Ho suggests that different business models will emerge around the idea of openness, along the lines of Verizon Wireless' recent announcement. Verizon last year said that it would open its network to more devices, but users of those devices wouldn't be eligible to receive the same kind of customer support from the operator as users of Verizon phones. The partners in the Clearwire venture could adopt a similar strategy for some devices and services, Ho said.

This deal has much more potential than a previous failed arrangement, called Pivot, with Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Sprint, for cellular service, Ho said. The cable operators involved found that they were only differentiating based on price, and that wasn't enough to draw customers, he said. The broadband capabilities of the WiMax network, however, will allow the partners to offer a wide variety of differentiated services, he said.

The deal puts Sprint and Clearwire's WiMax plans on firmer financial footing, but the biggest challenge now will be making the service a business success, said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua. The new Clearwire will have to bring pricing to bear against fast 3G options such as AT&T's HSPA (high-speed packet access) service. Clearwire currently charges nearly $40 per month for its service and will have to go lower to disrupt the market, Chua said.

However, even despite a delay in expectations for the rollout of the new network, Clearwire will beat some other cellular operators to the market, potentially by years. WiMax compares to LTE (Long Term Evolution), a fourth-generation technology that Verizon and AT&T plan to deploy. Those networks are unlikely to be realistically usable until 2011 or even later, Ho said.

In its announcement on Wednesday, Sprint said that its WiMax network will arrive later than expected for most people. Sprint's network is expected to reach 15 million U.S. residents by the end of this year, West said. By contrast, Sprint at one time said it would reach 100 million by that time. (The new Clearwire, expected to debut in the fourth quarter, will also include all of the current Clearwire's network.) Clearwire had around 400,000 customers at the end of 2007.

It's a good thing Sprint has Clearwire back on board after an earlier agreement to cooperate on a national network fell apart, Chua said. Clearwire has had a more pragmatic approach to WiMax, focusing on portable Internet access through PC Cards, USB dongles, and residential modems. Sprint has created overblown expectations, he said.

"They keep wanting to talk about WiMax chips in refrigerators, and that's not really what it's going to look like when it's deployed tomorrow," Chua said.

However, the combination with Clearwire might not change that way of thinking. West echoed Chua's sentiment. "You will see WiMax chips in just about everything that moves, and even that doesn't move," West said.