Cisco (CSCO) Goes WiMax

Any business where Cisco (CSCO) and Intel (INTC) are on the same side of the ball is going to get a lot of momentum. And, yesterday Cisco bought WiMax equipment company Navini Networks for $330 million. Cisco management told The Wall Street Journal: "We were hearing from a lot of customers in the emerging markets about their interest in WiMAX and how they were getting very serious about it."

Intel (INTC) and Motorola (MOT) are already strongly behind the technology and put money into recent WiMax distribution company Clearwire (CLWR) Samsung and Nokia (NOK) are building WiMax devices. The technology allows for wireless broadband without using the current 3G system dominated by tech from Qualcomm (QCOM).

The WiMax hopes in the US were hit by a bus when the CEO of Sprint (S), which is building the largest US WiMax network, was fired. But, last week the US endorsed the technology as a way to get broadband to people in developing countries. Their seal of approval was an endorsement of how effective the technology is. Sprint’s (S) board will probably have second thoughts about throttling back on its WiMax build out plans.

The investment to build up nationwide WiMax is growing. The next bus through may hit Qualcomm.

Douglas A. McIntyre