When Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) announced a few months ago that it would be committing up to $4 billion in newer WiMAX technology to power a new fourth-generation (4G) wireless network, shivers must have gone up the spines of executives at AT&T, Inc. (NYSE:T) and other large established telecom players.

After all, a national WiMAX network would let Sprint basically bypass the interconnections it needs from existing data lines and let it offer services such as home telephone service, video and television service and high-speed Internet service. Sprint's deal with choosing WiMAX also involved Intel (rather heavily), Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and Samsung.

With Intel having put its hat hard into the WiMAX camp as of late, it makes complete sense for Intel and Sprint to have teamed up to make WiMAX a reality on a large scale. Sprint owns quite a bit of radio spectrum, having acquired much of it when the company merged with Nextel over a year ago -- mostly for the rather costly radio spectrum, in my opinion.Sprint also just ended a rather large bidding process at the FCC's recent advanced wireless services auction, bidding over $2 billion with a consortium of national cable television companies like Cox Communications and Comcast.

That kind of sends a signal to me that Sprint is nowhere close to being beaten back by the just-about-to-be-completed merger of AT&T and Bellsouth. There is so much going on in the telecom world right now that the future is a jumbled mess of new technology, customer adoption and relatively unknown strategies in the new age of taking it all to the customer through wireless airwaves.

Intel looks poised to make a killing in investments based on major moves it has made in the WiMAX field recently with Sprint and companies like Clearwire. If you hold Sprint or AT&T shares, where are you placing your bets? Let me know.