The new Clearwire WiMAX operation in the US will have 30 million subscribers and generate US$17.5 billion in revenue by 2017, the company said yesterday. It also projects an average monthly per-user revenue of US$60 to US$65. The forecasts were revealed in a Webcast to investors as it outlined its plans ahead of launch to both consumers and enterprises before the end of this year. In addition, Clearwire management was keen to talk up its spectrum advantage, claiming that rivals AT&T and Verizon are not able to match it for spectrum. “We believe the LTE operators will be hard-pressed to find the spectrum to build a nationwide broadband network,” said Clearwire CTO John Saw. Clearwire believes its nationwide chunk of 2.5GHz broadband spectrum will allow it to offer download speeds of up to 15MB/s.

Last month, Sprint Nextel and Clearwire announced details of the joint venture, reported to be valued at US$14.5 billion. The deal sees Sprint become the majority owner of the new company (51 percent), which will be called Clearwire. The new company has raised a total of US$3.2 billion in outside financing from several high-profile industry players; reports suggest cable provider Comcast has invested US$1.05 billion; US$1 billion has come from Intel; Time Warner Cable has invested US$550 million; Google has invested US$500 million; and smaller cable provider Bright House has contributed US$100 million. Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House will enter wholesale agreements with Clearwire to sell high-speed services using the venture’s network. The venture will be headed by Clearwire’s current CEO Benjamin Wolff, with Sprint’s current CTO Barry West as president.