company announced that not only had it made that payment, but it had made a new four-year deal with Sprint to receive funding for network buildout and investments valued at $1.6 billion. Complete acquisition by Sprint Nextel On October 14, 2012, it was announced that Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank would purchase 70% of Sprint Nextel Corporation for $20.1 billion. This initially led to speculation that Sprint would buy out Clearwire, but "two well placed sources" within Sprint said that such a maneuver would not occur. Sprint, however, announced on October 18, 2012, that it acquired a majority interest in Clearwire by buying a stake from Clearwire's founder, which gave Sprint a 50.8% ownership and control of Clearwire. On December 17, 2012, Sprint announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the remaining stake in Clearwire that it did not then own for $2.97 per share, which equaled $2.2 billion. Over a period of approximately six months, a bidding war with DISH Network for Clearwire occurred, ultimately resulting in Sprint increasing its offer price for Clearwire to $5 per share. On July 8, 2013, Clearwire announced that its stockholders approved the merger with Sprint. Relatedly, Sprint's stockholders approved the merger with SoftBank, which closed on July 10, 2013. Subsequently, it planned to lay off about 75% of its employees. CLEAR announced that it would shut down on November 5, 2015. On November 6, 2015, CLEAR service was terminated. The WiMAX network was operated, without CLEAR customers, until early March 2016 because of a court order. Networks Expedience OFDM – Pre-4G In 17 markets in the United States and certain markets in Belgium, Clearwire provides a service it refers to as "Pre-4G" using a Point-to-Multipoint system from Motorola called "Expedience", part of the MOTOwi4 family of products. The service is considered true Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS). The service is not unique to Clearwire. Several companies throughout the world use this same product line from Motorola, including Inukshuk Wireless Partnership of Canada, Beamspeed and Commspeed of Arizona, AccessTEL of Bangladesh, and Unitel of Guatemala. WiMAX 802.16e - 4G Branded CLEAR, the company, on January 6, 2009, unveiled Portland, Oregon, as its first 4G WiMAX wireless broadband market, enabling consumers and businesses to access the Internet, wirelessly, at broadband speeds. After the Portland launch, the company expanded its 4G network to 87 additional markets. Retail products and services 4G Mobile and fixed wireless In