Filed under: Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Technology, Israel

Investors learned last week that Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) and Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ: CLWR) were ending their agreement to create a nationwide, high-speed WiMAX network, citing the complexity it would have added to their businesses. Sprint said in a separate statement that it would review its WiMAX business plan and outlook in light of the announcement and plans to make further comments on the topic early next year.

BloggingStock’s Aaron Katsman seemed to blame some of this fallout on Sprint’s own internal issues, but deferred positing a true forecast on the future of WiMAX. Whether or not WiMAX overhauls telecommunications as we know it, there are two smallish firms already benefiting from the limited roll-out of WiMAX in emerging markets — both happen to be Israel-based.

Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR)’s strength comes in winning projects in emerging markets. Markets that the big-boys aren’t ready to play in. The company finished the 3rd quarter with 200 commercial deployments, up from about 170 at the end of their second quarter. Sprint’s decision not to move forward with their large WiMAX project doesn’t seem to have affected Alvarion’s ability to win new deals, though the stock has been pounded after a recent earnings report. Cisco recently purchased a WiMAX firm called Navini, and I wouldn’t seem surprised to see another large player buy Alvarion.

Continue reading Two Israeli WiMAX plays in wake of Sprint announcement

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.