Its not often if ever that a motorcoach ride has resulted in creation of a $3.2 billion company but, still, one has to wonder what might happen if more high-powered executives climbed on board a bus.

Heres the story:

On a bus ride in January through Portland, Ore., Brian L. Roberts, chairman and CEO of cable giant Comcast Corp., says he saw the future of Internet-on-the-go.

"We participated in a three-way videoconference call at 50 miles an hour. It was pretty incredible talking to people in the car behind you and to people in an office," Roberts told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He also watched streaming video and saw high-speed data coming in live to the coach.

After the ride, Roberts and others went to work on a $3.2 billion deal, signed last month in New York. In the transaction, Comcast Corp. joined with other cable companies, a chip-maker and two wireless-phone companies to create a venture that will provide high-speed Internet-on-the-go in the nation's top 100 markets by 2010.

The new technology, called WiMAX, will transmit high-speed Internet, movies, television shows, sports games and other digital data from about 200,000 existing cellular-telephone towers to laptop computers, telephones and other devices.

The deal creates a company called Clearwire Inc. Its owners will be Comcast, Sprint Nextel Corp., Intel Corp., Google Inc., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks LLC.

They have agreed to collectively invest $3.2 billion. Comcast's share is $1.05 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

"We'll be on the offensive in wireless with world-class partners. It is exciting. Our customers will know that the Comcast experience will be not just in your home but wherever you want it," Roberts told the Inquirer.

Sprint and Clearwire will build and operate the system. Intel will make the chips that allow computers, cell phones and other devices to receive the signal. Google and the cable companies will rent time on the network to distribute their products and services.

To get a head start on the next generation of wireless, Comcast and the others are betting on technology, called 4G, not yet tested on a grand scale. Comcast insists it has done a lot of research on the technology, which is already in use in Australia and parts of Asia.

Comcast's role began late last year, when its chief financial officer, Michael Angelakis, along with two company senior vice presidents, saw a WiMAX demonstration at a technology show in Las Vegas.

A short time later, Roberts and his chief operating officer, Stephen B. Burke, flew to Portland to meet with cell-phone pioneer Craig McCaw, who will be chairman of Clearwire, and to go on the demonstration bus ride.

After the ride, Roberts said he agreed to line up other cable companies and work on the deal.