12/24/2004
Nextel and Sprint
I think who ever's brain child this was at Sprint needs to be put out to pasture. The reasons are manifold, and while i don't want to strain the eyes of people by deliniating all of them i will go through a few....
- Incompatible networks. IDEN, the network type used by Nextel, and very, very few others is almost completely a technological dead end. The only handset maker with an experience making IDEN handsets is the withering Motorola. Sprint's CDMA is the second most used network type, but Sprint according to industry reports has already made plans to upgrade their network to 3G technology. This means, that unless the 3G plans are held off until the networks are fully meshed, that the post merger Spring would have three or more different network types to manage.
- Customer Advantages: Mostly their are none. Nextels business based customer fold is used to being pampered, and Sprint is the company that invented customer service with fees. The projected date for a handset that will work on both networks is 2006. Yes, the year after next.
- Billing and rate plans. Both Nextel and Sprint offer a plethora of plans, and having legacy customers who refuse to switch will complicate things, and cause further cutomer upset when they can't get the service and answers they desire from service center operators.
