Filed under: Cellphones

Still committed to iDEN, eh? After another relatively brutal quarter of lost cash, lost subscribers, and lost opportunities, word on the street is that Sprint might be rethinking its approach to its legacy push-to-talk network — the obsolescence-bound spectrum it acquired via its purchase of Nextel a few years back for the questionable price of $35 billion. Given Sprint’s current financial state, a liquidity crunch means that the carrier is looking to offload any salable piece; Nextel’s not exactly the most attractive piece of that puzzle with a declining subscriber base, limited bandwidth, and a limited range of Moto hardware to back it up, but even at its current estimated value of $5 billion, analysts are suggesting that Sprint could be willing to bite at a deal. NII Holdings, which operates iDEN networks under the Nextel brand in Brazil, Mexico, and a handful of other Latin American countries, is being tossed around as a potential suitor, as are private equity firms looking to make a quick buck. How one goes about making a quick buck on a network as old and quirky as iDEN in the year 2008, though, remains to be seen.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Want to get around those costly, annoying fees the telcos hit you with if you break your cellphone contract early? Get a job with the US government. According to internal emails from Nextel which were uncovered by the Associated Press, the company debated whether it could charge the folks in power early termination fees (ETFs), with then-vice president Scott Wiener arguing that “the government will never, never accept such penalty amounts.” Nextel ultimately decided to forgo the charges for Uncle Sam, while continuing to bilk its average users without as much as a batted eyelash. The FCC is currently taking a look at the fee situation — let’s see if they can give end users a fairer shake than the providers.

[Thanks, Travis]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

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Things aren’t going so hot down Sprint way right now — although the carrier recently entered into that landmark $12B WiMAX deal with Clearwire and several other companies, it lost over a million wireless subscribers last quarter and posted a net loss of $211M. That’s enough for CEO Dan Hesse to smack the emergency button: he’s laying off 4,000 workers, closing Sprint stores, and cutting rates in an efforts to gain back customers and get back into the black. On top of all that, word on the street is that Sprint may also start selling off other assets, including lame-duck Nextel, even though that would involve “significant complexities,” according to Hesse. Still, just the fact that he’s thinking about it seems like a sign — too bad no one asked him about those Deutsche Telekom buyout rumors.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Q1 2008 wasn’t a pretty one for Sprint. The company lost 1.09 million subscribers to the competition, while also losing a bit of ground on its average revenue per customer, now at $56 a month. Sprint’s got 52.8 subscribers left to squander work with, so we’ll see if initiatives like a potential Nextel spinoff or the upcoming Samsung Instinct (pictured) can do anything to staunch the bleeding.

[Via Electronista]

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Filed under: Cellphones

We’d take this with half a tablespoon of salt for now, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint-Nextel Corp. is “seriously considering spinning off or selling its ailing Nextel unit.” That’s according to undisclosed people “familiar with the situation,” though Sprint did decline to comment on whether it actually was considering a sale of Nextel. Also of note, Cyren Call is reportedly attempting to “assemble a consortium of investors to acquire Nextel as part of its plans to create a nationwide wireless network for public safety communications,” and while it can’t be confirmed, we are hearing that Sprint is “contemplating other possible buyers such as private equity firms.” Still, these same sources made clear that “no deal was imminent and that Sprint was preoccupied for the moment with other matters.” It’s no secret that the firm would be way more attractive to suitors (read: Deutsche Telekom) if the flagging Nextel division was detached from the deal, but we guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out. [Warning: read link requires subscription]

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, image courtesy of Flickr]

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After some serious neglect, Sprint is finally giving the Nextel iDEN network some new devices, not the least of which is a WiFi BlackBerry, says Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. The phone will hit the network “later this year,” and will be accompanied by phones from Sanyo, Samsung, Motorola and LG that will rock the Sprint CDMA, but will use Nextel capabilities for push-to-talk. That old 7100i (pictured) doesn’t stand a chance.

[Via Boy Genius]

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Fresh out of the FCC’s lair comes a new pair of QChat-enabled mobiles ready to launch on Sprint: Sanyo’s Pro-200 and Pro-700. Unsurprisingly getting official at CTIA, the pair of Nextel Direct Connect devices can handle all the hot PTT action you could ask for, and while the Pro-200 (shown above) checks in with Bluetooth, messaging capabilities and mobile e-mail, the beefier brother (pictured after the jump) touts a ruggedized shell “certified to military standards for dust, shock and vibration.” Curiously, the duo is only expected to go on sale in “limited markets” this month, with availability popping up elsewhere in due time; those eager to get their chirp on can plan on dropping $49.99 / $69.99 on contract, respectively.

[Thanks, Colton]

Continue reading Sanyo’s Pro-200 and Pro-700 Direct Connect handsets get official

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Filed under: Cellphones

Well, it looks like the aggressively priced unlimited action really didn’t come a moment too soon. We’re no economists here, but it doesn’t take rocket science, a Ph.D., collegiate level maths, or even a fancy calculator to crunch the cold, hard numbers coming out of Sprint Nextel’s fourth quarter earnings call. For starters, the number three carrier in the US reported a net loss of nearly $29.5 billion, which — get this — is more than the combined value of its outstanding stock. Let us reiterate for emphasis and drama value: Sprint lost more money in the fourth quarter of 2007 than the company is worth. Wow. If it’s any consolation, the staggering figure is largely due to a $29.7 billion write-down of Nextel’s value, which as the Wall Street Journal lays out, makes the 2005 merger officially a “Deal From Hell.” With postpaid subscribers continuing to migrate to other carriers, there’s no telling how to stop the hemorrhaging — especially if the fresh $99 unlimited plan doesn’t end up doing the trick — but something tells us the move to Kansas isn’t going to magically patch it all up.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Well, it looks like the aggressively priced unlimited action really didn’t come a moment too soon. We’re no economists here, but it doesn’t take rocket science, a Ph.D., collegiate level maths, or even a fancy calculator to crunch the cold, hard numbers coming out of Sprint Nextel’s fourth quarter earnings call. For starters, the number three carrier in the US reported a net loss of nearly $29.5 billion, which — get this — is more than the combined value of its outstanding stock. Let us reiterate for emphasis and drama value: Sprint lost more money in the fourth quarter of 2007 than the company is worth. Wow. If it’s any consolation, the staggering figure is largely due to a $29.7 billion write-down of Nextel’s value, which as the Wall Street Journal lays out, makes the 2005 merger officially a “Deal From Hell.” With postpaid subscribers continuing to migrate to other carriers, there’s no telling how to stop the hemorrhaging — especially if the fresh $99 unlimited plan doesn’t end up doing the trick — but something tells us the move to Kansas isn’t going to magically patch it all up.

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Filed under: Cellphones

With the bleak news out of Sprint’s camp this morning, employees, stockholders, analysts, and subscribers all have to be wondering pretty much the same thing: what’s going wrong? Xohm’s just around the corner, so these guys have a pretty good lead on the competition in the race to 4G — but is there something far more systematic about Sprint’s core business that’s causing paying heads to leave in droves?

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Filed under: Cellphones

Although Sprint has coughed up some $1 billion over the past few years in order to nix the interference between 2,200 public safety agencies across the US and its iDEN network, it apparently hasn’t done enough. Reportedly, the FCC has warned Sprint that it “could lose access to the signal spectrum used by its Nextel- and Boost Mobile-branded wireless services” if it doesn’t remedy the problem by June of 2008. Supposedly, Sprint is “working hard” to settle the issue, but it’s not wasting any time asking the US Court of Appeals to get involved. The carrier claims that these shut down threats could force it to halt signups of Nextel-branded customers, and furthermore, around three million public-safety workers would purportedly lose service if the FCC did indeed shut down the Nextel network. ‘Course, industry analysts are suggesting that regulators wouldn’t really go through with shutting it down, but if nothing else, this should light a fire under Sprint to expedite the process.

[Via PhoneScoop]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

An under-the-radar class action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel is winding its way towards a settlement this week, and it contains a pretty huge concession by Sprint: the company will unlock phones for both current and former customers, and will begin training its customer service reps on how to connect non-Sprint phones to its network. The settlement was tentatively approved by a California judge on October 2, but hasn’t had a final approval hearing yet, according to Sprint — but it’s still a huge win for US consumers, who haven’t been able to buy mainstream unlocked phones from any of the major carriers. Of course, since Sprint’s network is CDMA, unlocked phones will only work on other CDMA carriers like Verizon — and there’s no guarantees those companies will be happy about it — but at this point we’ll take whatever we can get.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Vonage, everyone’s favorite “gettin’ sued by The Man” company has taken another beating in the Sprint-Nextel patent suit, agreeing to settle the case and license the telco’s Internet-calling technology for the tidy sum of $80 million. This comes hot on the heels of last month’s ruling, which stipulated that Vonage was to pay $69.5 million to Sprint over six patents which the mobile phone company says it had infringed. “We are pleased to resolve our dispute with Sprint and enter into a productive future relationship,” said Sharon O’Leary, General Counsel for Vonage, though it’s possible she wasn’t as ecstatic as that quote would have you believe. This is just another money-siphoning event for the VoIP company, which in March was hit up for $66 million from Verizon for illegally using some of its patents. If you’re keeping count at home, that’s $215.5 million paid out. If this keeps up, they may not even be able to afford those snappy commercials anymore. [Warning: read link requires subscription]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!