Sprint and Nextel last week tied their $36 billion knot to be the undisputed No. 3 wireless operator in the U.S. The newlyweds will serve 35 million subscribers compared to Cingular/AT&T Wireless with 46 million, and Verizon's Wireless' 42 million. But who wins: Dennis Franz or Candace Bergen? (Read the story)

If I were Nortel, I'd want to delay reporting my third quarter as much as possible, too. The company lost 6 cents per share on revenue of $2.3 billion, down from about $2.6 billion in the second quarter.  Ever the optimist, however, Nortel said customers remain steadfast. The company is forecasting revenue of $2.8 billion to $2.9 billion for the fourth quarter, and $10.1 billion to $10.2 billion for the full year. (Read the story)

Chinese network equipment manufacturer Huawei Technologies is beginning to make inroads into the U.S. mobile market. The company's FutureWei Technologies unit in Plano, Texas, launched a small regional cellular network in Southern California and Arizona. NTCH, based in Los Angeles, is selling flat-rate voice and data services under the Clear Talk brand name. It is using a Huawei/FutureWei Airbridge CDMA2000-1x network. This is the first Huawei cellular network in the U.S., and comes three years after FutureWei was established in 2001 to sell wired and wireless equipment in the U.S. and Canada. (Read the story)