Sprint, Nextel users to pay less
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Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. customers are likely to see lower prices and better coverage as a result of the companies&#39; planned $35 billion merger.
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Merger talks between wireless carriers Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. aren&#39;t sounding very jolly to one equipment supplier: Motorola Inc.
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Sprint Corp. said yesterday it will acquire Nextel Communications Inc. in a $35-billion deal that will create the nation&#39;s third-largest wireless phone carrier, Sprint Nextel.
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Sprint is canceling some fees it charges to cover its own costs and replacing them with other âregulatoryâ and âadministrativeâ fees. The money goes to Sprint, not the government.
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The proposed merger of Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. could face a rocky start as the companies work to run and eventually merge two wireless technologies without breaking the bank or losing customers.
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No. 3 U.S. mobile service provider  Sprint Nextel Corp  is expected to offer flat-rate calling  plans at up to a 40 percent discount to its rivals, hurtling  the industry into a price war, analysts said on Wednesday.
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Sprint Nextel  reported deeper-than-expected subscriber losses on Friday and said it would cut about 4,000 jobs, sending its shares down 19 percent to their lowest level in more than five years.
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Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation's third-largest wireless provider, said Thursday it will have to write off a significant chunk of the remaining value of its 2005 purchase of Nextel Communications Inc. and several affiliates, reflecting the continued struggles of its wireless operations.
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Verizon Wireless set off a stampede to unlimited voice plans among U.S. mobile operators on Tuesday.After the carrier said it would let subscribers talk for as long as they want within the U.S. for $99.99 per month, rivals AT&amp;T and T-Mobile USA followed suit. Sprint Nextel, which offers 2,000 anytime minutes per month for $99.99, did not.Verizon&#39;s unlimited individual plan, as well as a shared family plan starting at $199.98, is available now.T-Mobile&#39;s plan, becoming available Thursday, will allow unlimited voice as well as messaging. That carrier, which targets youth as a key demographic, has been offering several plans for big talkers, including an Individual Ultra plan with 2,500 minutes for $99.99 and Individual Supra with 5,000 minutes for $129.99. AT&amp;T likewise had offered such plans, including a 6,000-minute service for $199.99.The major U.S. carriers haven&#39;t traditionally offered unlimited minutes. The rush to match Verizon&#39;s plan indicated the level of competition in the mobile market, where carriers are now pushing e-mail, Web access, and other data services as the price of voice minutes has fallen.But the new plans will probably appeal to only a small segment of the market, analysts said. Realtors and small-business owners who spend a lot of time on the road might find it useful, they said. Most carriers already offer free calls on nights and weekends and plans that include free calling to frequent contacts or people on the same network. Mobile data services such as Verizon&#39;s BroadbandAccess 3G (third-generation) will cost extra. And the $99.99 unlimited products are separate from family plans with shared minutes, which cost more.Also Tuesday, Verizon revamped its data offerings to reach different types of customers. A $39.99 plan will allow for 50MB of data traffic per month, and a $59.99 offering will cover 5GB. The new data plans will become available March 2.Sprint offers unlimited data on its EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network, which is similar to Verizon&#39;s, for $59.99 per month. There are some uses that aren&#39;t allowed, including continuous heavy data traffic and Web hosting. AT&amp;T places a 5GB limit only on plans for mobile data cards to be used in notebook PCs, not on phone plans. Verizon and some other carriers have been criticized in the past for advertising unlimited data while actually cutting off users who went over a certain limit.
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK  - Sprint Corp. FON.N on  Wednesday said it will buy mobile telephone company Nextel  Communications Inc. NXTL.O for about $36 billion creating a  U.S. wireless carrier with nearly 40 million subscribers.
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Customers of Sprint and SBC Communications will be able to use both companies&#39; wireless Internet connections with less hassle under a reciprocal deal announced Friday.
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Strata8 Networks, which officially opened its doors for business on Thursday, is offering a new twist on helping enterprises to lower their cell phone costs.The company, which has its own cellular spectrum licenses, offers enterprises cellular service inside of their corporate offices at a flat rate. Strata8 customers place a small base station in their building to provide coverage to workers using standard cell phones. The phones connect to the corporate cellular network while in the office but roam onto a commercial network elsewhere.The Bellevue, Washington, company is unique among others offering products that extend cellular coverage indoors in that Strata8 uses its own wireless spectrum. The spectrum, in the 1900MHz band, is the same kind used by most of the nationwide mobile operators and is owned by Strata8&#39;s parent company, Wirefree Partners.Enterprises pay $25 per user per month for the service, which includes unlimited calling to co-workers in the organization as well as to any other Strata8 customer. The base station connects to the enterprise&#39;s existing phone system, so long-distance and international calls cost the same as they would from a desk phone.The service should allow customers to save money by cutting back on their cell-phone service plans, according to Andy Wilson, executive vice president of marketing for Strata8. Craig Mathias, an analyst with the Farpoint Group, said many reports have shown that more than half of calls made from within offices are made over cell phones.But while calls from desk phones are generally cheaper than calls made from cell phones, companies should look at various factors to determine whether Strata8 would save them money, Mathias said. For example, some enterprises may not to be able to negotiate lower rates than they already get from their cell phone provider, so Strata8 would end up being an additional cost.Instead of Strata8, an enterprise could use a converged Wi-Fi and cellular service, where calls over the Wi-Fi networks are free and Wi-Fi access points are relatively inexpensive. However, that setup could require many Wi-Fi access points and also requires end-users to choose from just a few expensive phones currently available to work with such systems, he said.In addition, Wi-Fi networks use unlicensed frequencies and so can run into interference problems. But if an office building isn&#39;t using other equipment that might interfere, and if it isn&#39;t near other businesses using a similar system, converged Wi-Fi and cellular services should work well, Mathias said. Still, Strata8&#39;s offering is a clever idea that could work well for some enterprises, he said.The base stations that Strata8 uses, called pico cells, are made by UTStarcom and use the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile technology. Enterprises must pay for the pico cells; Strata8 said the price varies depending on the site.One pico cell could cover a 10,000-square-foot building, but all structures present different challenges, Wilson said. Some deployments might require additional repeaters to extend coverage. Strata8 will hang the equipment for customers or train IT managers to do it themselves.Strata8 is in final negotiations on a roaming deal with a cellular operator, but Wilson said he couldn&#39;t reveal which one. Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel have nationwide CDMA networks.For now, end-users can choose from just five phones that work with the Strata8 system, including the Moto Q, Treo 700wx, Razr V3 and two HTC handsets. While any CDMA phone will work in theory, these selected phones support roaming between the Strata8 and the wide area cellular network.Other companies such as RadioFrame, also from the Seattle area, sell pico cells that help improve cellular coverage for enterprises. However, Strata8 has advantages because its system connects to an existing corporate telephone system, reducing the costs of calls for enterprises, according to Wilson. In addition, because Strata8 is using its own spectrum, it was able to set the flat rate monthly fee, he said.Strata8&#39;s service is available in some cities on the U.S. Virgin Islands and regions of nine states including Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. The company said it has a few customers already but declined to reveal their names.
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NEW YORK - Just two months after the announcement that Cingular Wireless will acquire AT&amp;T Wireless, Sprint has announced that it plans to buy Nextel Communications for $35 billion.
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Cingular Wireless, a venture of AT&T  Inc.  and BellSouth Corp. , said on Monday it would  start charging customers with older phones an extra $4.99  monthly fee as early as September unless they upgrade their  phones as it moves toward using a single network technology.
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Sprint Nextel has agreed to provide departing customers with the code necessary to unlock their phonesâ software so the handsets they own can be used on competitorsâ networks.
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In an attempt to spark growth in its Net phone offer, the company reduces rates and offers new customers a month free.
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Sprint Nextel Corp.  expects to post first-quarter net losses of postpaid customers, who pay for calls in advance, but forecast postpaid net additions for the second quarter, Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh said on Wednesday.