When Sprint and Nextel completed their merger in September of 2005 users of both services envisioned a bright future. Sprint users would finally get a real walkie-talkie replacement to the ill-conceived Ready Link service, and Nextel users would finally see some feature-rich handsets. Unfortunately for the end user, the first years of the merger were about integrating billing platforms and business strategies, and though under the same corporate umbrella the users and products remained distinctly separate. The two paths finally began to diverge with the introduction of the Motorola Buzz and Blend at the beginning of this year, and with the arrival of the ic902 Deluxe Sprint is finally able to leverage the power of both networks on one converged device. The Deluxe by Motorola is an EVDO rev 0 phone stuffed with all the goodies: 2mp camera with flash, microSD expansion, stereo speakers, QVGA display, stereo Bluetooth and its calling card, Nextel Direct Connect (DC.)
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless