Is there a WiMax market for large business users? I think there is. Sprint teams inside the new Clearwire [will] go after that segment, while Clearwire [will] focus on others. WiMax is a very secure network.

And the timing for WiMax? We'll start by trying to have our network provided for 140 million by 2009 or 2010. Most of that will be top-100 markets with denser populations. We'll build in clusters. If you build Boston, you build surrounding areas of Boston as well.

Getting back to the economy -- if things get much worse, what does it mean for the big picture for all kinds of technology companies, not just Clearwire? Current economic conditions are so dramatic in terms of the debt side of the financial markets that it can't last. We're finding that this is a world economy, which is more apparent than any of us realized. There are also regulatory and policy fixes. Those won't snap us out of a recession but will get us on the right path. Still, our intellectual property -- inventing things, like software -- has become our tremendous national resource.

This version of this Q&A originally appeared in Computerworld 's print edition.