Clearwire and Sprint Nextel announced today that the two companies will collaborate to create a new telecommunications company with assets starting at $14.55 billion. The venture is to be called Clearwire and will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House Networks.

Sprint Nextel will control 51% of shares in the new company. Existing Clearwire shareholders will control 27% of shares. Contributors to the $3.2 billion investment will receive the remaining shares.

“The agreement enables us to get to market faster and reach a broader audience than we could have if we went alone,” Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel’s chief executive officer, told analysts during a conference call Wednesday.

Clearwire will focus on building a mobile network based on WiMax technology. WiMax has faster download speeds and better indoors coverage than most current service provider’s technology. Some also see WiMax as a competitor to fixed-line broadband.

Clearwire currently uses WiMax to provide wireless Internet service in some parts of the United States. In 2007, Clearwire had a subscriber base of nearly 400,000 broadband customers. The restructured company has the goal to develop a network that has the potential to reach 120 million to 140 million people by the end of 2010.

Service providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless aren’t planning to use WiMax technology, Instead, there are upgrading current networks and working on future technology called Long Term Evolution.

NextWave Wireless is planning to sell its holdings of U.S. airwaves. It is estimated that the licenses held by NextWave are worth billions of dollars. The money raised from the sales will be used by NextWave to pay off debt and invest in the company’s products. NextWave makes telecommunications equipment. Among other things, it makes chips for WiMax, a next-generation wireless standard being deployed by Sprint-Nextel.

NextWave announced late yesterday that it hired Deutsche Bank and UBS to help the company sell its spectrum holdings, which cover 85% of the U.S. population. Coverage includes major markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. It is speculated that a company may try to buy most of the holdings to create a new national mobile provider in the United States.

It isn’t clear what the value of Next Wave’s holdings is worth. If the sale goes as well as the recent FCC auction of the 700 megahertz spectrum, the licenses could be worth $6 billion. But NextWave isn’t likely to get that much for its holdings. The radio characteristics of its spectrum make it more expensive to put to use.

According to NextWave’s chief financial officer George Alex, the company paid about $500 million for the airwaves. NextWave shares rose $1.25, or 26%, to $6 in midday trading today.

“The 700 megahertz auction was exceptional in the prices that they achieved,” Alex said. “We’ve had a lot of inbound inquiry … A lot of people were unfulfilled in their needs by 700. They’d amassed the business plans and the money they needed to participate in that auction, so now they’re looking for other alternatives.”

E-mail on the go is no longer limited to those who shell out for a Blackberry, Treo, or Windows Mobile device. Canadian company OnceanLake Commerce, just debuted memo, a mobile e-mail service compatible with any Web-enabled handset that can receive text messages.

Set up the service to watch your e-mail, and it will send a text message to your phone with a link to a an inbox Web page. Meemo costs $6.99 per month, and works with Alltel, AT&T (formerly Cingular), Sprint/Nextel, Verizon Wireless, though some other wireless networks will also work. While memo hypes the service as being a cost-effective solution compared to e-mail capable devices like the Blackberry, you are best to add in the cost of a data and text plan or you’ll be spending 10 cents for each spam message that reaches your inbox.

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