Sprint Prez Says Nextel Network Will Stay Lit

In an interview with Bloomberg news, Sprint Nextel Corp. president Dane Hesse said they’ll keep the Nextel network operating, “as long as they’ll stay.” The push-to-talk service is popular with public safety agencies, and the company is promoting its use as a primary public safety radio network. Hesse said turning off the network would be too expensive, and might make some customers switch away from the company entirely. Sprint purchased Nextel in Dec. 2004 for $36 billion, and there have been rumors ever since that Sprint would eventually set a turn-off date. But Hesse said his company is still attracting enough customers to remain profitable. About 19 million of the company’s 54 million subscribers use the Nextel network. But 2.8 million Nextel customers dropped the service in 2007, with Spring adding 1.6 million. Overall, Sprint Nextel lost $29.5 billion in the last quarter, mostly to a write-down in the value of the Nextel part of the business. Read more here.