Verizon Wireless Sues Nextel

The battle over "push-to-talk" is really heating up as Nextel is going to lose their monopoly on the feature. However, when Verizon Wireless found out that Nextel had somehow obtained a prototype of their "push-to-talk" system, they flipped out, and called in the lawyers. They're now suing Nextel for improperly obtaining the prototype and then illegally accessing the Verizon Wireless network to test them. Considering that they'll be launching the service in a week or so, it's unclear how much "damage" this actually did to Verizon. Also, there's no indication how they improperly obtained the devices. Update: A more detailed version of the story says that Nextel used the tests to share negative information about the service with an analyst who negatively influenced industry reviews of their offering. So, in that case, the charges could be a bigger deal. Still... if the service really is bad, then suing Nextel isn't going to change that.

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