Sprint Nextel and Clearwire have announced a deal that could give Clearwire up to $1.6 billion over the next four years in payments for WiMAX services, possible pre-pay

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire have announced a deal that could give Clearwire up to $1.6 billion over the next four years in payments for WiMAX services, possible pre-payments for LTE services and potential equity investments. 

Clearwire also announced that it has made interest payments totaling $237 million on its first-priority, second-priority and exchangeable notes which were due Dec. 1, 2011.

The agreements provide Sprint with unlimited access to Clearwire’s WiMAX network to meet its growing 4G data demands. Sprint will pay Clearwire a total of $926 million for unlimited WiMAX retail services during 2012 and 2013. Sprint will have access to Clearwire’s WiMAX network through at least 2015.

The agreements also lay the foundation for the deployment of Clearwire’s planned LTE Advanced-ready overlay network and outline the terms for Sprint to gain access to the additional LTE capacity. The TDD-LTE rollout will capitalize on Clearwire’s deep spectrum resources to deliver on 4G capacity needs over the long-term. Under the terms, Sprint will pay Clearwire up to $350 million in a series of prepayments over a period of up to two years for LTE capacity if Clearwire achieves certain build-out targets and network specifications by June 2013. The agreements also establish long-term usage-based pricing for LTE services for 2012 and beyond. The companies have agreed to collaborate on a network build plan and will jointly select LTE macro-cell sites to cover Sprint’s high usage area hotspots. 

In addition, Clearwire and Sprint will work collaboratively to support the ecosystem for TDD-LTE in Band Class 41 for devices, chipsets and standards. Subject to the timing of the build-out and other factors, Sprint expects to launch devices including laptop cards and phones that will utilize Clearwire’s TDD-LTE network in 2013.