What Next, Sprint Nextel?
4462
Today probably comes as little surprise to anyone. Sprint (NYSE: FON) will purchase Nextel (Nasdaq: NXTL) for $35 billion, resulting in a company that will be called -- you guessed it -- Sprint Nextel.
231442
CTO outlines future of WiMAX in the USA Sprint Nextel is on schedule to launch its WiMAX service at the end of April, but won't be subsidising devices or requiring long-term contracts.â¦
403349
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Sprint Nextel Corp. on Wednesday said it would continue to support its Nextel-branded walkie-talkie network, which industry observers had speculated the company might shutter.
359448
Merger challenges and dropped calls for consumers are taking a toll as Sprint aims to expand and upgrade.
463265
PHILADELPHIA/NEW YORK  - Sprint Corp. is close to  an agreement buy Nextel Communications Inc. for more than $36  billion in a mostly stock deal that would combine the No. 3 and  No. 5 U.S. wireless telephone companies, sources familiar with  the situation said on Friday.
357061
Tough times continue at Sprint Nextel, as the company said Thursday that three of its top executives are on their way out.CFO Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Tim Kelly, and President of Sales and Distribution Mark Angelino will leave the company on Friday, according to Sprint Nextel. It wasn&#39;t clear if the executives were leaving voluntarily or were being let go, and company spokeswoman Leigh Horner said in an e-mail that Sprint Nextel isn&#39;t &quot;commenting further or characterizing the nature of these departures.&quot;In a press statement, Sprint Nextel President and CEO Dan Hesse thanked the three for their &quot;dedication and contributions&quot; to the company, and wished them luck in future endeavors.Sprint Nextel is looking to replace the departing executives permanently, but in the meantime their duties are being handled by existing executives.William G. Arendt, currently senior vice president and controller of Sprint Nextel, will serve as acting CFO, while John Garcia, currently senior vice president, product development and management, will serve as acting CMO. Paget Alves, currently Sprint Nextel&#39;s regional president for sales and distribution, will serve as acting president, sales and distribution. All of these executives will report directly to Hesse.The news of the executive shake-up follows the announcement last week that&#160;Sprint would be laying off 4,000 employees and the close 125 of its 1,400 retail outlets&#160;due to the net loss of more than 100,000 customers in the fourth quarter of 2007. At the end of the year, Sprint said it had 53.8 million subscribers, including 40.8 million customers of its traditional post-paid service.The company plans to announce its full fourth-quarter results on Feb. 28.While Sprint struggles, rival carrier&#160;AT&amp;T seems to be doing better, thanks to its partnership as the&#160;exclusive service provider for Apple&#39;s iPhone&#160;device. AT&amp;T&#39;s revenue was up 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, largely driven by increases in mobile phone and broadband customers, the company announced Thursday.AT&amp;T saw a net gain of 2.7 million mobile subscribers during the quarter, and most of them came to the company through its iPhone partnership, the company said. Apple said Tuesday it sold 2.3 million iPhones during the quarter.
604219
Sprint (FON:NYSE - news - research) chief Gary Forsee is billing the Nextel (NXTL:Nasdaq - news - research) deal as strength building on strength.
273164
NEW YORK - Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. have agreed to merge in a deal that would create the nationâs third largest wireless telephone provider.
463106
Verizon Communications Inc. VZ.N  has no imminent plans to bid for Sprint Corp. FON.N, people  familiar with the situation said on Tuesday, lifting a  potential obstacle to Sprint's bid for Nextel Communications  Inc. NXTL.O.
512128
Sprint Nextel's breakup with some customers may not be popular, but it could make financial sense.Images: Sprint's Dear John letter
204967
Sprint Corp.&#39;s acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. might result in more jobs in the company&#39;s local telephone service segment.
442623
If Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications wind up merging late next year, don&#39;t expect the new Sprint Nextel to come roaring out of the gates with the kinds of massive service upgrades rolled out by the new Cingular Wireless LLC.
306595
Sprint Nextel will pour more money into the iDEN network it inherited from Nextel, coming out with new handsets and adding features to its popular push-to-talk system.The&#160;struggling mobile operator, whose subscriber base is third-largest in the United States but declining, has been operating two networks since the merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications in 2005. The new company then said it would cap off investment in iDEN after the end of 2007. But even though Sprint is losing subscribers faster on iDEN than on its CDMA network and average revenue per iDEN user is falling, the company last year said it would keep investing in the network until at least 2012.On Tuesday, Sprint reiterated its commitment to iDEN, saying customers would see continued investment and new features. The announcement, in a news release, came about a week after the latest management shakeup at Sprint. The company&#39;s chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, and sales chief&#160;resigned last Thursday.iDEN weighs down an already ailing carrier that is simultaneously gearing up to start a third network using new WiMax wireless broadband technology, according to IDC analyst Godfrey Chua. While rivals Verizon and AT&amp;T prepare for a February shutdown of their aging analog networks, and in AT&amp;T&#39;s case an older digital technology called TDMA, Sprint holds on to iDEN because it needs the subscribers, he said. Those include many loyal businesses that rely on the network&#39;s Direct Connect push-to-talk technology, Chua said.&quot;It just hasn&#39;t been as easy for Sprint to consolidate its network architecture as it has been for AT&amp;T,&quot; Chua said.Sprint had 18.7 million customers on iDEN versus about 34.1 million on CDMA at the end of the third quarter of 2007, the latest period for which Sprint has announced financial results. About 1.2 million customers use PowerSource phones, which include iDEN and CDMA technology. Between postpaid Nextel service and prepaid Boost Mobile, a separate youth-oriented offering, Sprint suffered a net loss of about 757,000 iDEN users in the quarter, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.Direct Connect isn&#39;t standing still. The more immediate change, coming early this year, will be the introduction of a long-awaited push-to-talk system for Sprint&#39;s CDMA customers. It will work on a set of new CDMA handsets, and people will be able to use it between those new phones and all existing iDEN devices, she said.Building on the combination of Direct Connect and Sprint Mobile Broadband services, Sprint is planning new features such as &quot;push-to-x,&quot; which will let people send text messages, images, and other data through a simpler process than current messaging systems, said spokeswoman Stephanie Greenwood.Even as Sprint&#39;s CDMA-based push-to-talk has faced delays, rivals edged in on the feature, which Nextel pioneered. AT&amp;T Wireless has had push-to-talk for about two years, according to spokesman Mark Siegel. Verizon Wireless announced the launch of a push-to-talk service in 2003, though a search of its Web site indicated the carrier only sells one or two handsets for it.While restating its commitment to iDEN on Wednesday, Sprint highlighted two handsets recently introduced for the network. The Motorola i570, introduced this month, is designed for tough environments and offers voice-activated dialing and one-touch shortcuts to phone features. The Motorola i335, introduced last November, is built to military specifications for dust, shock, and vibration.
416575
New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse has lots of choices as he&#160;takes over the ailing mobile carrier&#160;and looks for problems to start solving.Sprint, the third-biggest wireless operator in the U.S., is&#160;losing subscribers as it keeps working through the merger of Sprint and Nextel, which occurred in 2005. On Tuesday,&#160;Sprint announced Hesse is taking over immediately for Gary Forsee, who was forced out by the company&#39;s board in October. Hesse, 54, previously led Embarq, the local wireless carrier Sprint spun off as part of the Nextel deal.Sprint needs to both distinguish itself from competitors and get its own house in order, according to mobile industry analysts.&quot;They couldn&#39;t go on without someone who&#39;s willing to set a direction,&quot; said Avi Greengart of Current Analysis. Sprint could try to compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T Wireless on price, or with more flexible terms of service, or bring out more innovative devices, but it&#39;s failed so far to choose, according to Greengart.&quot;Their brand right now doesn&#39;t stand for anything,&quot; he said.One thing the Sprint name has been associated with recently is disappointing customer service. Reporting on the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company blamed accelerating customer &quot;churn&quot; to other carriers in part on longer help calls and waits for those calls. The introduction of simplified bills, expected to continue until the middle of 2008, boosted the number of those calls, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Sprint also noted new handsets at rival carriers, clearly a reference to AT&amp;T&#39;s Apple iPhone.Meanwhile, thanks to about 700,000 subscribers quitting the aging Nextel network, Sprint&#39;s subscriber base as a whole declined by a net 337,000 in the quarter. The carrier said it had about 54 million subscribers on Sept. 30.What could most set Sprint apart is also its biggest gamble, the WiMax wireless broadband network it plans to build across the U.S. at an estimated cost of US$5 billion. Though the WiMax network is likely to be in place first, set to reach 100 million people by the end of 2008, Sprint&#39;s main rivals plan to have their own high-speed data offerings using a similar technology, LTE (Long-Term Evolution). And WiMax won&#39;t fix Sprint&#39;s long-overdue need to harmonize its cellular operations, currently split between CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and Nextel&#39;s older iDEN technology, Greengart said.If it goes ahead with WiMax -- interim CEO Paul Saleh said this month the business might be spun off -- Sprint will have to convince skeptical investors it&#39;s making the right move, said Yankee Group&#39;s Phil Marshall. It will also need to find a way for WiMax to truly complement the cellular business, Marshall said. So far, Sprint has painted WiMax as a mobile service distinguished from its conventional voice offerings by the promise of an any-application, any-device model. A better plan would be to push WiMax as an alternative to wired broadband that&#39;s bundled with Sprint&#39;s cellular service, Marshall said.However, in the short term, Hesse just needs to get the company to run its existing businesses better, Marshall said. Cleaning up customer service would be one key move, he added. Judging from Hesse&#39;s previous performance -- he once headed AT&amp;T Wireless -- the new CEO is qualified to do this, according to Marshall.&quot;He&#39;s very pragmatic and systematic in his management style,&quot; Marshall said.&#160;
9140
US mobile firm Sprint has detailed what it will spend on upgrading its network and getting it ready for 3G services. The big winners are Lucent, which gets $1.5bn over three years, Nortel, which gets $1bn
340991
PHILADELPHIA/NEW YORK  - Sprint Corp. is in  advanced talks to buy Nextel Communications Inc. for more than  $36 billion in a mostly stock deal that would combine the No. 3  and No. 5 U.S. wireless service carriers, sources familiar with  the situation said on Friday.
627026
InfoWorld - New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse has lots of choices as heÂ takes over the ailing mobile carrierÂ and looks for problems to start solving.