United Online, the parent company best known for creating and developing the NetZero family of online services has announced a new resale deal with Clearwire whereby the NetZero brand will be expanded to offer mobile WiMax service with two new modems and monthly service.
While more specific details such as pricing and availability have yet to be confirmed, the announcement of the wholesale deal marks the first wholesale deal after Sprint confirmed its plans to move away from Clearwire’s 4G WiMax services as a wholesale customer in favor of its own LTE network next year. The deal is set for five years beginning in 2012 and was enough to send Clearwire’s stock up 7 percent following the news ahead of its earnings call later today.
The new deal also follows months of trepidation and doubt surrounding Clearwire’s viability due to funding and network expansion issues as well as its plans to roll out LTE service in 2012 and LTE-Advanced in 2013 should the company be able to raise the $600 million necessary to build out the LTE-Advanced network while signing a technology development deal with Sprint also related to LTE deployment. Clearwire also recently made major changes to its Clear service, eliminating service agreements and 3G/4G hardware in favor of flat-rate monthly prepaid service at $50 a month.
