Nextel? A good investment?

[RESCUE161]

I know this is a sore subject here, but I have a friend who is wanting a phone with a 'walkie-talkie' feature...
I told her I would ask here, because it's been several years since I used Nextel and don't know how the service is now days.
She has Verizon as a cell phone carrier now and loves them, but her husband wants the dierct connect feature. She asked me if it was worth it, and if they (Nextel) were going to expand any further (I hope not).

Any comments about Nextel good or bad would be great! Thanks,
Scott

[Josh]

I know this is a sore subject here, but I have a friend who is wanting a phone with a 'walkie-talkie' feature...
I told her I would ask here, because it's been several years since I used Nextel and don't know how the service is now days.
She has Verizon as a cell phone carrier now and loves them, but her husband wants the dierct connect feature. She asked me if it was worth it, and if they (Nextel) were going to expand any further (I hope not).

Any comments about Nextel good or bad would be great!
Scott

Hmm, Nextel wow


I don't know why anyone would want that! Tell them that Nextel is a jammer to 800MHz public safety frequencies, tell them that they may, can, and will screw up their billing as they've done with thousands of other customers (and then conned them out of lots of $$$). Tell them that the service is spotty and quite crappy. They'd be better off with nothing than the terrible distorted digital crap pouring out of the microphone/speaker. Nextel is also supposedly for business only in the SMR service, NOT for average consumers (although nobody knows).

Too many people have Next-hell and it stinks. Probably less than I think but because their phones are almost novelty oversized and can be placed nowhere but on the belt (rather than the pocket or purse).

I wouldn't doubt that there is an analog SMR out there somewhere, or heck, for 'walkie talkie' crap, get a Ham radio and license and you're set. You'll get the added feature of actually understanding the user on the other end, too!!

I'm sure there are at least 20 more posts coming on this topic!

-Josh

[larryepage]

Two other things to keep in mind:

1. There are rumors that Nextel will discontinue the direct-connect feature to save cost. They only offer it because it is required to meet the requirements of their licenses, but I'm guessing that as soon as they can bend or eliminate that rule, direct-connect is gone.

2. Many cellular carriers offer a "family plan." This is not push-to-talk functionality, but it generally includes unlimited free minutes between any phones in the plan as long as they are both in the home area. We have this, and it is great. Voice quality is much better than the distorted digital garbage that comes out of the Nextel units.

[mts2000des2]

I know this is a sore subject here, but I have a friend who is wanting a phone with a 'walkie-talkie' feature...
I told her I would ask here, because it's been several years since I used Nextel and don't know how the service is now days.
She has Verizon as a cell phone carrier now and loves them, but her husband wants the dierct connect feature. She asked me if it was worth it, and if they (Nextel) were going to expand any further (I hope not).

Any comments about Nextel good or bad would be great! Thanks,
Scott

If she likes Verizon, tell her to stick it out, Q-Chat is coming first quarter 2003 and will do PTT at half the price of POOP-TEL with cooler phones too, and will be added to most service plans in exsistence now if you upgrade to a Q-Chat capable phone. And unlike POOPTEL, Verizon doesn't jam public safety at 800MHz, and CDMA has superior audio quality and capacity compated to POOPTEL's ancient TDMA standard, which is severly limited in capacity for a digital network. Though Nextel so I have heard is going back to 6 to 1 compression with an "improved vocoder" to alleviate their capacity issues, can't wait to hear how lovely TDMA 6-1 sounds again, it sucked royally back in 1993 when they rolled out with 6-1!

[HumHead]

For business reasons, I switched from Verizon to Nextel some time back.

I'm now happily back on Verizon.

I have to second all of the gripes about miserable audio quality, overloaded networks, billing screw ups, and my unwillingness to support those who are endangering our public safety personnel)

P.S. Nextel drop Direct Connect? That would be kind of nice, since that's really the only thing that gets people to buy into their miserable, over-priced, unreliable, non-compatible excuse for a service.

[ExKa|iBuR]

Up here in Canada, Nextel's counterpart - Telus Mobility - actually doesn't have that bad a service.

They don't interfere with Public Safety (mostly because hardly anyone up here is on 800MHz yet).

But, the audio quality still sucks beyond belief.

There's even a police department up here on the iDEN system, and they always complain about the audio quality - which really is bad.


Personally, for your money, get a set of FRS radios.


Mike

[Pj]

Well, I guess its where you live and the infrastructure. Quite a few guys in my FD have bought Nextell within the last 6 months, and they seem to like it. I have not heard anything negitivite from them, but I will ask around. Coverage up here seems to be quite good.

[Cpd014]

Well the coverage is good for long distance its good but in terms of audio I would have to agree its not as preped up as to what they claim it is sometimes it is a pain to get through with network trouble errors and other crap it can get frustrating. They have a plan for only the direct connect feature $39.00 bucks each phone a month wich can be quite expensive in my book and they wont cut you a deal if you do 2 or more phones on the same plan tried that allready they wont do it. So to make a long story short they are gonna have to improve there system alot and manage it better or something because someone else is gonna come up with the two way idea like verizon and there goes nextel so im gonna wait and see if verizon is better and go with them. On the other hand ham radio is good but most women aint gonna want to get a license allready tried that option I have a license but the XYL dont want to get one so nextel was the only option for the time unfortunately and I also had to have one of my moble radios fixed it stopped working and I believe it was from me transmitting on a nextel near it I used other radios around it never a problem but until I used a nextel around it the dam thing screwed up I dont know if anyone had the same problem out there?

[metro121]

As always, my thoughts on this particular subject remains the same.


NEXTSMELL CAN @$%#&&^$G^%&*(@%)@^$*#^%#%#YU#^EFE^#)@#*@T$HE)D&^#@HGW(($&$#()@@()@!$#()%$_)$)#*@_!(#*&$^%$^)#_#$+@#($&%^#(_@?@>@"@#@_#*(#}#|%(*%^#%^&@()!#)@)!*#(%_^$)%&#*#)($#_&#(+@$*$*#*$#*$##*$+#(*+#(%#*IG_&@(*&#%(N$*%(*$NT*$_++@++##*@&^$%%)#)#+$%^$%(@_+!^(^)&($*&%)&)&#@(^%$(^_^$^&$%(^%+@*$#)_#*$#())$)($!

and i mean it!

[motor59]

I have one from work - IMHO, it's only marginally better than two soup cans on a long string.
161- tell your friend to try borrowing a pair from somebody for a weekend and give 'em a little try. 48 hrs should be more than enough to convince them...
I just heard a little rumor at work that we are getting some beta units from Verizon for testing. I sure hope that I can get one and ditch the i1000 !!!!!

[Jonathan KC8RYW]

I believe Alex mentioned a while ago that you can "test-drive" some NexTel phones for a weekend for free, if you ask the NexTel shop nicely.


I think the main cause of why direct-connect sounds so bad is the microphone. The microphone is also the speaker. The speaker is the microphone. Get the idea?