4:00 PM -- Over at Unstrung, Barry West, president of Sprint's 4G business and president of the new Clearwire, is positively chatty about the new WiMax company now. But that wasn't always the case.

At CTIA 2008, he gave a stern "no comment" on whether Sprint was doing a deal with Clearwire. He added: "I told you there was no point in asking that question." Sorry we didn't follow orders, your highness:



Also at CTIA, West wasn't giving the commercial launch date for Sprint's WiMax rollout, and now we know why:



But he did have an interesting take on why it does seem right to call WiMax a true 4G technology:



He also noted that Sprint "doesn't need" 700 Mhz spectrum, when commenting on the challenges of delivering wireless broadband services:



And, from the archives, here's our May 2007 interview with Barry West, where he comments on a target WiMax coverage goal as he helped set consumer expectations for a big pipe with a fully mobile experience:



— Phil Harvey, Editor, Light Reading