Nextel — BrandWiki

Nextel

Overview

Nextel Communications, Inc.

trade name	Nextel
fate	Merged with Sprint Corporation
successor	Sprint Nextel
foundation	1987 (as FleetCall)
founders	Brian McAuley Morgan E. O'Brien Peter Reinheimer Chris Rogers
defunct	June 12, 2013
hq location city	Reston, Virginia
hq location country	United States
area served	United States
key people	Morgan O'Brien, Chairman (1987–1995), Vice-Chairman (1995–2005)
former name	FleetCall (1987–1993)
type	Public
industry	Wireless communications
revenue	US$13.368 billion (2004)
operating income	US$3.283 billion (2004)
net income	US$3.000 billion (2004)
assets	US$22.744 billion (2004)
equity	US$9.408 billion (2004)
num employees	19,000 (2005)
footnotes	‡R1R‡

Nextel Communications, Inc. was an American wireless service operator that merged with and ceased to exist as a subsidiary of Sprint Corporation, which would later be merged with T-Mobile US and folded into that company. Nextel in Brazil, and formerly in Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Philippines, and Mexico,[2] is part of NII Holdings, a stand-alone, publicly traded company not owned by Sprint Corporation.

Nextel Communications traces its roots to the 1987 foundation of FleetCall by Morgan O'Brien, Brian McAuley, Chris Rogers, and Peter Reinheimer. FleetCall changed its name to Nextel Communications, Inc. in 1993. Nextel provided digital, wireless communications services, originally focusing on the fleet and dispatch customers, but later marketed to all potential wireless customers. Nextel's network operated in the 800-MHz Specialized Mobile Radio band and used iDEN technology developed by Motorola. Nextel's iDEN network offered a then unique push-to-talk "walkie-talkie" feature in addition to direct-dialed voice calls. Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

Prior to merging with Sprint Corporation in 2005, Nextel Communications, Inc. was a publicly traded company. Shares traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol NXTL. Nextel was headquartered in Reston, Virginia, United States.[3]

Innovations and technologies

Nextel affected the cellular phone market in several ways. It was the first company to successfully provide unlimited calling plans to a large customer base. Nextel was the first company to implement a nationwide push-to-talk system similar to a walkie-talkie, marketed as DirectConnect. Unlike other cellular networks, the Nextel network operated in the Specialized Mobile Radio band, and Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint. The company was the first in the United States to integrate global positioning system features into their phones and to complete their 2G network upgrade.

Nextel was also an industry leader in customer lifecycle management. They invested significantly in analytics capability, which allowed them to surpass their competitors in handling customer concerns effectively. The company also developed capabilities allowing it to assess and review customer relationship values objectively and to project and respond to customer loyalty. As a result of these efforts, and what was reported to be a strong focus on customer satisfaction across the organization, Nextel was known for industry-leading customer retention rates, average revenue per user, and customer lifetime value.

iDEN

Nextel had long worked closely with a single vendor, Motorola, on both equipment and standards. The close relationship had yielded the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) protocol, which uses a time-division multiple access (TDMA) technology. Some of the special features the company utilized included its push-to-talk feature, which simulated the half-duplex operation of a two-way radio. Nextel was one of the few carriers to have adopted iDEN around the world, although the technology has gained traction through NII Holdings in Latin American countries. iDEN (Motorola) is also utilized in the Southeast of the United States by SouthernLINC Wireless and in Canada by Telus Mobility under the Mike Mobile brand.

Push to talk

Nextel gained a significant marketing and technological advantage through its push-to-talk technology. In 2003, Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS each launched push-to-talk features, with Cingular following in 2005. None have gained significant traction. Nextel and Verizon had entered a legal battle in June 2003 over Verizon's advertising for their push-to-talk feature. The companies reached a settlement in early 2004. Initial advertising for Verizon's service was heavy, but it became almost nonexistent fairly quickly, possibly due to poor reviews of the service.

The push-to-talk feature, with which Nextel has gained popularity, was made interoperable with the QChat technology on the Sprint network in 2008. Sprint had originally launched its own push-to-talk service, known as ReadyLink, which is based on SIP. Due to the difference in technology, users of the ReadyLink service were never able to make or receive push-to-talk calls with users of the iDEN technology. By 2009, Sprint began phasing out QChat to again focus on marketing iDEN devices.

Nextel also offers a feature on some of their phones, marketed as DirectTalk. The technology uses the 900 MHz ISM band and provides ten FHSS channels for an off-network push to talk communications between individual phones that are not necessarily in range of wireless towers.

WiDEN

In 2003, prior to its merger with Sprint, Nextel had announced plans for its next generation 3G network. It was reportedly to use an extension to iDEN called WiDEN, developed by Motorola. Nextel upgraded their network to support the WiDEN packet data protocol, increasing data speeds up to 90 kbit/s. The Motorola i850, i860, i870, and i880 were the only phones to support WiDEN without modification. 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.

Radio interference

Due to many underlying maintenance and life cycle issues within the legacy public safety systems of the United States, co-channel interference was a common occurrence within 800 MHz band. To resolve the problems, Nextel and the Federal Communications Commission developed a plan, approved by the FCC in August 2004, to relocate Nextel systems elsewhere in the 800 MHz band in order to reduce the potential for interference.[7]

Before rebanding, public safety organizations, business and industry organizations, and SMRs/ESMRs both operated in the 851-861 MHz range. ESMRs had exclusive use of the 861-866 MHz range, and public safety organizations had exclusive use of the 866-869 MHz range.

During the rebanding process, the following occurred:

After rebanding, public safety organizations and critical infrastructure institutions obtained the exclusive use of 851-854 MHz. ESMR systems (primarily Nextel) were given exclusive use of 862-869 MHz range, and public safety, business/industrial users, and low-power SMRs shared the 854-862 MHz spectrum. 860-861 MHz is designated as an "Expansion Band", and 861-862 MHz is designated as a "Guard Band". No licensees other than ESMR are required to relocate to channels above 860 MHz.

The use of contiguous spectrum allows for simple filters to be installed to protect public safety radio systems from interference, which is currently impossible under the existing mixed allocations in the 800 MHz band.

Nextel (Sprint) paid for much of the cost of this reconfiguration, but in compensation for lost 800 MHz spectrum, the company received spectrum in the 2 GHz band at 1910–1915/1990–1995 MHz. This spectrum was located 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 additional capacity in a spectrum auction.[8][9][10]

All licensees with channels between 866 and 869 MHz (NPSPAC) were required to relocate to equivalent channels between 851 and 854.

All licensees other than ESMRs with channels between 851 and 854 MHz were required to relocate to equivalent channels between 854 and 862.

Nextel and other ESMR operators must relinquish all channels below 862 MHz. The FCC has required Nextel to vacate all its channels in the band from 854 to 854.5 nationwide as soon as possible to provide additional spectrum for public safety needs.

Public safety organizations has exclusive access to all vacated Nextel channels for 3 years, after which they are open to all eligible users.