Sprint’s old, decrepit, slow, [insert additional adjective here] iDEN network acquired in the seemingly never-ending Nextel acquisition (identified as one of the worst of all time by Bloomberg) is set for some Network Vision “love.” Network Vision, for those that don’t know, is a massive effort by Sprint to “consolidate multiple network technologies into one seamless network with the goal of increasing efficiency and enhancing network coverage, call quality and data speeds for customers across the United States“. Sprint’s latest Playbook, received from a Sprint source, provides some details into what the plan is for iDEN.
This retuning and decommissioning will not shutdown the iDEN markets or service in 2012, but it is scheduled for a complete turn off sometime in 2013.
Network Vision will be either retuning or decommissioning existing iDEN towers starting in February
Customers who are negatively impacted have a few options:
If targeted by this move, the customer will proactively be offered migration offers to move to Sprint.
ETF waiving windows are open for negatively affected customers for New Orleans (12/1/11 to 3/31/12) and the rest of the nation (2/1/12 to 7/31/12).
If you are an iDEN customer, check out the graphic below, as well as your recent and upcoming billing statement for news about this change as it affects you.
I'm very excited to see this news. I will keeping a close eye on the nextel towers in this market.
iDEN was good in its day and it was spectrally efficient compared to TDMA and GSM with good voice quality. However, technology has moved on and it has not. I would not mind seeing Sprint get LTE going on those frequencies.
Kind of odd to see Louisiana on any document that Sprint sends out. Louisiana has always been the redheaded step child network for them. I know two people that have nextel for work. They said their companies are going to AT&T since Sprint doesn't have coverage in the areas they need it where nextel did have coverage.
Kind of odd to see Louisiana on any document that Sprint sends out. Louisiana has always been the redheaded step child network for them. I know two people that have nextel for work. They said their companies are going to AT&T since Sprint doesn't have coverage in the areas they need it where nextel did have coverage.
Yeah, the mentioning of Louisiana obviously peaked my interest as I know of so many Nextel towers around here that are in great locations for CDMA service. Also, the lady I spoke to at Sprint Network escalations yesterday mentioned the nextel migration going on in Louisiana. This was before I read the article and I tried to pry more information out of her, but she wouldn't say or didn't know. (I'm leaning towards the latter.) But this is great news nonetheless, and I hope I see some Ericsson trucks hanging out by nextel towers.
I honestly figure with many of them they just going to decomission them and use VZW roaming though.
Yes. Odds are they decommission them and not turn them into CDMA. Sprint is looking to cut costs and will only turn CDMA on a site they have deemed as being high priority. The majority of existing iDEN only towers are not high priority.
Yes. Odds are they decommission them and not turn them into CDMA. Sprint is looking to cut costs and will only turn CDMA on a site they have deemed as being high priority. The majority of existing iDEN only towers are not high priority.
That's a shame... it seems to me that if they already own the tower, have some sort of backhaul to it (even if it's not that fast), it would be cheaper to swap the IDEN equipment to at least some of the legacy CDMA equipment they are replacing everywhere else so that they have SOME sort of native coverage there rather than paying additional for roaming to Verizon. Even if it means making a "hard cut" in service from IDEN to CDMA in those areas.
It just seems like a step backwards to actually REDUCE your native footprint--even if it's in rural areas--especially when it's a matter of swapping equipment vs. leasing new space/towers/backhaul etc.
I hope someone from Sprint is reading this... Especially with the loss of Alltel, I would hope they would use everything they have. Roaming isn't exactly the best solution when they are now capping it aggressively.
Personally, I have already gotten the $.99 upgrade option. Our first line was upgraded to a Admiral in early January. Sprint has continued to offer us the upgrade option for all the remaining lines. They apparently started this program the first of the year.
“Right now, I’m glad we have the iDEN network,” Hesse said. “I wouldn’t have said that 18 months ago, but I am now ... from a financial perspective.”
NEXTEL. Done. I guess that's "Life at SprintSpeed"
Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner,
was murdered on December 9th, 1981
by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Help Bring Danny Justice. www.danielfaulkner.com
We honor his memory.
Yes. Odds are they decommission them and not turn them into CDMA. Sprint is looking to cut costs and will only turn CDMA on a site they have deemed as being high priority. The majority of existing iDEN only towers are not high priority.
They didn't colo them before so I figured they would just decomission them. They had one near me that was on the map a year ago as a future tower but pulled it. Roaming works fine there though. I make sure to use my limit of roaming in those areas to add to the stats
A lot of people think iden was only a network in usa, but aside from sprint, southernlinc also offers iden in USA for Georgia and AL (which ive spoken to them and they said they have no plans to discontinue iden whatsoever. Mexico, peru, brazil, argentina, israel and so forth all have Iden and whats funny is markets like peru and so forth were able to offer 3g phones with iden dc, some form of hybrid i forget what they are calling it, but its not like sprints CDMA ptt. They are working on providing it for their other countries but ya sprint is just a losing battle all the time. Sprint was never able to be a company who could do anything right. If it had just known how to do things, it would have been able to make 3g, and if not 4g in future phones with iden as well. I know for a fact i will end all my lines with them after they drop iden because that cdma crap DC they got is another way of them saying we couldnt handle it we give up heres what you get.
A lot of people think iden was only a network in usa, but aside from sprint, southernlinc also offers iden in USA for Georgia and AL (which ive spoken to them and they said they have no plans to discontinue iden whatsoever. Mexico, peru, brazil, argentina, israel and so forth all have Iden and whats funny is markets like peru and so forth were able to offer 3g phones with iden dc, some form of hybrid i forget what they are calling it, but its not like sprints CDMA ptt. They are working on providing it for their other countries but ya sprint is just a losing battle all the time. Sprint was never able to be a company who could do anything right. If it had just known how to do things, it would have been able to make 3g, and if not 4g in future phones with iden as well. I know for a fact i will end all my lines with them after they drop iden because that cdma crap DC they got is another way of them saying we couldnt handle it we give up heres what you get.
NII is also planning to move to 3G based PTT. It's dead, Jim, D-E-A-D. It's deader in the US than other countries, but it's dying there as well. It's just waiting for the doctor to pronounce it dead.
Yes. Odds are they decommission them and not turn them into CDMA. Sprint is looking to cut costs and will only turn CDMA on a site they have deemed as being high priority. The majority of existing iDEN only towers are not high priority.
Such a shame. My church has had a Nextel site on our steeple since 2000/2001. They were our first carrier and did all the legal grunt work to break down local village opposition and other made up regulatory roadblocks. Our steeple now has Verizon, AT&T (Cingular at the time) and T-Mobile in addition to Nextel. We have no Sprint service and Sprint coverage in our building is terrible. I am always roaming on Verizon. Funny thing is when I first got a cell phone and was with T-Mobile, the coverage in our building was also decrepit. However that changed quickly when T-Mobile put their equipment in our tower. Now I am on Sprint and have the same lousy coverage!
Remember that with network vision Sprint will be improving coverage by using new frequency for CDMA and improving the RF by moving the radios to the antennas. So it won't be necessary to keep most of the exisiting iDEN only cell sites.
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