Sprint Nextel Corporation

Sprint Nextel Corporation {{nyse|S}}, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States. It operates the third largest wireless network in the U.S. with nearly 44 million subscribers, under the Sprint PCS and Nextel brands--behind Cingular and Verizon Wireless. It also operates landline and long distance business, as well as several units that provide businesses and governments with communications services. The company, formerly known as Sprint Corporation, was created from the purchase of NEXTEL Communications by Sprint, though the deal was billed as a merger of equals.

Sprint Nextel Today

Sprint Nextel currently offers cellular phone service under its Sprint PCS and Nextel brands. It is also a provider of landline, long distance, business telecommunications, and Tier 1 internet service provider under the name SprintLink.

Related Topics:
Cellular phone - Tier 1 internet service provider

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Sprint Nextel also offers pre-paid services through the Boost Mobile brand, and it provides services in the Philippines through the Next Mobile brand. Sprint Nextel wholesales capacity on its PCS wireless network to companies called Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO); this means the MVNO uses the Sprint PCS network for coverage. The MVNOs resell wireless services using their own brand. Current MVNOs using the PCS network to provide coverage include Virgin Mobile, EarthLink, and Qwest. Sprint Nextel has also announced other upcoming MVNO partnerships, including ESPN, Movida Wireless, and Disney.

Related Topics:
Boost Mobile - Philippines - Next Mobile - MVNO - Virgin Mobile - Qwest

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Sprint Nextel is expected to spin off its local telephone company, Sprint LTD, into a separate company. Sprint LTD services 18 states in the U.S. and provides local, long distance and high-speed data services to residential and business customers.

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In 2005, Sprint Nextel acquired two of its wireless affiliates, US Unwired (deal closed in August) and Gulf Coast Wireless (deal closed in October). Sprint Nextel announced on August 30, 2005, that it would purchase a third affiliate, IWO Holdings. Analysts speculate that Sprint Nextel will acquire additional affiliates.

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On September 1, 2005, Sprint Nextel combined plan offerings of its Sprint PCS and Nextel brands to bring more uniformity across the company's offerings.

Related Topics:
September 1 - 2005

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Sprint PCS

Sprint PCS is the main wireless brand of Sprint Nextel, and was the main brand of the former Sprint Corporation.

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The Sprint PCS network operates on the 3G wireless standard, which is part of the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standard.

Related Topics:
3G - Code Division Multiple Access

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Sprint Nextel maintains its nationwide PCS presence with the help of affiliates. These smaller companies, in agreement with Sprint, build network infrastructure as well as operate retail stores. In exchange, the smaller companies receive usage of Sprint's brand, radio spectrum, customer service and billing. In most cases, these affiliate carriers are transparent to the end user or consumer. Alamosa PCS is the largest of its affiliate carriers, the others are Ubiquitel, iPCS, Shentel, Enterprise, Northern PCS, and Swiftel. (See Merger of Sprint and NEXTEL section above).

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As of 2004, the Sprint PCS brand had nearly 25 million subscribers in the U.S.

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Nextel

Nextel is the former wireless brand of NEXTEL Communications, and it operates on Motorola's iDEN protocol that uses time division multiple access (TDMA) technology. Unlike other cellular operators, Nextel utilizes the specialized mobile radio band (SMR) and was one of the first operators in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

Related Topics:
Motorola's - IDEN - Time division multiple access

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Some of Nextel's special features include its push to talk feature, which simulates the half-duplex operation of a two-way radio. A downside of this sole-source (Motorola) and proprietary standard has been a lack of innovation in handset size and weight, compared to mobile telephony industry trends, though this too is changing.

Related Topics:
Push to talk - Two-way

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The Nextel brand has over 16.1 million U.S. subscribers.

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Initially, speculation that current Nextel subscribers would be required to replace their existing handsets due to incompatibility between Nextel technology and Sprint technology was put forth. However, Sprint Nextel has assured its customers that both the current iDEN and CDMA technologies will continue to be supported and that dual-band phones are being researched to work on both networks simultaneously.

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The push-to-talk feature with which Nextel has gained its fame is also expected to be released on the CDMA network in 2006 when Sprint deploys their successor to the first phase of their high speed wireless network EV-DO. The new push to talk platform will be based on Qualcomm's Qchat product, which has been under development between Nextel and Qualcomm since January 2002. Currenty Sprint PCS has a push-to-talk service called ReadyLink which is based on the SIP VoIP protocol but cannot make or recieve calls with the iDen based PTT system.

Related Topics:
EV-DO - Qualcomm - ReadyLink - SIP

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By 2010, Sprint Nextel plans to absorb the Nextel brand into the Sprint PCS brand.

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