Beep beep -- Sprint's looking to offload iDEN network?

Who even cares anymore?

www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/08/09/beep-beep-sprints-looking-to-offload-iden-network/

Beep beep -- Sprint's looking to offload iDEN network?

by Chris Ziegler, posted Aug 9th 2008 at 12:18PM

Still

, eh? After

of lost cash, lost subscribers, and lost opportunities, word on the street is that Sprint might be rethinking its approach to its legacy push-to-talk network -- the obsolescence-bound spectrum it acquired via its

a few years back for the questionable price of $35 billion. Given Sprint's current financial state, a liquidity crunch means that the carrier is looking to offload any salable piece; Nextel's not exactly the most attractive piece of that puzzle with a declining subscriber base, limited bandwidth, and a limited range of Moto hardware to back it up, but even at its current estimated value of $5 billion, analysts are suggesting that Sprint could be willing to bite at a deal. NII Holdings, which operates iDEN networks under the Nextel brand in Brazil, Mexico, and a handful of other Latin American countries, is being tossed around as a potential suitor, as are private equity firms looking to make a quick buck. How one goes about

a quick buck on a network as old and quirky as iDEN in the year 2008, though, remains to be seen.

Verizon is starting to advertize PTT capability again.  It has very few phones that support it, but perhaps that will change.  Maybe they are seeing the demise of PTT on the Sprint network and are attempting to get some of Sprint's churn coming their way.

Sprint lost 901,000 subscribers in the 2nd quarter alone, talk about a sinking ship.  AT&T's and Verizon's subscribers continue to grow.  It's starting to look more and more like a two horse race.  I wish they could figure things out, I always welcome the competition.