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Clearwire: Best Buy Ready 4G Service

Kirkland, Wash. –

Clearwire

said it expects Best Buy to
launch its previously announced private-label 4G wireless-broadband service
early this year.

Last July, Clearwire

announced

that it would sell its 4G Mobile WiMAX service on a wholesale basis to Best Buy
and that the national chain planned sometime in 2011 to resell the service
under the

Best Buy Connect

brand. Last year, Best Buy also began reselling Sprint’s 3G wireless broadband
service under the Best Buy Connect brand.

Under the Best Buy Connect program,
the chain acts as an MVNO, billing consumers, providing customer support, and
selling mobile computing devices embedded with wireless modems at subsidized
prices with wireless activation.

At the time of last year’s
announcement, the Best Buy deal marked the first time that Clearwire agreed to
sell its service on a wholesale basis to a company outside of its short list of
strategic investors, which include Sprint Nextel and cable operators Comcast
and Time Warner Cable. Since then, Clearwire also struck a wholesale deal with
Beyond Wireless, which it also expects to begin reselling service early this
year.

Clearwire mentioned the expected
timing of the Best Buy launch in a prospectus filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) to exchange $729.25 million in debt for stock. The
debt-for-equity swap is part of Clearwire’s plan to reduce expenses and raise
cash to resume the expansion of its 4G network to new markets.

In the fourth quarter, the
company posted a net loss that rose to $128 million from the year-ago
$98.7 million. Late last year, the company launched
an aggressive round of cost reductions to conserve cash in case it’s unable to
raise enough money to continue expanding its 4G network.

Kirkland, Wash. –

Clearwire

said it expects Best Buy to
launch its previously announced private-label 4G wireless-broadband service
early this year.

Last July, Clearwire

announced

that it would sell its 4G Mobile WiMAX service on a wholesale basis to Best Buy
and that the national chain planned sometime in 2011 to resell the service
under the

Best Buy Connect

brand. Last year, Best Buy also began reselling Sprint’s 3G wireless broadband
service under the Best Buy Connect brand.

Under the Best Buy Connect program,
the chain acts as an MVNO, billing consumers, providing customer support, and
selling mobile computing devices embedded with wireless modems at subsidized
prices with wireless activation.

At the time of last year’s
announcement, the Best Buy deal marked the first time that Clearwire agreed to
sell its service on a wholesale basis to a company outside of its short list of
strategic investors, which include Sprint Nextel and cable operators Comcast
and Time Warner Cable. Since then, Clearwire also struck a wholesale deal with
Beyond Wireless, which it also expects to begin reselling service early this
year.

Clearwire mentioned the expected
timing of the Best Buy launch in a prospectus filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) to exchange $729.25 million in debt for stock. The
debt-for-equity swap is part of Clearwire’s plan to reduce expenses and raise
cash to resume the expansion of its 4G network to new markets.

In the fourth quarter, the
company posted a net loss that rose to $128 million from the year-ago
$98.7 million. Late last year, the company launched
an aggressive round of cost reductions to conserve cash in case it’s unable to
raise enough money to continue expanding its 4G network.

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