Gold said Clearwire and Sprint have been motivated for months to create the venture, but Intel could be the most desperate in the group of investors.

"Remember, this joint venture is a shotgun marriage, driven to a large extent by Intel, which has invested billions in WiMax technology and doesn't want to see it go away," Gold said. Likewise, the cable companies don't want to see WiMax eat into their existing customer base, he added.

Meanwhile, Sprint needs the success of WiMax as a growth engine, even as it is facing losses of wireless subscribers, including those of Qwest, which recently announced that it would be taking its customers to Verizon Wireless.

"What else does Sprint have?" Gold asked. "WiMax is their best bet on the future."

Here's a look at some of the most recent failed joint ventures in the communications industry:

• Concert Communications Services might be one of the best examples of a failed joint venture in the communications industry, Redman said. The $1 billion joint venture was created in 1994 by BT Group and MCI. But that partnership dissolved and was replaced by a joint venture between BT and AT&T Corp. in 1999. That venture broke down in 2001 and the assets were split between the two companies.
• More recently, and more pointedly in the case of Clearwire, was the failure earlier this year of the joint venture between Sprint and cable operators for a cell phone service called Sprint Pivot. After investing $100 million in Pivot, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications stopped marketing the service, which was first announced in 2005 as a way for cable companies to offer wireless services.
• PrimeCo Communications, a joint wireless venture of Bell Atlantic and AirTouch Communications was launched to much fanfare in 19 U.S. cities in 1995, but parts were split off and sold by 1999.
• And even Sprint's recent loss of Qwest subscribers to Verizon Wireless could be viewed as a failure of a joint venture, Gold said.

Philip Solis, an analyst at ABI Research in New York, said the Clearwire venture "has a much better chance of success" than Pivot or the other initiatives, if only because the cable companies and others are investing in a more promising technology -- WiMax. "Sprint just needed the money and now has it," he said.