Nextel Communications, styled NEXTEL, (Former NASDAQ: NXTL), now known as the Sprint Nextel Corporation, was a telecommunications firm based in the United States best known for providing a nation-wide push to talk mobile communications system. Unlike other cellular providers' networks, Nextel's network operated in the Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) band, and Nextel was one of the first providers in the United States to offer a national digital cellular coverage footprint.

Nextel had over 20 million U.S. subscribers, and in 2006, claimed to serve "198 of the top 200 U.S. markets." Nextel offered pre-paid services through the Boost Mobile brand and provided services in the Philippines through the Next Mobile brand.

Nextel was headquartered in Reston, a community in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC.

History

FleetCall was founded in 1987 by Morgan E. O'Brien, a telecommunication lawyer, and subsequently changed its name to Nextel Communications in 1993. In 1995, wireless pioneer Craig McCaw became a significant investor in the company. Mark Warner, later Governor of Virginia, was also an early investor.

The organization was called Fleet Call because it used frequencies designated by the FCC for use in taxi and fleet dispatch. The core of the business model was to buy these fleet dispatch frequencies at a substantial discount to the cost for the same bandwidth in established FCC-designated frequencies for wireless telephone service. These "non-cellular" frequencies were made usable for a consumer and business voice telephone service with Motorola's iDEN technology, which many observers initially felt would not be practicable.

Initially, FleetCall did not want to include the PTT feature in their phones, but the FCC required it as the initial frequencies were licensed for dispatch use. Subsequently, Nextel used this FCC-mandated feature as a key marketing advantage.

Innovations and technologies

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, called "Direct Connect". Unlike other cellular providers' networks, NEXTEL's network operated in the Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) 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 US to integrate a GPS system into their phones and set up a complete 3G Network Upgrade. Nextel was also an industry leader in Customer Lifecycle Management. They invested in an analytics capability which allowed them to surpass their competitors in treating customers differently, based on relative value and projected loyalty. As a result of these efforts and an intense focus on the customer across the organization, Nextel was known for best-in-class customer retention rates, and customer lifetime value (CLV).