US WiMAX operator Clearwire is to raise a further US$920 million in financing via a notes offering, bumping up its total financing in recent weeks to almost US$2.3 billion. The financing will be used to ramp up rollout of its fledgling mobile WiMAX network in the US. In a statement, Clearwire said that a subsidiary (Clearwire Escrow Corporation) has issued the 12 percent senior secured notes due 2015 at an issue price of 97.9 percent. This is in addition to the extra US$1.564 billion investment secured from most of its existing partners announced earlier this month. “With this latest tranche of additional funding, we have not only exceeded the amount of capital that we have previously stated we needed to fully fund our business plan, but we have also secured additional capital that will allow us to expand more aggressively by covering more people, and with more capacity than we had previously planned,” said Bill Morrow, CEO of Clearwire. The sale of the new notes is expected to be completed “on or about” 9 December subject to closing conditions.

According to a Reuters report, Clearwire has previously said that it needs US$2 billion to US$2.3 billion in new financing in order to go through with its plan to expand its WiMAX network to cover a population of 120 million people by the end of 2010. However, some analysts have estimated that it could require much more. Clearwire’s investors include its majority shareholder, Sprint Nextel, plus Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Eagle River, Bright House Networks and Google. However, Google did not take part in the extra round of financing earlier this month. Subscriber count in the company’s 13 mobile WiMAX markets in the US was approximately 173,000 at the end of September.