Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Verizon Wireless Plans to Offer Walkie-Talkie Service

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 20:37:09 -0500

02/13 16:37
Verizon Wireless Plans to Offer Walkie-Talkie Service

By Tom Giles

New York, Feb. 13
(Bloomberg) --
Verizon Wireless Inc.,
the biggest U.S.
mobile-phone
company by
subscribers, plans a
walkie- talkie service
this year that lets customers talk at the push of a button, a feature now sold only by
Nextel Communications Inc.
``You will see us introduce a push-to-talk product well before the end of the year,''
Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Officer Dennis Strigl said at a Legg Mason Wood Walker
investor conference in New York.

Verizon Wireless joins rivals such as Alltel Corp. in trying to match the walkie-talkie
technology that has made Nextel unique in the mobile-phone industry. Investors and
analysts have said the popularity of that product among business customers helped Nextel
boost sales and add subscribers at a faster pace than competitors last year.

If Verizon Wireless can successfully sell a similar product, ``Nextel's monopoly is
seriously threatened,'' said American Technology Research Inc. analyst Albert Lin, who
rates Nextel stock ``hold.''

Shares of Reston, Virginia-based Nextel, the fifth-largest U.S. mobile-phone company by
customers, fell 45 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $12.31 at 4:00 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq
Stock Market trading.

Nextel phones include a technology designed by Motorola Inc., the world's second-largest
maker of mobile phones, that lets customers talk to another person or a group of users by
pushing a button, rather than dialing a number. The devices also function like traditional
wireless phones.

The walkie-talkie feature is popular among public safety agencies and businesses such as
construction crews, which often need to stay in touch in non-office settings, analysts
say.

Verizon Wireless, based in Bedminster, New Jersey, doesn't trade publicly. The company is
a joint venture of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., the largest U.S.
local-phone company, and Vodafone Group Plc of the U.K., the world's biggest mobile- phone
company.

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