Clearwire and Sprint today announced plans to combine Sprint's Xohm WiMax offering and Clearwire's WiMax network into a new $14.55 billion company, to be called - shockingly enough - Clearwire. Additional investors in the new company include Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

"For Sprint, which began testing WiMax earlier this year in three markets, the deal eliminates an operational distraction and allows management to return to salvaging its troubled wireless business," writes the AP's David Twiddy. "It also could quiet critics who consider WiMax experimental and expensive - one estimate had Sprint paying more than $5 billion to roll out the service. Clearwire already has 400,000 subscribers for its WiMax-like technology. It gets new capital, infrastructure and broadband spectrum out of the deal, plus further validation of its technology."

More here from the Washington Post ... more here from CNET News ... more here from InfoWorld ... more here from BusinessWeek ... more here from ZDNet ... more here from InformationWeek ... and the press release is here.