Sprint Nextel chief executive Gary D. Forsee is facing intensifying pressure from shareholders to improve the company's financial health, causing several analysts to speculate that he may be forced to step down in the coming months.

The Reston firm, the nation's third-largest wireless carrier, has already begun looking for Forsee's replacement, the Wall Street Journal reported late yesterday afternoon. News of the search came after activist investor Ralph Whitworth, principal of investment fund Relational Investors, which owns about 1.9 percent of Sprint's outstanding shares, told the Journal he has "lost confidence" in Forsee.

Whitworth and other investors have been critical of Sprint's large investments in WiMax, a technology that is similar to WiFi and expands Internet coverage from several feet to several miles.

Sprint has also been faulted for investing nearly $5 billion to build a wireless high-speed Internet network using WiMax technology, which is untested on a national scale. Investors and analysts think Sprint should instead focus on fixing problems with its core wireless business, which is losing ground to rivals. Sprint added 400,000 net new customers in the second quarter, and rivals AT&T and Verizon Wireless added 1.5 million and 1.3 million customers, respectively.

said by TKJunkMail :

They may have a point about Wimax expenditures if the other wireless carriers rollout 4G technology making Wimax less needed.