Sprint Shopping Nextel or Trying Another Turnaround?

Is Sprint getting all dolled up to finally sell itself? Rumors out of Overland Park say Sprint might be sniffing around the private equity players to see if they can get a bite the Nextel side of the house.

This would make sense if you were SK Telecom and you had the cash to plunk down but didn’t want to get involved with disposing of Nextel. There are a lot of national security issues with Nextel that you would have to unwind and if I were SK I would prefer to just take on the CDMA portion of Sprint.

Maybe Dan Hesse, the new Sprint CEO has what it takes to turn this mess around but it will be tough. Gary Foresee and Len Lauer didn’t have it, and Tim Donahue lost a cross country power struggle and “retired” in 2006. But if I needed to step in and run Sprint, this would be my 10 point plan:

1. Spin off Nextel as a wholly owned subsidiary

Nextel lost a lot of buzz when it was acquired by Sprint because it was seen as a niche carrier catering to the blue collar set and Sprint was the “outsider”. Also, operational changes by Sprint in the way Nextel dealt with customers didn’t help heal an already strained relationship due to capacity issues on the Nextel side of the house.

2. Continue to push the WiMAX initiative

I don’t understand it, is it only me and Google that realizes that the first company to roll out a nationwide “Hotspot” is going to write their own ticket?

3. Bring back Tim Donahue

The future growth in the business is in Data and Push to Talk. Donahue can repair the relationships the other guys have screwed up.

4. Push Data

No other carrier has a more robust data pipe than Sprint, hands down. Verizon is close, but still second.

5. All you can eat

Smaller niche players like Cricket and MetroPCS are offering sub $50 all you can eat plans with no sticky contracts or termination fees to worry about

6. Be the 1st carrier to offer an open network…and mean it!

Go take a look at Europe and Japan and see what they are doing, come home and realize (quickly) that you have been playing with yourself and that there are great opportunities in open platforms instead of walled gardens.

7. Win the handset war

You haven’t heard much lately from Sprint on this front. Enough said.

8. Time for a makeover

There is nothing appealing to this black and yellow thing you’ve had going for years now.

9. Stop with the ridiculous repair program

It is a nightmare to get your handset serviced which leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of consumers when it comes to contract renewal time.

10. Go back to a one year contract, if at all

The subsidy you provide on handsets didn’t change that much to force consumers into a two year contracts. If you have to do contracts, do one year and promote the Hell out of it, trust me, they will come.

Keep in mind this isn’t a complete list. No no my friends, there is plenty wrong with this company. But it still has serious cash flow and a fantastic network. Two things a preditor looks for when it seeks out it’s pray in wireless.