Whether or not Clearwire turns into a major commercial success in the US, it has helped define the shape of the mobile internet, and shown the way for alternative operators to challenge the incumbents by offering open broadband services, not just directly but - more importantly to profitability - through wholesale and joint venture partners. Now the question is whether Clearwire can translate its founder Craig McCaw's disruptive vision beyond the US markets that he and his team understand so well. The operator owns spectrum, directly or via partnerships, in many parts of Europe and has alliances in Canada, parts of Latin America and Asia. It insists that these assets were not just acquired as investments and that the aim is to build out networks rather than sell on the licenses.

But this will require partnerships, since Clearwire lacks the spectrum coverage or the financing to do more, single-handed, than being a local provider in spot territories. While this is a reasonable business model for many small broadband wireless providers in underserved areas of Europe and elsewhere, it will not deliver the scalability and margins that will please the shareholders in the new Clearwire, which will result around year end from its merger with Sprint Xohm, with financing from Intel, Google and three US cablecos. So it is hardly surprising that Clearwire is already on the look-out for partners in Europe that could maximize the return on its investment in spectrum, accelerate roll-out and support a range of commercial mobile internet models and routes to market - just as the cablecos are doing for Clearwire in the US.

This week saw the second Femtocells Europe conference in London, with the supporters of the miniature base stations seeking to look beyond the issue of indoor coverage to focus on more far-reaching benefits for operators - advanced applications, new ways of building out mobile broadband networks like WiMAX and LTE, and the promise of the sub-$99 product. All these are vital if femtocells are to achieve their goal of first commercial deployments in 2009, as are standards - the Femto Forum, whose plenary meeting was co-located, has made impressive progress on creating standards for connecting femtos to the core network, and now aims to do the same thing by the end of this week for another issue close to carriers' hearts: interference management.

As so often in the mobile broadband sector, the hard-nosed, real world business plans of the established operators were eclipsed, at least in the headlines, by the more bluesky activities of the 'new Clearwire' - the cheerleader for Mobile WiMAX that should be formed around year end by the merger of Sprint Nextel's Xohm unit and the original Clearwire, with funding from Intel, Google and the major US cablecos. Since Clearwire is the first major operator to deploy WiMAX for genuine mobile broadband and multimedia services, rather than traditional access, it is also likely to be the first WiMAX carrier to take an interest in femtocells. Sprint has been an early adopter of femtos, with the Samsung Airave CDMA product - limited in functionality, but hugely popular with its users. And the merged Clearwire's major supplier, Motorola, has also shown strong interest in femto technology. But the 'new Clearwire' has to be cautious about making any firm strategy statements until it is officially an entity, and in London, its key cable partner, Comcast, appeared to have jumped the gun.