This comes a bit as a surprise. So far Ericsson and also Siemens have been low key on their WiMAX development plans due to their major customers' (verbal) commitment to LTE. This meant either not doing anything - Ericsson - or just focusing on WiMAX d, like Siemens. Reasoning was that they focus their investments on LTE development. If large operators such as Vodafone start taking WiMAX seriously (or have to when Sprint Nextel's deployment already achieves success in 2008) then time-to-market will be a driving force, and there WiMAX is clearly ahead of the game. Maybe Ericsson had better play it safe and do something too in WiMAX, one never knows if they might need it...

• There were two Google news of the week. First its investment into MySpace securing the search business and with that step also validating the business model of this social network site. The other news was its announcement to invest $1 bln in India. Already half a dozen tech companies have now announced (according to Shailaja Neelakantan) single investments of $1 bln or higher.
• WiMAX got its single biggest approval this week when Sprint Nextel announced that it would partner with Motorola, Samsung and of course Intel to invest up to $3bln into a US-wide WiMAX network. Also Nokia published a press release congratulating Sprint Nextel on this move. I assume it also fits well (even if they were not selected by Sprint Nextel) with Nokia's legal steps in the US and Europe against Qualcomm who -Nokia claims- uses its CDMA patents in an unfair way to keep away competition. Probably Nokia is saying: "If you guys don't act rational then we will also go to WiMAX and that will mean the end of 3G (and Qualcomm's CDMA cash cow) before it has even started to fully take off."
• How much people can get things wrong when they are desperately looking for a cover story could be seen with Business Week showing Digg's founder on the cover with the title: How this Kid Made $60 million in 18 months". The real story can be listened to in this podcast where Kevin Rose talks about how BW interviewed him. (guys I guess I am not extending my subscription which for sure will really hurt you since I might be one of the last Business Week subscribers left in Europe)
• David Hornik was in Europe (hey we missed you!) and wrote a blog comment about the terrible species in Europe called "Entrepreneur". Of course he was in the country where the word Entrepreneur originated (funnily) in France. Then David made it to Amsterdam too and that was his Europe trip. Wow, we like this view of "Europe" as it shows how much US VCs know about it and do to change that lack of know-how...
• The hottest rumour of the week says that Apple is working on a cell phone: "One person familiar with the ongoings believes the Apple cofounder has commissioned the release of cell phone prototypes to at least two potential OEM manufacturing partners in recent months. Current designs are said to conform to Apple's integrated model and leverage its tightly-knit digital media franchises, that person added."

Strike 2 for WiMAX (after Clearwire) when Sprint Nextel announced its complementary technology (to the existing EV-DO network) choice. It will be WiMAX that is going to be deployed using Sprint's 2.5GHz licensed spectrum in the US. When there are winners, there are also loosers: HSDPA, Flash-OFDM, and IPWireless technology were trialed as well but WiMAX made the race.

Needless to say that this is a big - breakthrough - win for WiMAX technology, since Sprint covers 85% of the US territories, to reach 100 million people from 2008 on. As the WSJ reports, a nationwide network could cost between $1bn and $4bn. Interesting also that Motorola was part of the announcement so we have probably already seen their technology partner (next to Samsung and Intel). Finally Sprint talked about becoming "a conduit for media, and only this kind of network— not the current roadmap for 3G cellular —can deliver the bandwidth."

Looks to me like mobile Internet may seen the light of the day finally since at least the lack of sufficient speed with 3G can be addressed by WiMAX. Three more things remain to be resolved though to make mobile Internet a mainstream application.

When tomorrow the US regulator FCC starts with the biggest auction in the US ever, German T-Mobile USA will be ready - with a bag full of money standing by - to obtain lots of licenses. As the FAZ writes today, they could spend up to 5 billion USD for licenses alone. Then another 5 billion USD might be needed to build up the infrastructure. In fact, T-Mobile being the smallest player in the US with 15 million subscribers (Cingular 28 million, Verizon 26, Sprint Nextel 25) and at the same time dependent on the growth in the US due to slow or declining business in Europe, they have to invest and are therefore under quite some pressure. The auction process requires a down payment from each bidder (get the money back if one loses the auction). T-Mobile has already put down 583 million USD more than anyone else. (Cingular 500 million USD, Verizon 383 million USD) As usual the big winner will be the FCC who will make about 15 billion USD from this auction, which counts a total of 168 bidders participating. I am sure, as in Europe, they will invest this money in a smart way...