Sprint Nextel Means What Now?
There has been a lot of analysis about the Sprint Nextel merger from here and other places, of course. However, one of the more bizarre pieces on the marriage comes to us from CNET News.com, which has been the source of some bizarre analyses in the wireless industry lately. However, the latest look at the Sprint-Nextel merger seems to think it’s a sign that the US is converging on a single standard for cellular connections, which seems highly, highly unlikely. This isn’t about converging standards at all. Everyone (including, or perhaps, especially, Nextel) knew that iDEN was a dead end, and they were looking at moving to EV-DO anyway. Nextel had to upgrade their network to some other technology, and this move helps them do that. It has nothing to do with merging the only two real competing cellular standards, and it’s unlikely any other move in the US is going to change that any time soon.
