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AT&T this week filed a petition with the FCC, asking it to block the planned merger of Sprint's nationwide WiMax assets with those of Clearwire.

"The 17-page AT&T filing claims that Sprint and Clearwire have sought to avoid the FCC review process by minimizing the full extent of their current spectrum holdings and 'have omitted any information relevant to the traditional public interest analysis applied by the FCC,'" writes Computerworld's Matt Hamblen. "AT&T argued that the Sprint-Clearwire application was 'fatally defective' and should be dismissed."

"It's clear that AT&T is nervous about the new Clearwire's plans," writes CNET News' Marguerite Reardon. "AT&T is currently still deploying 3G technology throughout its territory and is busy upgrading its existing network. But it is years away from taking the next big leap toward building a 4G network, which will use a competing technology known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE. By contrast, wimax technology is available and working today."

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