Best Buy to resell Clearwire service next year

NEW YORK

Clearwire Corp., which is building a nationwide wireless network, on Thursday said Best Buy Co. will resell access to the network starting next year.

The electronics retailer is the first company apart from Clearwire investors like Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. to announce that it will market the service.

Sprint Nextel Corp. owns a majority Clearwire, based in Kirkland, Wash., and also markets Clearwire service as "Sprint 4G."

Best Buy, based in Minneapolis, already resells access to Sprint's regular "3G" network under its Best Buy Connect brand. It plans to use the same brand for Clearwire's service, it said.

The idea behind Best Buy Connect is to give customers "the convenience of one-stop shopping for devices, service activation, billing and customer support," Best Buy said.

Clearwire has said its network should cover 120 million people by the end of this year. Its shares fell 5 cents to $7.10 in morning trading.