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FCC Approves Sprint-Nextel Merger
Luke writes "Sprint and Nextel received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to merge to form the number three wireless company on Wednesday. FCC commissioners gave the companies unanimous support for the merger. The companies, which announced the merger on Dec. 14, 2004, expect to finalize the merger soon."
I can't believe that a great company like Nextel wants to merge with a crappy company like Sprint. It kind of reminds me when Sears merged with K-mart. The sad thing is that it's usually the weaker partner that wins out.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Does anyone out there know what will happen from a network technology perspective? It seems to me that Nextel's iDen "standard" is entirely incompatible with Sprint. Will Spring just send Nextel customers new Sprint units? Then what happens to Push to Talk?
What will the NASCAR championship be called now?
I'm a Sprint customer right now, and I can honestly say Sprint sucks. Granted, everyone has horror stories about any one particular wireless provider (none are perfect), but the issues I've had with Sprint have been insane.
It's not so much the service itself (which is not great, I still get dropped calls from time to time, but it's acceptable). It's their crummy customer service and problem resolution system. They disconnected my service 'accidentally', claiming I hadn't paid my bill when I had, despite the fact their customer service reps told me their computers showed a credit on my account followed by a "I don't understand why this happened. Don't worry, we'll fix it. Your service will be on within four hours." Four hours would pass, no service, I'd call again, same response with a "oh, this time it will be different". This lasted 3 ½ days. To make matters worse, every time I'd call their "customer care" number and punch in my phone number, they'd bump me to their collections department, where I'd wait on hold before getting to speak with somebody who would insist I hadn't paid my bill until I convinced them to look at their computer, then transfer me back into the queue for their regular customer service. To make matters worse, about one out of every three calls I made connected me with such a thick accent I couldn't understand them, and they had real trouble understanding me.
There's a lot more; this is just the problem I've had in the last week. I'm stuck in this contract with them for another 11 months and to date fully expect to ditch them as soon as my contract is up.
So my question is this: with Nextel, can I expect things to get any better?
The Internet is generally stupid
This is sadly quite true.
What began as a useful feature for business users, has become the height of obnoxiousness when used by individuals. It's unfortunate that it wasn't kept just to the expensive ruggedized Motorola-Nextel commercial handsets. You don't see regular people walking around using business two-way radios in public, and you shouldn't use a PTT cellphone either.
The only thing more expensive, IMO, are polyphonic ringtones. Whoever thought that it was a cool idea to allow every idiot with a cellphone to subject everyone around them to their favorite rap song or cartoon jingle, needs to be shot.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Nextel uses SIMs, CDMA providers do not. From a corporate standpoint, SIMs give a phone a lower TCO because you can easily reuse handsets. Bob want's Joe's phone and Joe wants Bob's phone. A simple SIM swap is all it takes. For Sprint or Verizon, it's practically a week long process. Where I work, if someone gets fired or quits or turns in their phone. We just call Nextel or Tmobile and cancel the account then the phone (usually a Blackberry) gets put in a box. Then Joe Newguy, gets hired, we just put a working SIM from whoever most recently turned in a phone, in the phone and give it to him. Changing numbers is a snap with SIMs, just call up the provider and they can issue you a new number in 2 minutes. Verizon wanted me to key in a bunch of stuff in the phone to make it work.
From what I read while helping to build a case to defend a former customer from their bullying collection tactics (You shouldn't cash peoples checks, and not provide service.. then try to charge termination fees, when you were the one that turned off the customers phones even when the bills were paid.)
Sprint PCS is a DBA name for Ubiqicom (sp?), apperently they licensed the Sprint name from the 'real' Sprint.
Kinda like that "Lawnmower Man" movie, based on "The Story by Stephen King", which sucked so bad.
Careful who you let use your business name.
What began as a useful feature for business users, has become the height of obnoxiousness when used by individuals. It's unfortunate that it wasn't kept just to the expensive ruggedized Motorola-Nextel commercial handsets. You don't see regular people walking around using business two-way radios in public, and you shouldn't use a PTT cellphone either.
Agreed, I would have been much happier if they had just migrated the ruggedized handsets to the consumer market and left PTT with the business types. I'm the kind of person who would love to get a really, really sturdy full-featured phone. There is nothing worse than the Black Screen Of Death from a cracked LCD. I'm hoping that they will wake up to the demand some day.
The only thing more expensive, IMO, are polyphonic ringtones. Whoever thought that it was a cool idea to allow every idiot with a cellphone to subject everyone around them to their favorite rap song or cartoon jingle, needs to be shot.
I hated polys, that is until I downloaded "The Pink Panther Theme". It just works so well and actually gets me compliments for its unobtrusiveness and pleasant sound. Then again, I've never met anyone who hated the "Pink Panther Theme".
I absolutely adore my cell phone provider. Almost physically. Verizon kicks serious ass in my neighborhood; it was up through Hurricanes Ivan, Dennis, etc etc etc. (include: all storms last year).
'Tis beauty itself.