Intel tells Clearwire to start building and stop begging

INTEL EXEC Sean Maloney says his firm will not be stumping up more cash for its Wimax partner, Clearwire, any time soon, claiming the company has quite enough money to get to work with already.

"They've got enough money to keep going for quite a while," said Maloney, Chipzilla's chief sales and marketing officer, referring to the $1 billion Intel has already poured into Clearwire, to match a $1 billion investment from Comcast, $550 million from Time Warner, $500 million from Google and whole host of smaller investments which total $3.2 billion.

"They've got a pretty fat piece of capital to go out and build the network," noted Maloney, dismissing Clearwire's protests that it's having a tough time building its promised nationwide Wimax network because of the economic climate.

Ben Wolff, Clearwire's Chief Exec, recently called for an additional $2 billion in capital investments, claiming it was essential if the company were to attain its network objectives. But Intel and Google just aren't buying it.

Both firms have had to write down hefty charges for their Clearwire investment troubles and, to make matters worse, Clearwire's share price has evaporated to almost 50 per cent of what it was three months ago.

It's not that Maloney doesn't have any sympathy. "Obviously, the economic environment globally is tough for anyone building out new stuff," he said, but he added, "The current build-out rate for Clearwire is pretty fast."

Despite its seeming nonchalance, Intel must be slightly concerned by Clearwire's plea for more cash. After all, Chipzilla has rather a lot riding on Wimax. And, with the rival threat of LTE looming large on the horizon, Maloney felt the need to justify his firm's advantage.

"WiMax is real. It is here today with deployments, spectrum and uses," he said, adding "LTE will require a complete overhaul."

Clearwire, which hogs oodles of valuable spectrum, is the biggest Wimax provider in the States, and has already launched a trial mobile version of its network in Portland, Oregon in January.

Intel, however, seems well and truly fed up of having a begging bowl thrust in its face all the time and already appears to be setting its sights further afield. "We're very aware that 80 per cent of the technology market is overseas," Maloney said.

In other words, Clearwire had better watch its back, or Intel may just go elsewhere with its cash next time. µ