Analysts: WiMax joint venture will be tough to manage

case of the new Clearwire company, was the failure earlier this year of the joint venture between Sprint and cable operators for a cell phone service called Sprint Pivot. After investing $100 million in Pivot, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications stopped marketing the service, first announced in 2005 as a way for cable companies to offer wireless services.

PrimeCo Communications, a joint wireless venture of Bell Atlantic and AirTouch Communications was launched to much fanfare in 19 U.S. cities in 1995, but parts were split off and sold by 1999.

Even Sprint's recent loss of Qwest subscribers to Verizon Wireless could be viewed as a failure of a joint venture, Gold said.

Philip Solis, an analyst at ABI Research in New York, said the new Clearwire venture "has a much better chance of success" than Pivot or the other failures if only because the cable companies and others are investing in a more promising technology --Wimax. "Sprint just needed the money and now has it," he said.