Nextel Communications

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Nextel Communications, Inc.
Fate	Acquisition
Successor	Sprint Nextel Corporation
Founded	1987
Defunct	2005
Location	Reston, Virginia, USA
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	Wireless: GPS, iDEN, WiDEN, Flash-OFDM, Push to talk, Mobitex, Long distance, Internet services, BlackBerrys

Nextel Communications, styled NEXTEL, (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 providers' networks, Nextel's network operated in the Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) band, and Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

Nextel had over 20 million U.S. subscribers, and in 2006, 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.

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

[edit] Innovations and technologies

Nextel had long worked closely with a single Multiple vendors, Motorola, on both equipment and standards, though a competitor Kyocera was reported to be working on compatible handsets. The close relationship had yielded the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (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, but this has changed. In addition, since few carriers adopted iDEN around the world, Nextel users have no other iDEN carriers to fallback on or roam on in the USA. In other countries there are non-Nextel carriers that have iDEN networks that Nextel users roam on. (see iDEN)

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 (now AT&T Mobility) 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. Nextel also offers GPS integration in current handsets. However, there are several downsides related to using this proprietary Motorola technology standard. It has been suggested there has been a lack of innovation in handset size, weight, and function compared to cellular industry trends, though many believe this has begun to change as result of the Sprint Nextel merger. A small number of carriers have adopted iDEN in North America, with SouthernLINC Wireless, Airtel in Montana (not the Indian Airtel separately listed in Wikipedia) and Airpeak in the US, and with Telus offering iDEN service in Canada under the Mike Mobile brand.

The push-to-talk (PTT) feature, with which Nextel has gained popularity, is expected to be made interoperable between the Sprint and Nextel networks by 2008. Currently, Sprint PCS has its own push-to-talk service called ReadyLink which is based on the SIP VoIP protocol. Due to the difference in technology, users of the ReadyLink service cannot make or receive push-to-talk calls with users of the iDEN-based network. The integration of the two networks will be dependent on the deployment of Sprint's chosen successor to the first-phase of their high-speed wireless EV-DO network. The new push-to-talk platform is slated to be based on Qualcomm's Qchat product, which has been under development as a joint effort between Sprint, Nextel and Qualcomm since January 2002. Nextel also offers a feature on some of their phones called DirectTalk. This uses the 900 MHz ISM band and provides 10 FHSS "channels". It provides for simplex "off network" PTT communications between individual phones.

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 upgraded their network to support the WiDEN packet-data protocol. This has allowed an increase in data speeds of up to 90 kbit/s. Currently, the Motorola i850, i860, i870 and i880 are the only phones to support WiDEN without modification. Use of Motorola's RSS software and modifications found at many cell phone forums sites allow users of the i930 and i920 handsets to add the WiDEN service to their phones, which was built into these handsets, but not activated. In October 2005, in order to free up network capacity for cellular calls due to rebanding, Sprint removed the ability to connect to the WiDEN service from all Nextel towers.

[edit] History

FleetCall was founded in 1987 by Morgan E. 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.

Initially, there was much speculation that current Nextel subscribers would be required to replace their existing handsets due to incompatibility between the standards used on both the Nextel and Sprint PCS network. However, since the time of the merger, Sprint Nextel has been working to assure its customers that both the current iDEN and CDMA technologies will continue to be supported for the current time and that dual-band phones are being developed that will work on both networks simultaneously. Sprint Nextel plans to make a major marketing push in 2008 to convert users of the iDEN network to CDMA users.

Nextel is a very diverse selection of mobile phones. This is especially true when related to its selection of alternate mobile phone manufacturers, as Motorola has seldom licensed its iDEN technology out to other handset vendors. All phones on Sprint Nextel's iDEN network thus far has been manufactured solely by Motorola, except for a few specialized devices sold by vendors such as Research In Motion (RIM), which has and continues to offer for sale versions of its BlackBerry PDA-style device.

In the late-summer and early fall seasons of 2006, Sprint Nextel rolled out two "Hybrid" Motorola phones that were a turning point for the company. Motorola released the ic502 and the ic402 (released on November 5) ^[1]. The new series of phones uses the Sprint CDMA network for making calls and Internet connectivity, and uses the Nextel iDEN network for connecting to Motorola's walkie-talkie technology known as Direct Connect. This new series builds on the fast connectivity of the Direct Connect walkie-talkie network and combines it with the larger network coverage area of Sprint's PCS service area.

• Motorola iDEN phones

[edit] Interference with police and fire radios

Nextel's systems in U.S. cities have been linked to significant problems affecting municipal government trunked and conventional 800 MHz two-way radio systems. These problems were costly to address and technically difficult to resolve.

Federal Communications Commission precedent called for the party causing interference to solve the problem. The interference stems from Nextel's buy-out of private analog FM two-way radio systems. To expand capacity of their digital iDEN systems the company purchased private commercial two-way systems from small companies in cities nationwide. After purchase the analog equipment was removed and replaced with Nextel's digital trunked system transmitters or "EBTS." In some cases these new transmitters were configured in ways that caused interference to existing systems–including police and fire systems. The irony is that many public services use the Nextel system. This interference is difficult to filter out because the original spectrum plan for the 800 MHz band interleaved business, public safety, and commercial mobile radio systems on adjacent channels.

To resolve these problems, Nextel and the Federal Communications Commission developed a plan, approved by the FCC in August of 2004 ^[2] to relocate systems on certain 800 MHz frequencies to elsewhere in the 800 MHz band in order to reduce the potential for interference. Specifically, systems on the 806-809/851-854 MHz band will initially swap with Nextel frequencies in the 809-814/854-859 MHz band, leaving Nextel the only user in 806-809/851-854 MHz. Then the Nextel use of the 806-809/851-854 MHz band will be swapped with the national public safety use of the 821-824/866-869 MHz band, leaving Nextel with contiguous spectrum in 817-824/862-869 MHz and the business and public safety users in contiguous spectrum at 806-817/851-862 MHz. The use of contiguous spectrum allows for simple filters to be installed to protect the public safety radio systems from interference, which is currently impossible under the existing channelization of the 800 MHz band. Nextel is paying for much of the cost of this reconfiguration, but in compensation for "lost" 800 MHz spectrum is receiving spectrum in the 2 GHz band at 1910-1915/1990-1995 MHz. The 2 GHz spectrum is near the existing Sprint PCS allocations and can be used to expand the number of channels available for that service, without needing to bid for that additional capacity in a spectrum auction.^[3][4][5][6]

[edit] Major sponsorships

In 2003, Nextel and stock car racing organizer NASCAR 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. The series was renamed NASCAR Sprint Cup in 2008, in co-ordinance with Sprint Nextel's announced plans to phase out the Nextel name by 2010. Nextel was also a major sponsor of the now defunct ChampCar team PacWest Racing, which was owned by Craig McCaw's brother Bruce.

[edit] Management

• Chairman: William E. Conway Jr., 54
• President, CEO, and Director: Timothy M. (Tim) Donahue, 54, US$26.33M
• EVP and COO: Thomas N. (Tom) Kelly Jr, 56, US$5.59M

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official web site
• Yahoo! - Nextel Communications, Inc. Company Profile