Wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, the chairman of Clearwire, has decided to resign from his position effective December 31, the company said in a regulatory filing late Thursday.
Clearwire, the first U.S. operator to offer “4G” services, launched WiMAX in Sept, 2008, in Baltimore. The company currently offers WiMAX broadband wireless services in 68 markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Philadelphia.
The company said McCaw’s decision to resign is not due to any disagreements with the company on any matters relating to the its operations, policies, or practices.
In November, Clearwire cut 15 percent of its staff amid financing challenges. Earlier this month it completed a $1.33 billion debt offering and said it will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes including capital spending.
It had 2.8 million subscribers by the end of September and predicts it will have 4 million by the end of the year, twice as many as initially expected, says Business Week.
Clearwire is majority-owned by Sprint Nextel. It is backed by Intel, Comcast, Google and others who pumped $3.2 billion into the company in 2008, to create the nation-wide 4G wireless network.
McCaw was nominated to the position by Eagle River Holdings, one of Clearwire’s biggest shareholders. Eagle River has the right to nominate a director to replace McCaw and intends to choose Ben Wolff, according to the filing. Wolff, who was a co- chairman of Clearwire until early 2009, is chief executive officer of ICO Global Communications Holdings Ltd.
The company is facing new competition from Verizon’s LTE service on the 700 MHz band, along with AT&T which will begin 700 MHz LTE operations in the second half of 2011 and T-Mobile which is using an enhanced HSPA+ technology they say delivers equivalent speeds.
Craig McCaw made his fortune with cellular telephony. He was the first to stich together a disparate group of mom and pop cellular operators to create the first nationwide network – Cellular One, which he
sold to AT&T for in 1994 for $11.5 billion.
In 2003-2004, Craig McCaw stitched together a nationwide 2.6 GHz network right under the eyes of AT&T and other telecommunications giants.
Clearwire may be cash poor, but it is spectrum rich, owning some 120 MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum in major cities throughout the United States.T-Mobile paid $4.2 billion for 20 Mhz of nationwide AWS spectrum (1700/2100 MHz) in 2006.
Clearwire is conducting LTE tests this winter and throughout early 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona (see DW: Clearwire to Test LTE ). During the trials, Clearwire will collaborate with Beceem, and other partners, to determine the best methods for enabling end-user devices to take advantage of a potential multi-mode WiMAX/LTE network.
Craig McCaw’s satellite venture ICO, in the 2 GHz band, launched ICO G1 in April 2008, the largest commercial satellite ever launched at the time. But ICO’s business plan of providing multimedia to vehicles never panned out, and now the company is in the process of emerging from bankruptcy as DBSD Satellite Services.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Clearwire to Test LTE, Qualcomm Sells MediaFLO Spectrum for $1.93B, MSS: Stuck in Space, Technical Knockout for 4G?, End Near for Indian WiMAX?, Yota Dumps WiMAXThe 700 Mhz Club , TerreStar Genus: Can Anyone Hear Me?, Clearwire + T-Mobile?, Clear Puck: Hat Trick?, Phoney Spectrum Scarcity, US Wireless Business: Good Margins, Clearwire to Test LTE, Cheat Sheet for Cellco Financials, Clearwire’s $900M Payday, Mobile WiMAX: The Attack Plan, Mobile WiMAX: It Begins, XOHM: Live in Baltimore, ClearWire Launches Pre-WiMax, Clearwire’s Launch Party in Portland , Intel Inside Clearwire , BellSouth Expands WiMAX, VeriLAN’s Portland City Cloud, First Commercial 802.16a Switched On
