Huge Sprint Nextel News

[Digobick]

Big day for Sprint news. If even half of this is true then Sprint will be sitting pretty for quite a while:

Top Cable Companies Close to Sprint Wireless Deal

Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications Inc. could be close to offering cell phone service using Sprint Nextel's network as part of its bundled services, which currently include cable TV, high speed Internet and digital home telephone services.

Article at PCS Intel
Department of Defense Buying iDEN Network

The Department of Defense, working with the FCC, DHS, the President, and Congress has brokered a framework agreement to purchase Sprint Nextel's iDEN network as the first phase of a national overhaul of its security framework in regards to communication. The plan is simple; everyone involved in securing this nation will be on the same network. This network will be using an encrypted iDEN sequence, ensuring that all soldiers, first responders, and chain of command will be able to contact each other.

Sprint WiMax

Sprint intends to deploy a national, non-fixed WiMax network with as much, if not more coverage than the existing CDMA network. WiMax will effectively act as a replacement to CDMA data, providing FIOS-like speeds via massive towers that resemble TV towers in major cities. This will enable Sprint to not only be a national ISP, but to remove common conceptions of fixed ISP.

But, Sprint was late to the WiMax game... Sprint lacks the licenses to deploy a national WiMax network on the critical 700 MHz band.

In comes the FCC. As a part of the transaction of iDEN to the federal government, Sprint will gain a blank check to rebuild the 700 and 800 MHz bands in their image, taking licenses as needed from whoever has them regardless of how fairly they gained them at FCC auction in the past. With Congress, the FCC, and the President in the loop, Forsee, Donahue, and Lauer will have no problem in gaining dominance of the WiMax and digital CDMA 800 MHz spectrum needed to reform technologies in their image.

The final step in this strategy is bandwidth. As you may know, local loops to existing cellular structure generally tap out at about 10 T1 lines per tower in a high traffic cell site. Sprint will form a network coalition to utilize dark fiber across the country to connect the city-wide WiMax towers whenever possible, feeding into Sprintlink backbones in order to ensure that the entire network is able to deliver above-DSL speeds to all customers at all times. Clearly, the goal is to make all metropolitan areas at least initially wired via fiber, and eventually, to create a national fiber optics "spine" that will connect every citizen wirelessly to a fiber optics internet directly.

 

[ElFenix]

i just want service that isn't spotty out at my parents' house. or that doesn't drop every time i drive through the park down the street

 

[EvilYoda]

damn, those are some juicy rumors...that'll be interesting to watch.

 

[KLin]

I wonder what this means for current nextel suscribers?

 

[Digobick]

Originally posted by: KLin
I wonder what this means for current nextel suscribers?

From the second link, it looks like current Nextel customers would have to switch to Sprint's network (CDMA) by 2010. Until then, Sprint Nextel will start selling phones that support both CDMA & iDEN networks.

 

[KLin]

Originally posted by: Digobick

Originally posted by: KLin
I wonder what this means for current nextel suscribers?

From the second link, it looks like current Nextel customers would have to switch to Sprint's network (CDMA) by 2010. Until then, Sprint Nextel will start selling phones that support both CDMA & iDEN networks.

I Guess I should have read it . So I guess this means no more directconnect, or do they have something similar that works on CDMA networks?

 

[broon]

It's called readylink. It's not as realtime as directconnect but it works.

 

[ElFenix]

is iDEN not upgradeable?