Sprint Nextel finishes buying Nextel Partners

Sprint Nextel on Monday consolidated its cellular coverage of the United States, closing its acquisition of Nextel Partners, an affiliate of the former Nextel Communications that serves rural areas and midsize cities.

Nextel Partners, in Kirkland, Wash., delivered service over Nextel's iDEN network to about 2 million subscribers as of last December, when Sprint Nextel agreed to the purchase. Many of those customers haven't even known that they aren't buying service directly from Sprint Nextel, and the transition should be transparent to them, Sprint Nextel said at the time of the deal.

Sprint Nextel, formed last year through the merger of Nextel with Sprint, is one of the biggest U.S. mobile operators, with about 51 million subscribers. It operates both the Sprint CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) network and Nextel's distinctive iDEN infrastructure, which features an advanced push-to-talk system. The company also holds licenses spanning much of the country in the 2.5-GHz band, which may help it roll out a planned 4G (fourth-generation) high-speed network.

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Sprint Nextel on Monday consolidated its cellular coverage of the United States, closing its acquisition of Nextel Partners, an affiliate of the former Nextel Communications that serves rural areas and midsize cities.

Nextel Partners, in Kirkland, Wash., delivered service over Nextel's iDEN network to about 2 million subscribers as of last December, when Sprint Nextel agreed to the purchase. Many of those customers haven't even known that they aren't buying service directly from Sprint Nextel, and the transition should be transparent to them, Sprint Nextel said at the time of the deal.

Sprint Nextel, formed last year through the merger of Nextel with Sprint, is one of the biggest U.S. mobile operators, with about 51 million subscribers. It operates both the Sprint CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) network and Nextel's distinctive iDEN infrastructure, which features an advanced push-to-talk system. The company also holds licenses spanning much of the country in the 2.5-GHz band, which may help it roll out a planned 4G (fourth-generation) high-speed network.

The Nextel Partners buyout gives Sprint Nextel licenses in 58 markets across 31 states, where it can reach 54 million people, according to the company.

Nextel owned more than 30 percent of the affiliate. The Nextel Partners charter said shareholders could sell their stock to any new owner, but a legal dispute arose last year over how that process would work. It was resolved in December. Sprint Nextel paid $28.50 per share, or about $6.5 billion, for the remainder of the company. The deal achieved its final regulatory approvals Monday.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.