03/31/2013 Ends Nextel roaming agreement with SouthernLINC

[Wireless Junkie]

Well I guess this finally signifies the end of Nextel. Service here in AL has significantly degraded in the last month, we still have quite a few areas that have NO Sprint service and iDEN only so I hope they fix that before turning iDEN off. But we are migrating over to Kyocera Duramax's and SDC has been pretty good so far, especially with the hack I figured out to enable PTT over 1X and roaming

On the SouthernLINC webpage which is the second largest iDEN operating company in the US, under national roaming, it indicates the agreement which was JUST put into place to allow national and interoperable PTT in 2011, expires 03/31/2013....

Wonder what they will do?

http://www.southernlinc.com/coverage.aspx

[Jordan T]

Some places that are iDEN only will NEVER get Sprint. For example, half of my small town has Nextel iDEN (look at that SouthernLINC national map, you'll see a tiny tiny green dot in the northwest corner of the otherwise blank state that is Montana...). That site was put up to serve a Nextel call center here. Not sure exactly WHY they needed Nextel service at the call center, when the phone only worked in a tiny area, it's not like anyone was going to take them up on fantastic employee prices or anything, LOL.

Sprint sold their PCS licenses in Montana to AT&T. Granted they still have the Nextel spectrum, and everything that came out of that re-banding, but I think it's pretty safe to say that once the Nextel site in Kalispell gets shut down, Sprint will have left Montana completely (they never had CDMA of their own here, but Alltel ran a CDMA network that identified itself as Sprint on Sprint spectrum, now being used for UMTS) for the foreseeable future.

[NGeorge]

Some places that are iDEN only will NEVER get Sprint. For example, half of my small town has Nextel iDEN (look at that SouthernLINC national map, you'll see a tiny tiny green dot in the northwest corner of the otherwise blank state that is Montana...). That site was put up to serve a Nextel call center here. Not sure exactly WHY they needed Nextel service at the call center, when the phone only worked in a tiny area, it's not like anyone was going to take them up on fantastic employee prices or anything, LOL.

Sprint sold their PCS licenses in Montana to AT&T. Granted they still have the Nextel spectrum, and everything that came out of that re-banding, but I think it's pretty safe to say that once the Nextel site in Kalispell gets shut down, Sprint will have left Montana completely (they never had CDMA of their own here, but Alltel ran a CDMA network that identified itself as Sprint on Sprint spectrum, now being used for UMTS) for the foreseeable future.

You know, until you mentioned that, I never noticed that blip on the map for Kalispell--promptly went to the Sprint site and zoomed in on it lol

I remember that there used to be a company called Airtel that looked like they had a pretty wide IDEN map in Montana, but it looks like they up and left with no trace about 3 years back leaving some ticked off consumers. I'm surprised Nextel never put a roaming agreement in place with them. http://spokane.bbb.org/article/mt-ag...-refunds-14951

As for IDEN-only areas, I can understand Kalispell not getting CDMA... It truly is a TINY pocket of coverage with no roaming opportunities--but so far from what I've seen, that is about it. There are huge swaths in North Dakota that should be getting it (plug in Minot in the coverage map and zoom out, then flip to CDMA to see how much is IDEN-only) as well as Nebraska, Iowa, eastern Oregon, and numerous other areas. Nextel went on a building spree right before the merger due to the fact that they had no roaming agreements--here in Western Washington, Sprint turned every one of those sites into synergy sites, which meant Sprint went from just a freeway carrier to having some pretty decent coverage.... however, they didn't do it everywhere--and with Network Vision, they should at least finish the build out process that Nextel started, and pick up a little bit of rural coverage since they already have the towers and backhaul.

Back to the question at hand, if SouthernLinc is truly committed to IDEN, I'm surprised they don't figure out a way to get a firmware update pushed to the old IC series of phones to allow IDEN talk/PTT (when in the home area) and CDMA/QChat when outside of it (with an updated 3G & cross-carrier PTT roaming agreement from Sprint). I know the IC phones never had IDEN talk, but I thought that was more of an artificial limitation--and as for QChat, isn't that more of a software implementation? Even if it isn't the exact old IC line, it could be heavily based on them... Even though their entire lineup wouldn't offer it, at least SouthernLinc could then offer a couple models of phones for people who need the national coverage.

I wonder if they could talk Motorola into this? I realize a special line of phones for a regional carrier would be expensive--but if it is heavily based off the IC line--just updated with firmware to allow IDEN calls and QChat(2), I wonder if they would be more game... They lost so much money on them the first time that maybe this could recoup some of it.

--Nat

[Wireless Junkie]

Some places that are iDEN only will NEVER get Sprint. For example, half of my small town has Nextel iDEN (look at that SouthernLINC national map, you'll see a tiny tiny green dot in the northwest corner of the otherwise blank state that is Montana...). That site was put up to serve a Nextel call center here. Not sure exactly WHY they needed Nextel service at the call center, when the phone only worked in a tiny area, it's not like anyone was going to take them up on fantastic employee prices or anything, LOL.

Sprint sold their PCS licenses in Montana to AT&T. Granted they still have the Nextel spectrum, and everything that came out of that re-banding, but I think it's pretty safe to say that once the Nextel site in Kalispell gets shut down, Sprint will have left Montana completely (they never had CDMA of their own here, but Alltel ran a CDMA network that identified itself as Sprint on Sprint spectrum, now being used for UMTS) for the foreseeable future.

Lol that's insane for them to have done that, but I guess they wouldn't build out a network themselves anyways and with AT&T you are primarily relying on 850 if I'm not mistaken and then I guess PCS for capacity.

As far as that one tower for the call center, that's hilarious!!


Sent from my iPhone 4S on Sprint using Tapatalk

[Wireless Junkie]

You know, until you mentioned that, I never noticed that blip on the map for Kalispell--promptly went to the Sprint site and zoomed in on it lol

I remember that there used to be a company called Airtel that looked like they had a pretty wide IDEN map in Montana, but it looks like they up and left with no trace about 3 years back leaving some ticked off consumers. I'm surprised Nextel never put a roaming agreement in place with them. http://spokane.bbb.org/article/mt-ag...-refunds-14951

As for IDEN-only areas, I can understand Kalispell not getting CDMA... It truly is a TINY pocket of coverage with no roaming opportunities--but so far from what I've seen, that is about it. There are huge swaths in North Dakota that should be getting it (plug in Minot in the coverage map and zoom out, then flip to CDMA to see how much is IDEN-only) as well as Nebraska, Iowa, eastern Oregon, and numerous other areas. Nextel went on a building spree right before the merger due to the fact that they had no roaming agreements--here in Western Washington, Sprint turned every one of those sites into synergy sites, which meant Sprint went from just a freeway carrier to having some pretty decent coverage.... however, they didn't do it everywhere--and with Network Vision, they should at least finish the build out process that Nextel started, and pick up a little bit of rural coverage since they already have the towers and backhaul.

Back to the question at hand, if SouthernLinc is truly committed to IDEN, I'm surprised they don't figure out a way to get a firmware update pushed to the old IC series of phones to allow IDEN talk/PTT (when in the home area) and CDMA/QChat when outside of it (with an updated 3G & cross-carrier PTT roaming agreement from Sprint). I know the IC phones never had IDEN talk, but I thought that was more of an artificial limitation--and as for QChat, isn't that more of a software implementation? Even if it isn't the exact old IC line, it could be heavily based on them... Even though their entire lineup wouldn't offer it, at least SouthernLinc could then offer a couple models of phones for people who need the national coverage.

I wonder if they could talk Motorola into this? I realize a special line of phones for a regional carrier would be expensive--but if it is heavily based off the IC line--just updated with firmware to allow IDEN calls and QChat(2), I wonder if they would be more game... They lost so much money on them the first time that maybe this could recoup some of it.

--Nat

Well seeing as after Nextel is gone and other countries are going QCHAT, SoLINC will likely be Motorola's biggest iDEN network and so they would pretty much be catering to them for specific handsets anyways so why not add GSM or CDMA for roaming? GSM actually would be easier since iDEN voice stacking protocols are based on GSM and they could have dual mode phones that can use the same iDEN SIM cards like the i930's did for international use.


Sent from my iPhone 4S on Sprint using Tapatalk

[NGeorge]

Well, not being from the south, I am not too familiar with SouthernLinc, but from what I have gathered they seem to be fairly respected, have better coverage than Nextel ever did, they have a fairly happy customer base who isn't exactly fleeing IDEN (at the moment) and haven't (at least publicly) announced any plans on moving from IDEN--I've also read they honestly could care less about their consumer base since it's basically just an over-built network for the power company and the consumers are just there pay the bill to run it--and there should be plenty of IDEN purists down south to do that for a long time.

Just curious, does anyone have any subscriber numbers? Are we talking a million people--few hundred thousand tops? Do they actually still gain customers, or do they lose every quarter?

Also am curious about the rebanding situation down there--how much does SouthernLinc actually have? IIRC, Nextel has 14 mhz. nationwide and 12 mhz. down south. Does SoLinc have 12 as well, or is there bandwidth only 2 or 3 mhz. wide?

Reason I ask is that it seems to me an ideal solution for them would be to go ahead and take a page from Sprint's playbook: Do a network upgrade and start deploying CDMA 1x voice and a channel of EV-DO data with QChat on 800 SMR, and slowly transition everyone over, managing the spectrum between IDEN and CDMA until everyone is there, then pull down IDEN.

To my eyes, it would give them access to a wider ecosystem of phones (basically anything Sprint has, plus some odds and ends that end up at other carriers who don't have SMR 800), QChat with the SoLinc to Nextel ability in tact, 3G data via EV-DO (we're not talking 4G, but at least something better than IDEN... considering this company is supposedly doing well with it) and most of all, nationwide coverage--and not just on Sprint, but any CDMA carrier they can roam with. Deploying a 1x/EV-DO network has got to be cheaper than it used to be as well since it isn't exactly "state of the art"--still expensive to re-outfit everything, but not like they would be throwing up LTE.

In the end it would look similar to Sprint's plans for their SMR800, but without the LTE or the 1900... (and maybe the LTE years and years down the road...) -- the point is, I can't see this being successful in the long term if they sit on IDEN forever. At least CDMA SMR 800 would be pretty transparent to the end user, they would get a new phone when it was time to upgrade, faster data, nationwide roaming options wherever they want to strike an agreement and other phone options besides Motorola.

Reminds me of that company in New Jersey who sat on AMPS-only up until '06 or '07--IIRC they ended up "giving back" their licenses to the FCC--noone would even buy the network by that point!

--Nat

[lisaco1]

Some places that are iDEN only will NEVER get Sprint. For example, half of my small town has Nextel iDEN (look at that SouthernLINC national map, you'll see a tiny tiny green dot in the northwest corner of the otherwise blank state that is Montana...). That site was put up to serve a Nextel call center here. Not sure exactly WHY they needed Nextel service at the call center, when the phone only worked in a tiny area, it's not like anyone was going to take them up on fantastic employee prices or anything, LOL.

Sprint sold their PCS licenses in Montana to AT&T. Granted they still have the Nextel spectrum, and everything that came out of that re-banding, but I think it's pretty safe to say that once the Nextel site in Kalispell gets shut down, Sprint will have left Montana completely (they never had CDMA of their own here, but Alltel ran a CDMA network that identified itself as Sprint on Sprint spectrum, now being used for UMTS) for the foreseeable future.

I wonder what the FCC would've thought had they been informed at SPRINT/NEXTEL merger time, that they were going to shut down iden service in small towns without replacement ?

[bigsnake49]

I wonder what the FCC would've thought had they been informed at SPRINT/NEXTEL merger time, that they were going to shut down iden service in small towns without replacement ?

I'm sure that they were told that they will offer service everywhere that is economical to do so. A small town of 600 souls cannot sustain 2 providers, let alone 3 without USF subsidies. Don't complain if the USF tax portion of your bill goes up if you want Sprint to also offer service there.