Sprint Near Deal to Buy Nextel for $34 Billion

[garys]

LOL! Can they throw echairs at each other?

On a quasi serious note, if Nextel is going to abandon their 800 Mhz systems doesn't this make rebanding moot?

 

[K5MAR]

On a quasi serious note, if Nextel is going to abandon their 800 Mhz systems doesn't this make rebanding moot?

That's what I'm wondering, Gary. If the new supersized Sprint dumps all the Nextel sites and requires current Nextel users to get new phones, then the whole point of the rebanding is gone. Not to mention the need for all those 800 MHz users to migrate to 700 MHz, with the attendant chaos.

No need for the sweetheart frequency grant to Nextel either. So, suddenly, we have some extra freqs available for more users to grow into, instead of everybody having to "Packup and Move"!

And this will also extend the useable life of all our 800 MHz trunking scanners for several more years! :lol:

Time will tell.

Mark S.

 

[zgafford]

They MERGER(not buy-out) has been approved by both companies which means there is a 99% chance it will happen.

read full story here

 

[WayneH]

The word someone passed to me was that Sprint Nextel will continue the iDEN network till 2008 alongside the CDMA network. So unfortunately the current handsets will become obsolete; at least it's not soon. I'm sure Sprint Nextel will offer some kind of trade-in plan. But, once the iDEN network is shut down Sprint Nextel's CDMA network should be able to offer the same PTT services if not better. There's a possibility that even before the iDEN network is shutoff that you'll be able to PTT between each network.

Nextel probably won't lay off that many people as they really have close to nothing for employees. 18-19 thousand?

Motorola's gonna have to do something to keep up here so I'm curious what they have on the horizon.

-Wayne

 

[RolnCode3]

Well, some of the speculation appears to be over.

Sprint/Nextel Merger Announcement from Sprint's website

 

[zgafford]

Motorola is going to suffer more than anyone on this deal unless they can finagle a new contract somehow. I hope the DirectConnect service does not suffer. Verizon offers a similar service but can take up to 15 seconds for a connection whereas Nextel's is less than 2 seconds on most cases.

 

[ShawnCowden]

Motorola to Chip in Phones Compatible With Both Sprint and Nextel Networks
Dec. 16--Motorola Corp. will develop a new phone specifically for the Sprint --Nextel combination announced Wednesday, softening any potential blow from the merger.

Schaumburg-based Motorola will build a phone capable of operating on both Sprint's and Nextel's systems, Sprint Nextel Chairman Timothy Donahue said Wednesday.

"It's a modest positive," said Christopher Versace, a stock analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey in northern Virginia.

Sprint's and Nextel's networks run on different technologies. Nextel's system is a proprietary one developed by Motorola, and Motorola is the company's sole supplier.

Worries swept Wall Street last week that Motorola would be hurt by the merger because it would quickly lose its coveted business with Nextel.

Those concerns subsided as investors realized that Nextel's proprietary system wasn't going to go away overnight. Analysts predict it will be a couple of years before Sprint and Nextel's systems are merged.

In the meantime, customers who want to use both systems will need a phone capable of working on both. It's not clear yet when such a phone will be introduced, or how many will be needed, said Steven Hendricks, a Motorola spokesman.

"After today's announcement, things got fired up a little more for us in that we have to make it happen," he said.

The wireless network used by Nextel is known as iDEN, which allows a cell phone to double as a walkie-talkie, a feature that's helped Nextel build a lucrative customer base with businesses.

Its weakness: iDEN is poor for transmitting batches of data over the airwaves, yet that is where the next generation of cell phones is headed. By around 2008, the iDEN technology "will be tapped out," Hendricks said.

Some on Wall Street have worried that the Sprint-Nextel merger will lead iDEN to be tapped out even sooner. And even if it is around for a few years, Sprint Nextel will likely slow capital spending on the iDEN network, Versace said.

With the Sprint deal looming, Versace early this week reduced his rating on Motorola's stock from "outperform" to "market perform."

Other stock analysts, however, say worries over the merger's effect on Motorola have been overblown.

The deal will open up new opportunities for Motorola, said Albert Lin, a stock analyst in San Francisco with American Technology Research.

In the short term, Motorola will make the dual-technology phone, and in the long-term it gets a better chance to bolster its business with Sprint.

While Motorola has a major contract to help build a new Sprint cellular network, Sprint offers only one Motorola phone -- a lower-tier model -- among its couple dozen offerings.

"Motorola has tried for years to break into Sprint," Lin said. Now, "a merger with Nextel forces Sprint to deal with Motorola."

Donahue, Sprint Nextel's chairman, sounded a note of optimism for Motorola Wednesday. Motorola will have a "long life" with Sprint Nextel, he said. (Reuters)

Motorola's stock closed Wednesday at $16.96, up 11 cents.

This article contains information from Reuters.

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