Sprint Charging $10 Fee to Nextel Subs Who Don't Upgrade

In terms of PTT, iDEN is actually more efficient (and far more reliable) than any of the PTT emulators now running at Sprint, ATT & Verizon. iDEN was no good for data, and the 800 MHz spectrum Nextel owned was maxed out in terms of subscriber capacity, those are indeed facts, and ones that Nextel was keenly aware of.

To that end, Nextel already had plans for, and was indeed in the process of running, real-world regional trials, of Flarion for high-speed data (a forerunner to the current WiMax & LTE data systems in use today), and the 1900 MHz specturm they owned was already slated for their eventual switch to CDMA for voice. So the facts are that Nextel was years ahead of any other US carrier in terms of pushing the boundaries of high-speed data over wireless. They intended to introduce the CDMA and Flarion alongside iDEN, shifting iDEN bandwidth to PTT only, voice on CDMA, data on Flarion, until such time as the CDMA or Flarion PTT was as good as iDEN's, then and only then was iDEN to be discontinued (if then). Sprint bought Nextel and immediately cancelled all of those plans that Nextel had in motion.

Years before Sprint took over, Nextel owned outright a decent amount of 800 MHz spectrum, a large chunk of 1900 MHz spectrum, and a massive amount of 2.5 GHz spectrum (you remember, the seamless nationwide coverage of that huge swath of 2.5 GHz that Sprint gave to Clearwire). Nextel was spectrum-rich until Sprint came along and frittered it away with the now-proven-stupid colaboration with Clearwire. Sprint wanted Nextel for three things: (1) the aforementioned spectrum assets, (2) the industry-leading ARPU of Nextel's customer base, and (3) the massive number of lucrative commercial & government wireless contracts that Nextel had been successful with for years on end.

Why did Nextel let Sprint buy them, instead of Nextel buying Sprint? That's a mystery. Nextel was by far a better run, more successful company than Sprint ever was. Smaller, but far more successful, and far, far better respected than Sprint. So it is a good question you ask, one for which the only answer I can think of is that the Nextel board of directors knew a lucrative deal then they saw one, so they cashed out and ran straight to their Swiss bank accounts while the cash was still warm.