ANALYSIS OF SPRINT AND
NEXTEL MERGER IN AUGUST 2005

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iii
INTRODUCTION 1
ANALYSIS OF MERGER 2
BEFORE THE MERGER 2
AFTER THE MERGER 4
CUSTOMER SERVICE SURVEY 9
CONCLUSIONS 13
RECOMMENDATIONS 14
APPENDIX 16

LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1. 2005 TIMELINE OF SPRINT/NEXTEL LEGAL ISSUES 6
FIGURE 2. MARKET SHARE 7
FIGURE 3. CURRENT SPRINT/NEXTEL CUSTOMERS 9
FIGURE 4. REASON(S) FOR LEAVING SPRINT/NEXTEL AFTER MERGER 10
FIGURE 5. SATISFACTION OF CURRENT SPRINT/NEXTEL CUSTOMERS 11
FIGURE 6. CHANGE IN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION POST-MERGER 12

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Purposes of the Report
The purposes of this report are to (1) address the problems Sprint and Nextel incurred before the merger, (2) discuss
However, after receiving the bill, the man found there had been 50 free minutes with $1.00 minute overages, which amounted to $374. In trying to straighten out this problem with Sprint, but resulted in more complications, overages, and incorrect account information. The man describes the company’s tactics as “fraudulent practices, deceptive advertising, and just plain lying on the part of Sprint” (Sprint, 2006). This is an example of the many horror stories from ex Sprint customers.
Furthermore, a member of BaWaMa experienced Sprint’s inadequacies first hand a few years ago. Living in central Austin, five minutes from downtown and the university, she was unable to receive service in her own home. After holding multiple times for an unaccommodating customer service representative, she was told that her home was in a coverage hole, and Sprint was unwilling to make the adjustments needed. The Sprint customer and her family immediately switched cell phone providers to Cingular Wireless. According to a J.D. Power and Associates survey of 16, 800 cell phone users, results demonstrate that consumers are four times more likely to switch cell phone providers if their service ranks below the average in customer support. Sprint received the lowest ranking in the study (Gonsalves, 2003). After thorough research, BaWaMa has found these repetitive objections against Sprint among its customers.
Nextel has trailed the