A number of private-equity firms may be interested in buying Sprint’s (NYSE: S) Nextel network, using iDEN technology, according to mergermarket via FT.com. The interested buyers may include TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners, which previously bought Alltel (NYSE: AT). Reportedly, at least one of the firms has also teamed up with former Nextel CEO Tim Donahue, who has showed interested in the network in the past. The price is estimated to be between $5 billion and $6 billion, which is far lower than the $35 billion Sprint paid three years ago.

Of course, the price and the possibility of the spin-off happening is still entirely up in the air. The network has been integrated with Sprint’s CDMA network, making it difficult to separate. Last week at a Goldman Sachs conference, Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse explained that although the company is interested in and ready to pursue a divestment of iDEN, it would only do so if it received a compelling offer. “Plan A is to reinvigorate iDEN, and we’ve recently launched four new handsets that run along it.”