Sprint Now Pushing the Motorola i890
The reality about Nextel
Many people seem to hold one of two persuasions about Nextel: it sucks because of slow data and messaging issues, or it rocks because of PTT and rugged phones. The real truth is that Nextel is an average mid-tier brand (and network for that matter). It has pro's and con's like any other network. Nextel's real issue is network coverage; its network doesn't span a large enough area of the U.S. to make it practical for anyone who does at least moderate traveling. Additionally, Nextel has only one roaming partner, SouthernLinc Wireless in the southeastern United States. They just don't offer enough coverage. There are a number of people who still like having a simple phone that gets strong reception and makes good calls, but Nextel isn't a...
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It's true that Nextel's coverage is not as extensive as the other carriers now, but as a historical point of fact, prior to the merger Nextel actually had one of the largest networks in the US. Because Nextel didn't roam, they HAD to build a large network.
Nextel's iDEN network before the merger was larger than Sprint's CDMA network, and in fact at the time it was around the same size as Verizon's native CMDA network was. But all of the CDMA carriers and the GSM carriers effectively have what SEEMS like larger networks because of the vast roaming agreements they have with all of the small regional carriers. Verizon in particular has played their roaming agreements hand very well, in addition to building their own large and high-quality ne...
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Nextel's iDEN network before the merger was larger than Sprint's CDMA network, and in fact at the time it was around the same size as Verizon's native CMDA network was. But all of the CDMA carriers and the GSM carriers effectively have what SEEMS like larger networks because of the vast roaming agreements they have with all of the small regional carriers. Verizon in particular has played their roaming agreements hand very well, in addition to building their own large and high-quality ne...
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cellphonesaretools, you bring up several very good points. Nextel has a long history and tradition of having a nationwide network...if i'm not mistaken, they actually had the first nationwide network. I had Nextel for six months, and the call quality is second to none; I would argue that even CDMA call quality takes a backseat to iDEN. It's hard to argue against the fact that Sprint has largely neglected Nextel's network infrastructure, and to me it makes no sense that they cannot equip Nextel phones with EV-DO chips. Sprint just doesn't have any interest in doing so. I wish they would (and would have) put more money into further developing and maintaining Nextel. I like what Dan Hesse is doing, but i'm not sure he can completely fix w...
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Jesus, you people must live in a wonderland or on a Nextel fan-boy island. I had Nextel for over four years here in Metro-Detroit. I know your first question will be "if you dislike Nextel so much, why were you with them for four years?". So let me iron that out of the way first. One, PTT was a fad at the time, and my whole family pretty much used it, so we drank the cool aid and got Nextel phones. Second, my work also used the PTT feature, so that was another reason. Second, they gave my contract a 20% discount for being a government employee, so another reason why I was with them (at the time, NONE of the other carriers matched that discount).
Nextel's voice service is the worst I have ever experienced, and I have been on TDMA,Iden,GSM...
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Nextel's voice service is the worst I have ever experienced, and I have been on TDMA,Iden,GSM...
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I am by no means a Nextel fan boy, but i'm a realist when it comes to wireless carriers and networks. As I mentioned, every carrier has its weaknesses and drawbacks.
As you alluded, Nextel is definitely area dependent in terms of quality of service. I'm in the north Louisiana area, and my service was top notch, second to none here. I rarely even had messaging delays when in my "native" area. However; when I would visit my in laws in New Orleans, my service turned to mush. I dropped calls, sound quality was garbled, and messages dropped off the face of the earth. But I was only there for about 2 weeks out of the year, so it was tolerable.
To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with getting what works where you are. The "big two" ...
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As you alluded, Nextel is definitely area dependent in terms of quality of service. I'm in the north Louisiana area, and my service was top notch, second to none here. I rarely even had messaging delays when in my "native" area. However; when I would visit my in laws in New Orleans, my service turned to mush. I dropped calls, sound quality was garbled, and messages dropped off the face of the earth. But I was only there for about 2 weeks out of the year, so it was tolerable.
To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with getting what works where you are. The "big two" ...
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you people complain about anything!! nextel provides a service for push to talk and im sure they really dont give a **** about data speeds or texting.. i use to belong to that lame service they call verizon and have switched to sprint and i love it!! my data speeds smoke verizon using my htc hero!! 😁 so who really cares about verizon have 100 mbps compared to 60 mbps, are you really going to notice that much of a difference?
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scottmbolt:
I have heard other Nextel customers in the Detroit area (also Chicago area) complain that Nextel is really not good there, so your experience jives with a lot of others in certain areas where Nextel is not strong.
Realistically, we all know that there are large areas where each and every one of the carriers is not good. Or in ATT & T-Mo's cases, that includes almost all of the lower 48 states ;-)
The highly annoying echo you spoke of is at times a problem with iDEN, but any good network tech can fix that at the tower/base-station level. Unfortunately, Sprint's CS agents will argue all day that the echo problem is in the phone, but the phone is rarely at fault, i.e. only when the user has the volume cranked up, and in par...
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I have heard other Nextel customers in the Detroit area (also Chicago area) complain that Nextel is really not good there, so your experience jives with a lot of others in certain areas where Nextel is not strong.
Realistically, we all know that there are large areas where each and every one of the carriers is not good. Or in ATT & T-Mo's cases, that includes almost all of the lower 48 states ;-)
The highly annoying echo you spoke of is at times a problem with iDEN, but any good network tech can fix that at the tower/base-station level. Unfortunately, Sprint's CS agents will argue all day that the echo problem is in the phone, but the phone is rarely at fault, i.e. only when the user has the volume cranked up, and in par...
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This forum is closed.
