Friday, October 31, 2008
Sprint to Rejuvenate Network No One Will Buy
Looks like Sprint is going to keep Nextel after all. Seems it views Nextel’s iDen walkie-talkie network as “a key differentiator” against rivals and plans to aggressively rejuvenate it. Never mind that Nextel might fetch as much as $5 billion that could be used in the company’s market share battle with Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Never mind that it has been hemorrhaging customers even faster than Sprint, adding to the company’s financial woes. Never mind that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse earlier this month said an iDEN sale was a possibility, telling reporters that “everything is on the table.”
Now that the Justice Department has asked a hotshot litigator to review the proposed search-advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo, everyone seems to be getting into the act. California Attorney General Jerry Brown is reportedly looking askance at the deal, apparently with an eye toward an investigation.
Come next month there will be another retail outlet at which to wait in line for an iPhone. On Sept. 7, Best Buy will become the first U.S. retail chain to sell the iPhone outside of the Apple-AT&T duopoly. The deal is an obvious coup for the big-box retailer, which, with the exception of Apple and AT&T, has a national exclusive on the device through Christmas. 
