Clearwire set for IPO?

Clearwire, a wireless broadband company that plans to blanket continents with WiMax, could start trading on the public market as soon as today.

Clearwire, which was founded by billionaire Craig McCaw and has backing from Intel and Motorola, filed for its IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2006. The company's underwriters, which include JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, were expected to price the company's shares on Wednesday night.

Trading should begin today under the ticker symbol "CLWR" on the Nasdaq. Clearwire plans to offer 20 million shares priced between $23 and $25 per share, for a high end total of about $480m.

Clearwire uses a version of WiMax. It claims to offer download speeds up to 1.5Mbps and upload speeds up to 256Kbps. Today the company offers a fixed wireless service that essentially competes with DSL and cable modem service. But eventually it hopes to allow people to use a mobile version of the technology so they can use WiMax on the go.

Last summer, the company received $900m in financing from Intel and Motorola. As part of the deal, the companies agreed to work with each other to popularise mobile WiMax. Clearwire also sold its NextNet Wireless equipment division to Motorola.

The companies agreed to co-operate on research, development and deployment of WiMax technology and services. Motorola will sell NextNet equipment to Clearwire, and Intel will concentrate on squeezing WiMax chips into future laptops. Clearwire also agreed to share with Intel a portion of its revenue from subscribers on its domestic mobile WiMax network who use mobile computing devices containing microprocessors based on Intel's mobile WiMax technology.

Marguerite Reardon writes for CNET News.com