For those wondering just what is and has been happening with Sprint/Nextel the last several years, here's a good review of the mess they've managed to get themselves into.
Excerpt:
"It was supposed to be a formidable competitor in the mobile wireless industry, leading the industry in key financial metrics and in innovative services. But less than three years after Sprint and Nextel merged their operations in a $36 billion deal, the company is now trying to stop the bleeding."
The bleeding has resulted in an extraordinary loss of several hundred thousand subscribers in the last quarter, whose care has been badly neglected primarily due to internal culture conflicts associated with the failed integration of both company's business processes and their incompatible networks.
New CEO Dan Hesse certainly has some challenges ahead of him.
Worth a read....
NR
The folks at the Portals (FCC) and the NTIA might be interested in this....
Current Spectrum Management in the United States
Wireless (RF or radio) spectrum management in the United States should be a cooperative exercise in balancing disparate stakeholder interests through effective user education and the enforcement of regulatory policies and rules that reflect practical reality, political responsibility, economic common sense, and, an understanding of the laws of physics. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
There is no concise, up-to-date, national radio/RF/wireless spectrum management policy practiced by the FCC and/or the NTIA in the U.S today. In addition, either very out-dated, convoluted, complex or very lax or non-existent regulation (often determined by the agendas of political and special interest groups more than by anything else) is the norm, with little effective enforcement of spectrum use rules.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_management
It looks like the word is beginning to get out to the general public if one takes Wikipedia's definition at face value....although, when one thinks about it, the definition really isn't that far off the mark - is it?
NR