Sprint-Nextel: First Marital Tiff
562107
Technology problems arise as Sprint and Nextel merge. Also: Symantec buys Veritas.... Illinois' governor bans violent video games for minors & hellip;.  and more.
75921
Sprint Corp.'s &#36;35 billion acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. could challenge Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless for supremacy in a ruthlessly competitive business where prices are constantly dropping.
204823
The proposed merger of Sprint and Nextel Communications could face a rocky start as the companies work to run and eventually merge two wireless technologies without breaking the bank or losing customers.
684432
Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc. on Wednesday announced plans to merge, creating a more formidable rival to the two largest US mobile operators, and a large wireline communications company supporting
308378
Sprint and Nextel Communications could unveil their $36 billion merger within a few days, but speculation has intensified about the emergence of a rival bid.
502391
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Sprint Nextel Corp. unveiled on Thursday a new service that allows mobile handset customers to buy and compare a wide range of products over their phone.
131086
Samsung Electronics will provide 3G-capable phones that work over Verizon Wireless&#39; and Sprint&#39;s emerging 1xEV-DO cellular data networks starting in the first quarter
209613
The freewheeling wireless industry, known for its upstarts and edgy competition, got a little more run-of-the-mill Wednesday when Sprint and Nextel Communications formally announced a merger
716160
ESPN teams with Sprint to create the first fully branded phone.  Also:  Researchers develop a smart camera to let blind people get around safely & hellip;.  Europe's Lycos takes a swing back at spammers & hellip;. and more.
719181
PC Magazine - In emergencies, wireless service is often the first thing to go. Here's a look at how Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon and Cingular are shoring things up for the next big one. Unfortunately, these behemoths aren't working together.
104725
A year ago, just after its first anniversary as a combined company, Sprint Nextel appeared ripe for the picking.
193210
DALLAS - Sprint Nextel Corp., seeking to compete with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, has introduced a touch-screen handset that can download music and play video.
691739
The two companies join forces to beat out the competition. Also:  Sprint to debut services to help companies manage cell phones issued to employees & hellip;. Netflix skating on thin ice.... and more.
29844
Sprint Nextel and its hardware partners sought to convince a small audience at the Consumer Electronics Show that their WiMax plans are on track, despite the recent departure of Sprint&#39;s CEO and the dissolution of its partnership with Clearwire.&quot;We are exactly where we said we&#39;d be,&quot; said Barry West, Sprint Nextel&#39;s CTO and president of the company&#39;s Xohm WiMax business unit. Sprint is in the process of soft-launching in Chicago and Baltimore, he said.Executives from Nokia and Samsung said they both expect to have user devices ready for the second-quarter launch. In addition, Motorola said it is working on a device that will operate over Sprint&#39;s EvDO (evolution, data optimized) cellular network, Wi-Fi, and WiMax.Since the&#160;ouster of Gary Forsee, the former CEO and chairman of Sprint Nextel, who was thought to be a champion of the company&#39;s WiMax plans, onlookers have speculated that the network might not roll out as planned. In addition,&#160;Sprint Nextel ended a partnership with Clearwire&#160;to jointly deploy WiMax, a further cause for uncertainty. Sprint has been hemorrhaging mobile subscribers and recording declining revenues since its purchase of Nextel.Beyond the unrest internally at Sprint, the company faces critics of WiMax who say that the technology won&#39;t work as well as cellular technologies in a mobile environment and that it won&#39;t support international roaming as easily as the cellular standards.But in describing the reasons why Sprint chose WiMax and why it intends to aggressively pursue the network, West further sought to soothe market qualms about the future.&quot;Being first to market is a huge advantage,&quot; he said. &quot;And WiMax technology is here, now, and mature.&quot;While an investment in a totally new technology requires a strong reason for change, this won&#39;t be the first time Sprint&#39;s doing it, he noted. WiMax doesn&#39;t follow on the upgrade path for CDMA, the basis for Sprint&#39;s cellular network, so it requires a totally new network.Sprint did that first when it moved from an analog cellular network to digital, West said. The same went for the move to third-generation technology, although in that case Sprint stuck with the CDMA path.Sprint also considered LTE (Long Term Evolution), a fourth-generation mobile technology, but one big disadvantage is that it&#39;s not yet available, he said.Moving to WiMax represents a shift to a new air interface technology: OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) instead of CDMA, which is the basis of the current 3G technologies. According to West, when CDMA is deployed in a wider section of spectrum, which helps boost throughput, the computational complexity required goes up exponentially. That requires higher-performance chips, which come with a steep price tag, he said.With WiMax, Sprint plans to use a wide section of spectrum that can dynamically switch from carrying data up or down, depending on user requirements, he said.Beyond the radically different network technology, Sprint envisions a very different business model than cellular, one that will support any kind of standard device.&quot;Look at the cellular model. It was very successful but also very frustrating,&quot; West said. He was referring to the business model in the United States where operators subsidize phones and then require long-term subscriptions from users.With Xohm, Sprint will allow any WiMax-compliant device to run on the network, he said. End-users will buy the devices themselves, probably at a variety of retail stores and hopefully for a low price because vendors expect the cost of WiMax chips to drop dramatically, like Wi-Fi. &quot;Since I&#39;ve got no money in you, I don&#39;t need a contract,&quot; West said. That opens the door to a wide array of new pricing scenarios. End-users could pay for the day, week, month, or on a regular subscription, he said.While West declined to cite specific prices, he said a monthly subscription to Xohm will be comparable to existing DSL rates.Initially, Sprint will sell PC cards and modems, but by the end of this year as many as&#160;10 different kinds of devices could be available, he said. Navigation and gaming devices are possibilities, he said.If the market has any doubts about Sprint&#39;s plans for the network, it should rest assured that, regardless, the future of WiMax is more certain, panelists said. &quot;WiMax is bigger than Sprint,&quot; said Sriram Viswanathan, vice president and general manager for Intel Capital and for Intel&#39;s WiMax business.Motorola alone has 17 contracts for networks and is involved in 60 trials, said Fred Wright, senior vice president and general manager at Motorola. &quot;This technology is real, it&#39;s not a fairy tale,&quot; he said.
59028
No more tentative agreements--in what the two companies deem a &quot;merger of equals,&quot; Sprint and Nextel officially announced a definitive agreement to merge.
608115
So long, annoying people Sprint-Nextel has terminated the accounts of its 1,000 most-annoying customers. After a recent internal review, the U.S. wireless carrier gave at least 1,000 people the boot because they've been making far too many calls to the company's customer care centers. Of course, the real shocker is that the company has agreed to wave their termination fees.â¦
567460
The rumors of a Nextel Communications&#39; combination with Sprint aren&#39;t ringing the same regulatory alarm bells as the larger acquisition of AT&amp;T Wireless by Cingular Wireless.