It's a bad time to be Sprint. The wireless carrier has been taking a beating on the stock market over the indigestion caused from swallowing Nextel, possibly threatening its deployment of WiMax networks. Despite predictions calling for WiMax to be more popular than WiFi by 2010 (are you listening, Philadelphia?), Sprint max consider partnering more closely with Clearwire, a major WiMax deployment.
Satellite providers have already beat Sprint to the punch. Both DirecTV and EchoSTAR (purveyors of DISH Network) are tapping Clearwire to beef up their broadband offerings. I'd imagine it's because they want to free up spectrum for more HD channels (not to mention the latency on their satellite-based Internet service is near unbearable). With how rapidly wireless networks are evolving, it seems that municipalities on board the SS WiFi are wishing they had life jackets about now.
(See full articles here, here and here.)
