After failing to find a buyer for its Nextel cellphone unit, Sprint Nextel Corp. said Thursday it will hold on to the Nextel and renew their long-term partnership with Motorola, reports the WS Journal.
“The iDEN network is a key differentiator for Sprint, as it allows us to offer products and services no other carrier in the industry can match. We continue to build on our support for our industry-leading push-to-talk Nextel Direct Connect franchise through our aggressive marketing efforts which exploit the unique features and functionality of the iDEN network,” said Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint.
Earlier this year, Sprint began searching for potential buyers for Nextel, which has struggled since the two companies merged in 2005, losing millions of customers in the face of stiff competition from AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
It’s an understatement to say that the 2005 merger of the two companies has been something of a disaster. In January, Sprint took a nearly $30 billion noncash accounting charge, writing off much of the goodwill value of its 2005 Nextel purchase and other acquisitions. The credit crunch made it difficult to raise the cash for the sale, which was just over $5.4 billion–a valuation that analysts questioned.
The Nextel network features high-performance walkie-talkie-style cell phone service, but the network caused interference with firefighter and other public safety radio systems. To solve the problem a complicated frequency swap, called the Consensus Plan was worked out with the FCC whereby Sprint-Nextel would give up the interfering frequencies to public service agencies in exchange for consolidation of new frequencies in the 800 MHz band and 1.9GHz band.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Public Safety Gets New 800 MHz Frequencies, Sprint’s Walkie Talkie: 40 Cities, Sprint-Nextel: Deal from Hell, D-Block: Down to the Wire, NY State’s Public Service Net: Failure?, The OTHER Public Safety Band, Hearings on 700MHz Auction, Free 2155-2175 MHz!, FCC Wants Cellular Alert System, Sprint-Nextel to Merge, Sprint-tel: Done Deal?, Sprint Forces Forsee Out, The OTHER Public Safety Band, Nextel Accepts Consensus Swap.
