I spoke with Intel Capital president Arvind Sodhani today about the news that WiMax technology specialist Clearwire Corp. [CLWR] and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s [S] next-generation wireless broadband unit would merge into a new, $14.5 billion company.

It's an important step forward for  Intel Corp. [INTC], already a large investor in Clearwire and a staunch supporter of WiMax, with a chipset in the works specifically based on the technology. Intel will invest $1 billion into the new venture in exchange for a 12% stake, making it the second-largest investor after Sprint, which will own 51%.

Here's an excerpt (The full story will be available at TheDeal.com this evening):

Tech Confidential: Intel is obviously betting big on WiMax. How important is the deal announced today to the technology's future?

Arvind Sodhani: Clearly this is important enough for us to have put $1 billion in this deal. That should give an indication of how critical and important this is and how committed we are to making this happen. The magnitude of the deployment required requires a lot of capital, and our investment and engagement is consistent with that.
WiMax is faster, cheaper and getting deployed all over the world. No other technology comes anywhere near to WiMax in terms of speed or cost or ease of integration into laptops. It is global.

What were Intel's main concerns when the Sprint-Clearwire joint venture fell apart last November?

We had always realized that our initial investment was not sufficient to get deployment. We were instrumental and helpful in bringing the two parties back together. It clearly made sense for the companies to bring their complementary assets together.
This clearly increases the ease with which the nationwide network will be built. Between the two of them, there is sufficient spectrum to deploy high-speed wireless broadband because it does require fat channels and spectrum. Spectrum will determine how expensive the network will be.

Will Intel Capital sink more money into Clearwire in the future?

This new entity will be armed with sufficient capital to allow it to access the capital markets, either the debt or equity markets. We believe it is initially financed and funded so it can move forward very aggressively and tap the capital markets on its own in the future. Clearly this entity will need further capital down the road, but it is armed with a lot of capital upon closing this deal. -- Olaf de Senerpont Domis