If Clearwire and Sprint Nextel ink a $12 billion joint venture -- as was reported earlier today by The Wall Street Journal -- there will be some interesting plot lines that run deep in the Seattle wireless industry.

Craig McCaw

It is well known that Clearwire is based in Kirkland, started by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw.

But Sprint Nextel has some interesting Seattle connections as well. Its recently-appointed CEO is Dan Hesse, who before being tapped for the top job at the Overland Park, Kansas-based telecommunications giant spent time in Redmond as CEO of Terabeam and AT&T Wireless.

Of course, there should be some level of familiarity between the two executives. After all, McCaw sold his cellular company to AT&T in 1993 for about $12 billion. (Interestingly, that's rougly the same value that the Journal is placing on the new Clearwire joint venture.)

Hesse then joined the company, rebranded as AT&T Wireless, as chief executive in 1997.

It will be interesting to see if these two titans of the wireless industry can deliver on the promise of a broadband wireless network, something they both have been kicking around for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, Tricia Duryee of MocoNews asks if there may be too many cooks in the kitchen with this joint venture. After all, the power players involved not only include McCaw and Hesse, but Google's Eric Schmidt and Comcast's Brian Roberts.

UPDATE: The New York Times also points out that the consortium of companies -- while powerful -- could make the joint venture difficult to manage since each has different needs.

But it was the last line in the story that caught my eye. In addition to the big name investors already reported by the The Wall Street Journal, Seattle area venture capital firm Trilogy Equity Partners plans to invest $10 million, according to The Times.

Trilogy is the venture capital firm of former VoiceStream Wireless and Western Wireless Chief Executive John Stanton, which adds yet another titan of the Seattle wireless scene to the syndicate.

It will be interesting to see who sits on the board of the joint venture.

Maybe we will find that out tomorrow since it looks like an announcement is coming. I have a call into Clearwire, but haven't heard anything at this point.