The cats have been herded. A “who’s who” list of top US technology and media companies are joining forces to funnel $3.2bn into Clearwire, an ambitious next-generation wireless network venture. In an industry in which new technologies need to win big to justify their enormous fixed costs, the venture’s partners will have to retract their claws and put in every effort to make WiMax technology work.

The deal will give Sprint and Clearwire, along with partners Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable and Google, a chance to control their wireless destiny by coming to market first. Sprint and Clearwire, the biggest owners of US 2.5GHz spectrum, needed each other to go nationwide. Comcast and Time Warner want to regain momentum in their war against AT&T and Verizon, which plan to build a 4th-generation wireless network using a different technology. Intel has placed a big bet on WiMax. And Google, for a relatively minimal price, is buying access to the growing mobile web market. Clearwire’s ability to use Sprint’s existing infrastructure should help speed development.