Clearwire reports widening 2Q loss, will test new LTE network technology to supplant WiMax

Clearwire reports widening 2Q loss, will test LTE

KIRKLAND, Wash. — Clearwire Corp., a wireless data network company mostly owned by Sprint Nextel Corp., said Wednesday that its second-quarter loss grew as its costs expanded faster than its subscriber numbers.

The company also said it would be testing a widely used wireless technology known as LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, for its fourth-generation, or 4G data services.

Clearwire has so far bet on an older, more mature 4G technology called WiMax, but it has hinted it was interested in LTE.

If Clearwire switches to LTE, WiMax gadgets would be stranded, though the company might let WiMax and LTE overlap for a while. Sprint launched its first WiMax-capable phone, the HTC EVO 4G, this summer.

For the quarter that ended June 30, the Kirkland-based Clearwire reported a loss of $126 million, or 61 cents per share. A year earlier, its loss totaled $73 million, or 38 cents per share.

The latest results included a loss of 9 cents per share for inventory adjustments. Excluding that item, the loss would have been 52 cents per share, the company said, matching the average forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue rose 93 percent to $122.5 million from $63.6 million a year ago. Analysts expected $132 million in revenue.

Clearwire added a net 722,000 subscribers in the quarter, to end at 1.7 million. However, many of the new subscribers have Sprint devices like the EVO that can use both Sprint’s 3G and Clearwire’s 4G network, and live in areas where Clearwire has no coverage. The company receives only a “nominal” fee for them, it said.

Clearwire’s network covered 56 million people at the end of the quarter, it said. Its goal is to cover 120 million people by the end of the year.