Monica Paolini, an analyst with Senza Fili Consulting in Issaquah, sent out a report today examining whether the partnership between Clearwire and Sprint Nextel was healthy for the roll out of WiMax wireless broadband networks.

As part of the deal, explained in this story, Sprint Nextel and Clearwire expect to build out portions of the nationwide network and enable roaming between their two systems. Sprint Nextel will cover the more populated areas, potentially reaching up to 185 million people, or about 75 percent of the population in the 50 largest markets. Clearwire is focusing on areas covering about 115 million people. The two companies expect to be able to cover about 100 million people by the end of next year.

Her conclusion is long and in depth and goes into many technical reasons, but in a nutshell the answer is yes.

"The planned partnership between Sprint and Clearwire shows how cooperation can be more beneficial to the market than competition," she wrote.

A lengthy description goes into how both companies have a lot of spectrum -- the airwaves that the service will travel on -- but that they'll need them if they plan to offer a speedy service with lots of bandwidth to many customers.

"Cooperation enables both operators to deploy a more robust network that supports better performance and to do so in a cost effective way while also developing a combined footprint that is more attractive to subscribers and wholesale partners."