Sprint phasing out iDEN aka Push to Talk Nextel Network

[zerocool84]

Echoing sentiments of Sprint's senior VP of networks from last month, CEO Dan Hesse has said that the company will be saying goodnight to its aging push-to-talk network -- iDEN -- that it inherited from its Nextel acquisition several years ago, "just like 1G was shut down." Of course, the difference between 1G cellular and iDEN is that iDEN still holds a very unique position in the wireless marketplace: even though it sucks for data, it's really the only popular, successful way to route push-to-talk over a cell network of any kind. To that end, the company is actively soliciting bids to build out CDMA 1X Advanced right now, which may allow the company to have another go at moving its PTT services over to a CDMA-based technology (the first attempt, QChat, already failed). In the meantime, Hesse says that the company is putting most of its marketing efforts into attracting customers to its CDMA airwaves, not its iDEN ones, in the hopes that they'll be able to smooth out the transition and free up iDEN spectrum for other services. It's had a good run, hasn't it?

I don't know why they're doing this. Lots of contracting companies use cheap Nextel phones to communicate with their employees out in the field. They shouldn't announce plans to eliminate this when they have nothing to replace it unless they're trying to get away from the whole business side of their Nextel line and kill it off all together and focus more on the consumer side.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/27/sprints-hesse-commits-to-phasing-out-iden/

 

[gsaldivar]

Digital push-to-talk is rather unique, and granted it's got a loyal niche following, but at a certain point the expense in keeping that network up and running exceeds the money they are making off of it.

If there isn't enough of a market for that technology, why should Sprint be obligated to invest R&D money to develop a direct replacement for it?

 

[rudeguy]

I don't know why they're doing this. Lots of contracting companies use cheap Nextel phones to communicate with their employees out in the field. They shouldn't announce plans to eliminate this when they have nothing to replace it unless they're trying to get away from the whole business side of their Nextel line and kill it off all together and focus more on the consumer side.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/27/sprints-hesse-commits-to-phasing-out-iden/

2way (iden) had its time. I sold Nextel during the boom and I can tell you that there is nothing that you can do with iden that you can't do with CDMA/data. There is already a PTT app for Android that is very popular. Companies that still rely on 2way need to update and get current.

 

[QueBert]

2way (iden) had its time. I sold Nextel during the boom and I can tell you that there is nothing that you can do with iden that you can't do with CDMA/data. There is already a PTT app for Android that is very popular. Companies that still rely on 2way need to update and get current.

Newer phones, with the exception of a few Casio phones Verizon have are built like shit. My Bro in Law has a super old Nextel that's built like a super tank. It has survived so much shit and still works flawlessly. So what you're saying he should pay thousands of dollars to get all the people at his company newer phones that are built much worse. Why exactly? For construction PTT and Nextel phones are pretty much a requirement. Give all his workers Droids and I guarantee 70% will be broken within 3 months. It's not about the PTT, who cares if there's an app to replace it, the phones are what's important. Sprint would be stupid to get rid of the Nextel bricks.

 

[gsaldivar]

There are many modern "ruggedized" smartphones on the market, even touchscreen Android-based ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeEWvYmevMU

 

[zerocool84]

There are many modern "ruggedized" smartphones on the market, even touchscreen Android-based ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeEWvYmevMU

Not even in the same realm of Motorola Nextel phones.

 

[gsaldivar]

Not even in the same realm of Motorola Nextel phones.

So, start a petition to have Motorola make a CDMA/GSM version of the i1...? I'll even sign it. That will give you full military 810F spec...

Alternatively, you can toss an Otterbox case on many phones these days. You pretty much have to roll a car over an Otterbox protected phone to damage it:

http://demandware.edgesuite.net/aae...oogle-nexus-one-defender-series-case-info.pdf

 

[rudeguy]

Newer phones, with the exception of a few Casio phones Verizon have are built like shit. My Bro in Law has a super old Nextel that's built like a super tank. It has survived so much shit and still works flawlessly. So what you're saying he should pay thousands of dollars to get all the people at his company newer phones that are built much worse. Why exactly? For construction PTT and Nextel phones are pretty much a requirement. Give all his workers Droids and I guarantee 70% will be broken within 3 months. It's not about the PTT, who cares if there's an app to replace it, the phones are what's important. Sprint would be stupid to get rid of the Nextel bricks.

Great. So have your bro in law and all his construction buddies lease towers, build radios and setup and maintain their own network.

 

[pm]

We use Nextel iDEN phones at work for our "response team" phones... guess we'll find a new provider.

 

[Fear No Evil]

We use Nextel iDEN phones at work for our "response team" phones... guess we'll find a new provider.

Is there one?

 

[zerocool84]

Is there one?

None like Nextel. Verizon for a little while touted their PTT phones but that fizzled.

 

[Dulanic]

My understanding is they will "eventually" get rid of iDen and migrate to CDMA for those users. I also get the impression they plan to still offer the same features just using the more modern network.

 

[rudeguy]

My understanding is they will "eventually" get rid of iDen and migrate to CDMA for those users. I also get the impression they plan to still offer the same features just using the more modern network.

right

There is nothing they can't do via CDMA or data

 

[Slacker]

I had a 1 year contract position with sprint, in a division that provided communications services for disasters and large events (like when the pope came to the u.s.) and while I was there I heard some things about the band that iden used being eyed for other purposes, I thought it had something to do with wimax.

Memory is sketchy but I know there was talk of doing something to free up that frequency, this was around mid 2008.

 

[sjwaste]

I had a case study on this once. I think it was for a class or something.

The reason for PTT over iDEN is the latency when connecting. There's something about the threshold that people will deal with and still find it useful, versus a delay that makes them just dial a phone # and connect that way. As of the time of this case, iDEN was the only thing going where it was fast enough to be usable.

 

[zerocool84]

I had a case study on this once. I think it was for a class or something.

The reason for PTT over iDEN is the latency when connecting. There's something about the threshold that people will deal with and still find it useful, versus a delay that makes them just dial a phone # and connect that way. As of the time of this case, iDEN was the only thing going where it was fast enough to be usable.

Especially with businesses, waiting to call and ring and pick-up takes forever compared to iDEN PTT. Businesses are all about money and calling someone takes much more time than just doing quick PTT.

 

[rudeguy]

Especially with businesses, waiting to call and ring and pick-up takes forever compared to iDEN PTT. Businesses are all about money and calling someone takes much more time than just doing quick PTT.

but what % of the time did it come back with the annoying "UUUHHHHHHHH" when the person wasn't available.

Again: I was one of the people pushing Nextels. I used one for my personal phone (i1000 special silver edition FTW!) and plenty of my friends and coworkers used them as well. But that was...what? 2000, 2001? The technology is old and expensive. It killed Nextel and isn't earning its money with Sprint. It needs to go the way of analog and fizzle out.

 

[gsaldivar]

Especially with businesses, waiting to call and ring and pick-up takes forever compared to iDEN PTT. Businesses are all about money and calling someone takes much more time than just doing quick PTT.

I get the PTT concept... but the reality is that there doesn't seem to be much profit in that niche market.

When you refer to "businesses", you're actually referring to just the industries that have a specialized need for this type of thing... So that would be pretty much be construction and emergency response, right?

The other 95% of businesses out there are making due just fine with GSM/CDMA and walkie-talkies. This has been the case for many years now, thus the continued decline in overall iDEN subscribers.

With a lack of large scale demand, wireless companies are simply not willing to continue spending millions of dollars every year needed to keep that network up and running. By now, there are probably so few iDEN subscribers that if they tried to raise the price of the service to cover the actual cost of running it, as well as to create a sufficient amount of profit as to provide an incentive for a carrier to continue operating it, it might work out to cost like $1.00 a minute or more... at that price, nobody would use the service and it would no longer be marketable.

 

[QueBert]

I get the PTT concept... but the reality is that there doesn't seem to be much profit in that niche market.

When you refer to "businesses", you're actually referring to just the industries that have a specialized need for this type of thing... So that would be pretty much be construction and emergency response, right?

The other 95% of businesses out there are making due just fine with GSM/CDMA and walkie-talkies. This has been the case for many years now, thus the continued decline in overall iDEN subscribers.

Boost Mobile was created to share the cost of that maintaining that network, even though the majority of Boost subscribers don't use PTT. But I suspect that Boost's subscribers are no longer sufficient to offset the decline in iDEN subscribers...

With a lack of large scale demand, wireless companies are simply not willing to continue spending millions of dollars every year needed to keep that network up and running. By now, there are probably so few iDEN subscribers that if they tried to raise the price of the service to cover the actual cost of running it, as well as to create a sufficient amount of profit as to provide an incentive for a carrier to continue operating it, it might work out to cost like $1.00 a minute or more... at that price, nobody would use the service and it would no longer be marketable.

I wouldn't be so sure in the urban markets Boost + PTT is still very popular. I still see tons of people chirping every day. The problem probably is the money Boost is making Sprint isn't enough to keep it around. There's really no reason to even use Boost unless you want PTT. Their phone selection is horrible and they're more expensive than any other pre-paid outside of AT&T & Verizon. If Boost can't implement some sort of PTT like system that people can use with their current handsets they're in trouble.

 

[gsaldivar]

I wouldn't be so sure in the urban markets Boost + PTT is still very popular.

True. I can't prove that part so I took it out. They're still bleeding iDEN customers at a fast rate however - 383,000 postpaid and 700,000 prepaid iDEN subscribers were lost in just the last 4 months... that can't continue for much longer.

 

[zerocool84]

True. I can't prove that part so I took it out. They're still bleeding iDEN customers at a fast rate however - 383,000 postpaid and 700,000 prepaid iDEN subscribers were lost in just the last 4 months... that can't continue for much longer.

Sprint is bleeding customers in every sector but it seems they're committed to get rid of iDEN and stick with the consumer sector.

 

[gsaldivar]

Sprint is bleeding customers in every sector but it seems they're committed to get rid of iDEN and stick with the consumer sector.

Nope.

For the same period of all those iDEN losses they added 1.2m prepaid and 276,000 postpaid CDMA subscribers.

Also, calling Sprint CDMA a "consumer" network isn't really accurate. I'm pretty sure far more business is conducted on their CDMA network than iDEN these days...

 

[uli2000]

I had a 1 year contract position with sprint, in a division that provided communications services for disasters and large events (like when the pope came to the u.s.) and while I was there I heard some things about the band that iden used being eyed for other purposes, I thought it had something to do with wimax.

Memory is sketchy but I know there was talk of doing something to free up that frequency, this was around mid 2008.

iDEN runs in the 850mhz band, which is cellular frequency gold. Sprint's CDMA network runs 1900mhz only, and 850mhz is hard to come by with Verizon and ATT owning almost all of it with a few regional carriers the rest. I dont think they can run WiMax on 850 but they could certainly move some of the 1900 traffic to 850 and run wimax on the 1900.

 

[sjwaste]

iDEN runs in the 850mhz band, which is cellular frequency gold. Sprint's CDMA network runs 1900mhz only, and 850mhz is hard to come by with Verizon and ATT owning almost all of it with a few regional carriers the rest. I dont think they can run WiMax on 850 but they could certainly move some of the 1900 traffic to 850 and run wimax on the 1900.

Would be nice. I've been very happy with Sprint, but the Wimax service doesn't get too far into buildings.

 

[gsaldivar]

I saw this today and thought of this thread.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/16/sprint-direct-connect-will-replace-iden-with-cdma-launch-late-t/

Looks like Sprint is gearing up to take another shot at its seemingly unsinkable (but aging) iDEN push-to-talk network that it inherited from its Nextel acquisition -- which is a good thing seeing how it's only signed up for another three years' worth of maintenance. The new so-called Sprint Direct Connect service is slated to launch in the fourth quarter of this year using CDMA underpinnings, a throwback to the QChat-based push-to-talk network that Sprint launched back in 2008 but never gained traction. Presumably, Sprint thinks that it knows how to make the transition work this time around, promising wider coverage, better in-building signal strength, user availability notifications, support for up to 200 chat participants, and -- of course -- far faster data services than iDEN could ever deliver. Sprint says that it'll offer "an ultra-rugged camera flip phone" along with a QWERTY Android device this year, with more devices in the pipe for 2012.