NEXTEL Communications (1987-2005)

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NEXTEL Communications (Former NASDAQ: NXTL) which is now known as the Sprint Nextel Corporation was a telecommunications firm based in the United States. Known for providing a nation-wide mobile communications system. Unlike other cellular operators, NEXTEL used a Specialized Mobile Radio band (SMR) and was one of the first operators in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

It had over 11 million U.S. subscribers, and in 2003, claimed to serve "198 of the top 200 U.S. markets."

NEXTEL offered pre-paid services through the Boost Mobile brand and provided services in the Philippines through the Next Mobile brand.

The company had long worked closely with a single vendor, Motorola, on both equipment and standards, though a competitor Kyocera was reported to be working on compatible handsets. The close relationship had yielded the iDEN protocol which used a time division multiple access (TDMA) technology. Some of Nextel's special features included its push-to-talk feature, which simulated the half-duplex operation of a two-way radio. A downside of this sole-source and proprietary standard had been a lack of innovation in handset size and weight, compared to mobile telephony industry trends, though this too has changed.

NEXTEL had a huge advantage in the U.S. push-to-talk industry, though in 2003 Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS each launched a push-to-talk feature, with Cingular following in 2005. Since then many other cell phone providers have announced plans to launch similar half-duplex features. Nextel and Verizon had entered a legal battle in June 2003 over Verizon's advertising for their push-to-talk feature. The companies then finally reached a settlement on February 13, 2004. Early advertising for Verizon's service was heavy, but it became almost nonexistent fairly quickly — this may have been due to poor reviews of the unclear service.

Prior to its merger with Sprint, NEXTEL had announced plans in 2003 for its next generation, or 4G offerings. It was reportedly to use an extension to iDEN called WiDEN, which is also from Motorola.

NEXTEL was headquartered in Reston, a community in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC.

1 History
2 Sprint acquisition
3 Major sponsorships
4 Management
5 External links

[edit] History

FleetCall was founded in 1987 by Morgan O'Brien, a telecommunication lawyer, and subsequently changed its name to NEXTEL Communications in 1993. In 1995, wireless pioneer Craig McCaw became a significant investor in the company. Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner was also an early investor.

The organization was called Fleet Call because it used frequencies designated by the FCC for use in taxi and fleet dispatch. The core of the business model was to buy these fleet dispatch frequencies at a substantial discount to the cost for the same bandwidth in established FCC-designated frequencies for wireless telephone service. These "non-cellular" frequencies were made usable for a consumer and business voice telephone service with Motorola's IDEN technology, which many observers initially felt would not be practicable.

Initially, FleetCall did not want to include the PTT feature in their phones, but the FCC required it as the initial frequencies were licensed for dispatch use. Subsequently, NEXTEL used this FCC-mandated feature as a key marketing advantage.

[edit] Sprint acquisition

Future plans for Nextel's push to talk service had included Nextel migrating its push to talk service to CDMA sometime after the acquisition was completed, as thought by Sprint was the third quarter, 2005. The acquisition was then approved by the shareholders and had obtained all regulatory approvals by August 9, 2005, the merger was closed mere weeks later.

[edit] Major sponsorships

Image:NASCARNextelCupLogo.png

In 2003, NEXTEL and stock car racing organizer NASCAR had announced a sponsorship agreement by which NASCAR's top racing series would be called the NEXTEL Cup starting in 2004; the series was formerly the Winston Cup. NEXTEL was also a major sponsor of the now defunct ChampCar team PacWest Racing, which was owned by Craig McCaw's brother Bruce.