LOS ANGELES (WiMAX Day). Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US mobile service provider, announced on Tuesday that it intends to build a national WiMAX network using its massive holding of 2.5 GHz frequencies. Sprint is the first major phone company to announce it will build a network based on WiMAX.

CEO Gary Forsee said that the company will invest $1 billion in 2007 and up to $2 billion in 2008. Sprint plans to build its network with equipment from Motorola, Samsung and Intel.

The Wall Street Journal scooped this story on its front page on Monday, and since then the WiMAX industry has been coming to terms with the immediate ramification of this news. Clearly there is great benefit for Intel and Motorola, as their products become the de facto 802.16e-2005 standard.

It is easy to see the that spectrum was the driver of this announcement. One of the key reasons for the Spint and Nextel merger in 2004 was their license portfolios. Yet other spectrum owners are expected to benefit as well. Many analysts already foresee Sprint and Clearwire leverageing their respective 2.5 GHz holdings. Sprint alone can reach up to 85% of the top 200 US markets with its spectrum, or roughly 100 million people. Clearwire’s licenses tend to cover smaller markets, which are often underserved with broadband of all kinds, but Clearwire also can reach up to 90 million people.