Nextel Communications, Inc.

Former type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: NXTL
Industry	Wireless Communications
Fate	merged with Sprint Nextel Corporation
Predecessor(s)	FleetCall
Successor(s)	Nextel Communications, Inc. (subsidiary of Sprint Nextel)
Founded	1987 (1987) as FleetCall
Founder(s)	Brian McAuley Morgan E. O'Brien
Defunct	August 12, 2005 (2005-08-12)
Headquarters	Reston, Virginia, United States
Area served	United States
Key people	Morgan O'Brien, Chairman (1987-1995), Vice-Chairman (1995-2005)
Revenue	US$ 13,368 million (2004)
Operating income	US$ 3,283 million (2004)
Net income	US$ 3,000 million (2004)
Total assets	US$ 22,744 million (2004)
Total equity	US$ 9,408 million (2004)
Employees	19,000 (2005)
Parent	Sprint Nextel Corporation
Website	nextel.com
References: [1][2]

Nextel Communications, Inc., is a subisidiary of Sprint Nextel Corporation that traces its roots to the 1987 foundation of FleetCall by Morgan O'Brien and Brian McAuley. FleetCall changed its name to Nextel Communications, Inc. in 1993. Nextel provided digital, wireless communications services, originally focusing on fleet and dispatch customers, but later marketed to all potential wireless customers. Nextel's network operated in the 800MHz Specialized Mobile Radio band and used iDEN technology developed by Motorola. Nextel's iDen network offered a then unique push-to-talk "walkie-talkie" feature in addition to direct dialed voice calls. Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

Prior to merging with Sprint Corporation in 2005, Nextel Communications, Inc. was a publicly traded company. Shares traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol NXTL. Nextel was headquartered in Reston, Virginia, United States.^[2]

At the time of its 2005 merger with Sprint Communications, Nextel had over twenty million subscribers in the United States, and served 198 of the top 200 markets. Nextel Communications, Inc. offered post paid services under the Nextel brand and prepaid services under the Boost Mobile brand.

On 30th May 2012,Sprint Nextel said that it would shut down the Nextel network as early as June 2013.^[3] Sprint will deploy CDMA equipment on the 800 MHz spectrum formerly used by the iDEN network. Sprint will continue to offer pre-paid services under the Boost Mobile brand and will continue to offer push-to-talk services using CDMA equipment.

History[link]

Morgan O'Brien, a telecommunication lawyer, and Brian McAuley, an investment banker founded FleetCall in 1987. FleetCall changed its name to Nextel Communications in 1993. In 1995, wireless industry pioneer Craig McCaw became a significant investor in the company. Other early investors include Mark Warner, now a United States Senator from Virginia, and Jack Markell, the current Governor of Delaware.

The founders choose the name "FleetCall" because the company's network used the 800MHz Specialized Mobile Radio frequencies designated by the Federal Communications Commission for use in fleet dispatch. The core of the business model was to buy these fleet dispatch frequencies from existing operators at a substantial discount when compared to the cost for equivalent bandwidth available via auction from the Federal Communications Commission. These "non-cellular" frequencies were made usable for a consumer and business wireless voice telephone service with the iDEN technology developed by Motorola, which some observers at the time said would not be practical. Initially, FleetCall did not want to include the push to talk feature in their phones, but the FCC required it as the initial frequencies were licensed for dispatch use. Later, Nextel would use the push-to-talk feature as a key marketing advantage.

Innovations and technologies[link]

Nextel affected the cellular phone market in several ways. It was the first company to successfully provide unlimited calling plans to a large customer base. Nextel was the first company to implement a nationwide push-to-talk system similar to a walkie-talkie, marketed as DirectConnect. Unlike other cellular networks, the Nextel network operated in the Specialized Mobile Radio band, and Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint. The company was the first in the United States to integrate global positioning system features into their phones and to complete their 2G network upgrade.

Nextel was also an industry leader in customer lifecycle management. They invested significantly in analytics capability, which allowed them to surpass their competitors in handling customer concerns effectively. The company also developed capabilities allowing it to assess and review customer relationship values objectively and to project and respond to customer loyalty. As a result of these efforts, and what was reported to be a strong focus on customer satisfaction across the organization, Nextel was known for industry leading customer retention rates, average revenue per user, and customer lifetime value.

iDEN[link]

Nextel had long worked closely with a single vendor, Motorola, on both equipment and standards.^{[citation needed]} The close relationship had yielded the Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) protocol, which uses a time division multiple access technology. Some of the special features the company utilized included its push-to-talk feature, which simulated the half-duplex operation of a two-way radio. Nextel was one of the few carriers to have adopted iDEN around the world, although the technology has gained traction through NII Holdings in Latin America. As well, iDEN is utilized in the Southeast United States by SouthernLINC Wireless and in Canada by Telus under the Mike Mobile brand.

Push to talk[link]

Nextel gained a significant marketing and technological advantage through its push-to-talk technology^{[clarification needed]}. In 2003, Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS each launched push-to-talk features, with Cingular following in 2005; none have gained significant traction. Nextel and Verizon had entered a legal battle in June 2003 over Verizon's advertising for their push-to-talk feature. The companies reached a settlement in early 2004. Initial advertising for Verizon's service was heavy, but it became almost nonexistent fairly quickly that may have been due to poor reviews of the service.

The push-to-talk feature, with which Nextel has gained popularity, was made interoperable with the QChat technology on the Sprint network in 2008. Sprint had originally launched its own push-to-talk service, known as ReadyLink, which is based on SIP. Due to the difference in technology, users of the ReadyLink service were never able to make or receive push-to-talk calls with users of the iDEN technology. By 2009, Sprint began phasing out QChat to again focus on marketing iDEN devices.

Nextel also offers a feature on some of their phones, marketed as DirectTalk. The technology uses the 900 MHz ISM band and provides ten FHSS channels for off network push to talk communications between individual phones that are not necessarily in range of wireless towers.

WiDEN[link]

In 2003, prior to its merger with Sprint, Nextel had announced plans for its next generation 3G network. It was reportedly to use an extension to iDEN called WiDEN, developed by Motorola. Nextel upgraded their network to support the WiDEN packet data protocol, increasing data speeds up to 90 kbit/s. The Motorola i850, i860, i870, and i880 were the only phones to support WiDEN without modification. In October 2005, in order to free up network capacity for cellular calls due to rebanding, Sprint removed the ability to connect to the WiDEN service from all Nextel towers.

Merger with Sprint[link]

Introduced after the 2005 merger of Sprint and Nextel, this brand mark combines the yellow/black Nextel color scheme with the "Sprint" word mark and "pin drop" logo.

Following the completion of the Sprint Nextel merger in late 2005, future plans for Nextel included migrating iDEN customers to CDMA at some point in the years after the acquisition was completed.^[4] Initially, there was much speculation that current Nextel subscribers would be required to replace their existing handsets due to incompatibility between the standards used on the separate Nextel and Sprint networks. Sprint initially marketed hybrid devices that operated on both Nextel and Sprint networks, but has since discontinued selling the phones. Sprint also marketed, for a time, Sprint devices utilizing QChat for compatibility with the Nextel push-to-talk network, which was also being phased out by 2009.

At one time, phones on the Nextel network were manufactured by Motorola and Research In Motion. However this changed over time, with Sanyo and Samsung phones becoming available.

Radio interference[link]

Nextel towers in the United States have caused radio interference with commercial and public safety trunked and conventional 800 MHz two-way radio systems. To resolve the problems, Nextel and the Federal Communications Commission developed a plan, approved by the FCC in August 2004, to relocate Nextel systems elsewhere in the 800 MHz band in order to reduce the potential for interference.^[5]

Before rebanding, Public Safety, Business/Industrial, SMR and ESMR's both operate in the 851-861 MHz range. ESMR has exclusive use of the 861-866 MHz range, and Public Safety has exclusive use of the 866-869 MHz range.

During rebanding the following will occur:

- All licensees with channels between 866-869 MHz (NPSPAC) must relocate to equivalent channels between 851-854.

- All licensees other than ESMRs with channels between 851-854 MHz must relocate to equivalent channels between 854-862.

- Nextel and other ESMR operators must relinquish all channels below 862 MHz. The FCC has required Nextel to vacate all its channels in the band from 854-854.5 nationwide as soon as possible to provide additional spectrum for Public Safety needs.

- Public Safety has exclusive access to all vacated Nextel channels for 3 years, after which they are open to all eligible users.

After rebanding, Public Safety and Critical Infrastructure will have exclusive use of 851-854 MHz. ESMR systems (primarily Nextel) will have exclusive use of 862-869 MHz range, and public safety, business/industrial users, and low-power SMR's will share the 854-862 MHz spectrum. 860-861 MHz is designated as an "Expansion Band", and 861-862 MHz is designated as a "Guard Band". No licensees other than ESMR are required to relocate to channels above 860 MHz.

The use of contiguous spectrum allows for simple filters to be installed to protect public safety radio systems from interference, which is currently impossible under the existing mixed allocations in the 800 MHz band.

Nextel (Sprint) is paying for much of the cost of this reconfiguration, but in compensation for lost 800 MHz spectrum, the company is receiving spectrum in the 2 GHz band at 1910-1915/1990-1995 MHz. This spectrum is near the existing Sprint PCS allocations and can be used to expand the number of channels available for that service, without needing to bid for additional capacity in a spectrum auction.^[6][7][8]

Major sponsorships[link]

In 2003, Nextel and NASCAR announced a sponsorship agreement to re-name NASCAR's top racing series the Nextel Cup beginning in 2004. In 2008, the series was renamed the NASCAR Sprint Cup due to Sprint Nextel's plan to phase out the Nextel brand name by 2010. Nextel was also a major sponsor of the now defunct ChampCar team PacWest Racing, which was owned by Craig McCaw's brother Bruce.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Nextel website (Archive)
• Official Sprint website
• Yahoo! - Nextel Communications, Inc. Company Profile

v t e Sprint Nextel Corporation Corporate Directors: Dan Hesse  · Keith J. Bane  · Gordon M. Bethune  · Frank M. Drendel  · James H. Hance, Jr.  · V. Janet Hill  · Irvine O. Hockaday, Jr.  · William E. Kennard  · Linda Koch Lorimer  · Stephanie M. Shern  · William H. Swanson Brands: Assurance Wireless  · Boost Mobile  · Sprint PCS  · Virgin Mobile USA Defunct brands: Common Cents Mobile  · Helio  · Nextel Related topics: Embarq  · NII Holdings Annual Revenue: $34.7 billion USD ( FY 2005)  · Employees: 62,000  · Stock Symbol: NYSE: S  · Website: sprint.com

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the Portuguese Wikipedia. (July 2011) Don't speak Portuguese? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|pt|Maria Gadú}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Maria Gadú
Maria Gadú performing at Credicard Hall.
Background information
Birth name	Mayra Corrêa Aygadoux
Also known as	Maria Gadú
Born	(1986-12-04) December 4, 1986 (age 25) São Paulo, SP  Brazil
Genres	MPB, pop, samba, bossa nova, rock, blues[1]
Instruments	Vocals, guitar[1]
Website	www.mariagadu.com.br

Maria Gadú (born Mayra Corrêa Aygadoux December 4, 1986; São Paulo, Brazil), is a Brazilian singer, songwriter and guitarist. She has been nominated twice for a Latin Grammy Award. She released her first album in 2009, self-titled Maria Gadú.^[2] Her single "Shimbalaie" became a number one hit in Italy during summer 2011, staying atop the FIMI chart for five straight weeks.

Biography[link]

She started playing music as a child, after having learned the basics of reading musical notation, seven years later she began to record songs on cassette tapes. Her real musical training begins at the age of thirteen, when she began to give concerts in the bars of Sao Paulo, playing music by Adoniran Barbosa, Marisa Monte and Chico Buarque. In 2008 she moved to Rio de Janeiro and began playing in bars, and she atracted the attention of famous musicians such as Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, João Donato among others. Maria Gadu gained renown playing "Ne me quitte pas" by Jacques Brel for Jayme Monjardim, who was in preproduction of the television series Maysa - Quando Fala o Coração (Maysa, when the heart communicates). Maysa Matarazzo, singer and mother of the director, had been very successful in the 1950s and 1960s singing this song, among others. Gadú's version was soon included in the soundtrack of the series that would premiere in January 2009. Gadú also had a small acting part in the series. As 2009 began, Maria Gadú prepared her first album with Rio Slap.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

This article about a Brazilian singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article on a Brazilian musician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e