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One of Clearwire’s (News - Alert) strategies for the success of its 4G wireless service is to sign up as many partners as it can… in order to resell the same service to its customers.

Or as Reuters (News - Alert) more politely noted, "Clearwire has agreed to rent space on its network to Best Buy so that the electronics retailer can sell wireless services directly to consumers, the companies said on Thursday."

The occasion for this observation was Clearwire's fifth wholesale deal, with Best Buy. Teresa Elder, Clearwire’s president of strategic partnerships and wholesale, said Best Buy will roll out the service sometime next year.

"Under the new deal, Best Buy will offer a new 4G option for its recently launched Best Buy Connect broadband service, starting 2011," Elder said, adding that "in a bid to win more shoppers, consumer electronics chains like Best Buy are now making a bigger push to become one-stop shops by offering both electronic gadgets as well as the wireless services required to connect them all."

The Associated Press (News - Alert) notes that Best Buy, based in Minneapolis, already acts as a master agent by reselling access to Sprint's (News - Alert) regular "3G" network under its Best Buy Connect brand, and plans to use the same brand for Clearwire's service.

MocoNews.net takes a rather dim view of the deal: "Never mind that Best Buy hasn’t really been that good at selling services to its big-box customer base. Three years ago, it acquired Speakeasy, a DSL master agent, for $100 million. Last month, it sold off the unit to Covad (News - Alert) and Megapath in what was described as a fire sale."

It’s a little unclear how Clearwire fits into Best Buy's overall strategy. According to MocoNews.net, "the service includes access to Sprint’s 3G network. Data plans start at $30 a month for 250 megabytes and $60 a month for up to 5 gigabytes."

Oh, and devices are limited to laptops embedded with Qualcomm’s Gobi chipset, they say.

Aside from the aesthetics of the deal, MocoNet.news grudgingly admits that, "so far, Clearwire’s plan is working. In the fourth quarter 2009, it reported that it added 46,000 subscribers through wholesale relationships. By the end of the first quarter, it jumped to 157,000."