History
Morgan O'Brien, a telecommunication lawyer, and Brian McAuley, an investment banker founded FleetCall in 1987. FleetCall changed its name to Nextel Communications in 1993. In 1995, wireless industry pioneer Craig McCaw became a significant investor in the company. Other early investors include Mark Warner, now a United States Senator from Virginia, and Jack Markell, the current Governor of Delaware.
The founders choose the name "FleetCall" because the company's network used the 800 MHz Specialized Mobile Radio frequencies designated by the Federal Communications Commission for use in fleet dispatch. The core of the business model was to buy these fleet dispatch frequencies from existing operators at a substantial discount when compared to the cost for equivalent bandwidth available via auction from the Federal Communications Commission. These "non-cellular" frequencies were made usable for a consumer and business wireless voice telephone service with the iDEN technology developed by Motorola, which some observers at the time said would not be practical. Initially, FleetCall did not want to include the push to talk feature in their phones, but the FCC required it as the initial frequencies were licensed for dispatch use. Later, Nextel would use the push-to-talk feature as a key marketing advantage.
Read more about this topic: Nextel Communications
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