Disruptive Telephony

On tomorrow's Squawk Box podcast, the other topic we'll cover is the funding of WiMAX venture Clearwire by the major US cable companies - and Google and Intel! Om Malik again kicked off the discussion with "U.S. WiMAX Save by $3.2 Billion Infusion" which lays out the deal in simple terms. Other coverage:

• Google provides a statement on its blog: "Investing in the future of the open Internet" (TechCrunch has commentary)
• Wall Street Journal
• AP: "Clearwire, Sprint Nextel to form $14.55B wireless company"
• Brough Turner thinks this is great for competition and US mobile Internet
• Larry Dignan at ZDNet says these folks are determined to make WiMax a reality
• Paul Kapustka lays out who are the winners and losers
• Clint Boulton at Google Watch ponders how this could drive Android along
• The Washington Post wonders about how this impacts net neutrality
• PC Magazine believes this deal hides even more delays for WiMAX

What do you think? Is this the cable companies attempt to get into the wireless world with a competitor to the telcos move toward LTE? Can they do it? What about Google's role? Will this succeed?

Please join us on tomorrow's Squawk Box[1] (May 8, 2008) at 11am US Eastern time to discuss/debate the matter. (Or, if you can't join us, feel free to leave a comment here.)

[1] Note that to join a Squawk Box call, you do need to have a Facebook account and install Iotum's FREE Conference Calls Facebook application.

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