Clearwire has joined Sprint, T-Mobile, and Cricket as a member of the Rural Cellular Association, an organization founded to promote proper competitive practices in the wireless market by monitoring policies that may affect members of the coalition. The inclusion of Clearwire and its 11 million subscribers is poised to strengthen RCA's efforts when going up against the interests of the nation's largest spectrum-hungry carriers, AT&T and Verizon.

Senior vice president of strategic partnerships and wholesale at Clearwire Don Stroberg said in the press release:

The many issues facing our business, including competitive balance, the spectrum crisis and the rapidly growing consumer demand for mobile broadband all require the type of cooperation and solutions that Clearwire is well positioned to provide. Our deep spectrum portfolio can be an important resource for relieving the growing capacity strain on today's 4G deployments.

Clearwire — which is partially owned by Sprint — recently announced its plan to upgrade its 2.5GHz WiMAX network to an LTE variant, which will launch in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle in early 2013.