Dow Jones Newswires reports that Clearwire is considering delaying the rollout of its Time Division Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) network, although it remains confident that it can meet its self-imposed June 2013 phase one deployment deadline. The company seeks to overlay TD-LTE infrastructure at 5,000 of its existing WiMAX sites in densely populated urban areas by that date.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Clearwire noted: ‘Our agreements with Sprint also provide flexibility to modify the pace of our LTE deployment and remain eligible for the full amount of LTE prepayments from Sprint. As such, in order to better align our capital expenditure with the receipt of expected LTE revenues, we are currently evaluating our plans and may elect to delay a portion of our deployment schedule accordingly’.
In other news, another major Clearwire investor is preparing to exit the company. Cableco Comcast has converted its holding in the company into commonly traded shares, although it has yet to officially confirm or deny whether it intends to sell the 6% stake. A number of other investors, including Time Warner Cable and Google Inc, have already offloaded their stakes in Clearwire, making significant losses in the process.