Before any impairment write-down, the net recorded amount of Sprint Nextel’s goodwill as of December 31, 2007, is $30,664. Is Sprint Nextel’s goodwill impaired? If so, what is the amount of any necessary impairment write-down?

Both Sprint and Nextel started business on the competitive fringes of the telecommunications industry. Until 1984, the phone business was dominated by the AT&T monopoly that stretched back to the time of Alexander Graham Bell. When founded in 1987, Nextel was originally called “Fleetcall” because it utilized wireless frequencies that had historically been used by taxi dispatchers. Sprint was formed from the combination of several companies including a local telephone company, founded in 1899, that had competed against AT&T in its monopoly days as well as a company that made wireless transmissions using the track right-of-way communication system of the Southern Pacific Railroad.