Sprint's Hesse Commits To Phasing Out iDEN

[resqguy911]

update:
"Sprint expects to launch the next-generation of PTT services in 2011 on the CDMA network, offering customers sub-second call setup time along with robust data capabilities."
http://radioresourcemag.com/newsArticle ... ws_id=6450

Slightly reassuring, I think.

[Bill_G]

... and with that Motorola is almost out of the subscriber business as well as the infrastructure business. Quite a coup for Alcatel, Ericcson, and Samsung.

[AEC]

We'll see what comes down the road, won't we? If they drop their ptt business, I see new opportunity for the smr owners. Few of our customers use the nationwide coverage of Nextel. However, most of them do use the regional coverage which is what a smr could do. I've given out Nextels to my 24/7 customers so they can reach me anytime, anywhere, for anything. I might have to come up with a new plan, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I will be saddened to see the service disappear. It was the kind of radio service customers have asked for forever - huge foot print, reasonable quality, reliable, and low cost of ownership.

Bill:
Nextel can't drop their PTT service as their licences demand they retain that version of interconnect to retain their licenses.
Nextel is licensed as an SMR carrier, and not a cellular phone company, hence, they had to offer PTT operation to keep the license class/price point for the operation.
Nextel is moving ahead, albeit slowly, especially here, in central AZ. where the 'Boost' line of prepaid service is offered above post pay Nextel.
Boost works well for my area, as well as the valley, and Phx/Tuc. and outlying cities and towns, even in the rim country.

CDMA will greatly enhance the service as it is currently, and the voice quality should also greatly improve(I hope).

I am in what is known as: Six Shooter Canyon, in the Globe area, and being neatly tucked up against the foothills, I can still D.C people with relative ease, and I am using an i776 flip style Boost handset.
My wife uses an i465 for her job, and its receiver SUCKS, and she can't use D.C at all where we are, well, very rarely.
Good signal strength, but no interconnect, but I have no problems.
Also, this is a clear-cut win for external antennas, over the internal garbage all phones have these days.
Poor matching networks, impedance troubles with multiband designs, and pattern distortions caused by the phone's components, such as the battery, Micro SD cards and so on.
Even normal cellular coverage in the boonies of my life are a bear for cell service, and don't even get us started on T-Mobile!
Verizon is what T-Mobile would love to become...Enough said on that topic.
Nextel's direction will reveal its commitment to the iDen platform, but from the quantity of Boost phones on the shelves @ China-Mart, I doubt Nextel will go away anytime soon.
They simply need to revamp their business model and make it work.
CDMA will be an arrival of m,ixed blessings I suspect, but with the Sprint badge in charge, it will become the red-headed stepchild and fall farther first, before the Sprint name will tumble.
I chose to use Boost as it's cheap right now, and I can talk to my wife when she's on the road, far outside my repeater's coverage footprint, as well as our UHF trunked system(4 channels).
The problem I have with Boost, is their gearing the entire 'genre' to kids/youths, and ignoring the adult Boost users/customers.
With a tag line like the following: 'Where you at'?' Does that say anything of value to adults?
To me, it says nothing..I'm far away from being a 'youth', and most youths are far more interested in Texting, sending pics and surfing, than using direct connect to chat....even the web apps are far more desired over anything Nextel/Boost is coming up with.

Nextel needs to grow out of its infancy and join the ranks of a real ESMR service and target the adult users before going after the carpet commandos!

[alex]

The problem I have with Boost, is their gearing the entire 'genre' to kids/youths, and ignoring the adult Boost users/customers.
With a tag line like the following: 'Where you at'?'

Try calling their 800 number without urban dictionary up on your computer. I don't know how much it has changed since back in the day when it was only sold in CA and Nevada - but holy hell was it annoying.

-Alex

[N4DES]

This is my take on it:

Once rebanding is over and the former 821-823/866-869 MHz spectrum is cleared I think that Sprint will petition the FCC to create the "Cellular C" band and remove it from the SMR allocation even though it is narrow in cellular standards being CDMA needs a 1.25MHz channel and it isn't wide enough for WCDMA that requires 5. Sprint will attempt to compete with the other cellular carriers that have 800 MHz allocations (Verizion/AT&T) and hope get real in-building penetration. Their infractructure transition would be pretty quick being the iDEN 800 antennas are already in place and 800 CDMA transmitters are already available in the market. It would just be a matter of getting multi-band capable CDMA phones on the system to be able to take advantage of the new spectrum.

As to what will happen to Boost...it will either go away or will migrate to CDMA PTT. As we all know iDEN is antiquated has a hard time supporting large number of users, which is what we saw almost 10 years ago when NEXTEL oversold their capacity and dropped calls and PTT bonks were the norm and not the exception.

[MTS2000des]

This is my take on it:

Once rebanding is over and the former 821-823/866-869 MHz spectrum is cleared I think that Sprint will petition the FCC to create the "Cellular C" band and remove it from the SMR allocation even though it is narrow in cellular standards being CDMA needs a 1.25MHz channel and it isn't wide enough for WCDMA that requires 5. Sprint will attempt to compete with the other cellular carriers that have 800 MHz allocations (Verizion/AT&T) and hope get real in-building penetration. Their infractructure transition would be pretty quick being the iDEN 800 antennas are already in place and 800 CDMA transmitters are already available in the market. It would just be a matter of getting multi-band capable CDMA phones on the system to be able to take advantage of the new spectrum.

As to what will happen to Boost...it will either go away or will migrate to CDMA PTT. As we all know iDEN is antiquated has a hard time supporting large number of users, which is what we saw almost 10 years ago when NEXTEL oversold their capacity and dropped calls and PTT bonks were the norm and not the exception.

I second that, and I am sure they will get support from other iDEN SMR operators such as Southern LINC for such an NPRM allowing such reconfiguration. I was talking to our SL account rep the other day about this, and he told me that SoCo is eventually considering the phase out and replacement of their iDEN system, though no specifics were given on what type of network it would become or a time table. Their reasoning is that Motorola is narrowing the iDEN lineup and will only be a matter of time before the product line itself is EOL'ed. It is after all, 20 year old technology and with their big customers giving it the boot (Sprint, Telus, etc) it seems logical they will phase it out as well.

The big question is what will happen to all of the 900 SMR spectrum that Sprint now holds?

[Victor Xray]

Motorola won't drop iDen technology, at least not for a while. While true that iDen is dying within N.America, iDen networks are actually growing in many other countries, thanks to Nextel International Holdings, Inc.

[MTS2000des]

I also speculate that Sprint won't have such an easy time convincing the FCC to reconfigure the ESMR spectrum to allow for broadband part 22 operation. SouthernLINC, AirINC and other 800MHz users will have a valid argument against it, especially in light of all the money and effort spent to complete rebanding. Putting broadband CDMA on the same spectrum as other narrowband users will be the same nightmare that cost how many billion to avoid ala rebanding?

Sprint really should sell off the iDEN network while it is still worth something and call it a day. Let someone who can run it as a voice only dispatch network like Southern Company do it and let it go back to being what it is supposed to: an ESMR.

[N4KVE]

Sprint really should sell off the iDEN network while it is still worth something and call it a day. Let someone who can run it as a voice only dispatch network like Southern Company do it and let it go back to being what it is supposed to: an ESMR.

This would be the wise thing to do. Especially after spending all the $ on rebanding. GARY N4KVE