Illinois-based Sprint affliiate iPCS has caused a considerable amount of trouble for Sprint in the past when it came to mergers, but this week Sprint got the go-ahead from the courts to move forward with their Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX plans. iPCS, who provides Sprint services to over 600,000 customers in portions of Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Tennessee, went to court recently to try to block Sprint from being allowed to offer anything under the new Sprint/Clearwire company in iPCS's coverage region, citing exclusivity clauses. iPCS won a similar case in 2005 when Sprint took over Nextel, successfully blocking Sprint from being able to offer Nextel services in any iPCS-covered area (see map below), so there certainly is a precedent set that could have spelled similar trouble for the new Clearwire WiMAX services.
Fortunately for Sprint/Clearwire, on Monday an Illinois circuit court told iPCS that they must immediately withdraw their request for a restraining order, meaning Sprint/Clearwire can move forward with their WiMAX development plans. The court did provide an allowance for iPCS to re-file in the future, but for the time being Clearwire will be allowed to continue their development unfettered. It has been reported that they do not plan on rolling out any WiMAX service in any of the iPCS areas until July 1st of next year and they have agreed to notify iPCS of all of their plans 60 days before launching.
While it was reported that the soonest Clearwire will be launching WiMAX in iPCS territory will be July 1st, 2009, it was not made clear where exactly the service will become available first or which parts of the region will be covered.
