We mentioned earlier in the month that Illinois service provider iPCS was going to court to attempt to prevent Sprint from offering their XOHM service in their market since Clearwire is involved in the new network. iPCS has exclusive rights to provide Sprint service in the 81 markets in which they operate, and contend that Sprint providing service on other networks or in conjunction with other providers goes against their contract.

Back when Sprint acquired Nextel, iPCS was successful in keeping them from operating the Nextel network in their markets. Sprint has been fighting like crazy ever since to get that overturned, but the Illinois state Supreme Court has upheld the ruling - Sprint still can't operate Nextel in that area.

This latest court ruling (and by the way, they've announced that they are STILL going to continue the appeals... good luck with that) indicates - to me - that the odds of iPCS being able to block Sprint from using Clearwire in their markets is VERY strong. This, of course, means that customers in that area would NOT be able to subscribe to WiMAX, unless iPCS was able to offer the service themselves.


Sprint will absolutely continue to fight this in every court they can get to accept their case, but a contract is a contract. It's unfortunate that they included an airtight exclusivity section in the contract, but now they must honor it. They COULD buy themselves out of the contract - but it would cost them an estimated $1 billion.

If you're an iPCS subscriber with thoughts on this, please share with us at the 4G Forums!