Subject: [NEXTEL-1] WALKIE-TALKIE SERVICE

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 14:01:02 -0400

Sector Report
By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 6/2/2003
WALKIE-TALKIE SERVICE

Nextel rolls out nationwide plan

Nextel Communications is beginning its rollout of nationwide ''Direct Connect''
walkie-talkie service today in Greater Boston, southern Florida, southern
California, and Nevada, as it moves to make the service available across its US
service area by the end of August.

Starting today, local Nextel subscribers who sign up to add a $10-a-month
unlimited national direct connect plan to their existing Nextel service will be
able to have instant walkie-talkie conversations with other Nextel subscribers in
the Florida and Southwestern markets.

Nextel's New England area vice president, Tim Enright, said the service should be
expanded to the New York-Washington corridor by June 9 and over 80 percent of the
country by July 1. Complete service in areas Nextel serves -- home to about 240
million Americans -- should be available by the end of August.

While other wireless carriers say they could roll out similar service this year,
Nextel remains the only one that allows people to use their cellphones as
walkie-talkies, too, a feature that has attracted more than 11 million subcribers.

Until now, for local customers, Direct Connect coverage has extended from most of
Massachusetts and Rhode Island to Concord, N.H., and Lewiston, Maine. Enright said
the nationwide service will not work on a small number of older Nextel handsets --
those that are not enabled for wireless data services. One other change is that,
to reach a Nextel subscriber by Direct Connect nationally, subscribers will need
to program in nine digits instead of the four to six normally needed to reach a
local subscriber.

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