wireless broadband company? Clearwire, founded by cellular mogul Craig McCaw, has filed for a $400-million IPO of common stock. The second largest holder of 2.5 GHz spectrum behind Sprint Nextel, Clearwire three years ago embarked on a low-key rollout of its proprietary WiMAX-like technology. It now has networks in 27 markets. It needs to go public to expand the network further and acquire more spectrum.
Five years ago national fixed wireless broadband service providers Winstar and Teligent went bankrupt after their high-flying IPOs. What's different now? Teligent and Winstar really didn't have a disciplined plan about how to target the market. They just cashed in on the dot-com boom. But Clearwire will face some of the same issues, namely competing with the likes of cable companies, VoIP providers, DSL services and others in the long run. And the company is far from turning a profit. It supports about 20,000 customers in the U.S.
To read more about Clearwire's IPO filing:
- check out this article from Red Herring