The Hybrid is something new. It's all in good time my friend, all in good time. 😉

I just feel that the idiots at sprint got it all wrong with the merger... the company that had the higher arpu, and better customer service rankings is the one you start to do away with?? the billing system that is easier to use and the least convuluted is the one you do away with? is sprint just trying to hemmorage away all of the iden customers that are consumers because they know they have most businesses by the balls?

I agree with what you're saying. Sprint WILL learn from their mistakes. This billing system conversion is also hurting Sprint. May help in the long run, but it's a bad choice to do it NOW. Will see

Actually, Sprint will be migrating their billing to use Nextel's.

On the network side of this, Sprint has a very good CDMA network, but as you pointed out, smaller. Sprint's biggest problems were and still are billing and customer service. Again, according to news articles, Nextel will be handling the operations for the whole company eventually.

I personally disagree that Nextel's IDEN network had any serious problems, comparatively speaking. As late as 2004, Nextel's network had the 2nd fewest complaints to the FCC of any national network (Verizon was 1st).

The REAL reason, I believe, that the decision to go CDMA for both companies was cost. As you pointed out, CDMA coverage is everywhere, whereas IDEN coverage is not. It is much ...
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Nextel had a serious problem when it came to capacity last year and then the years of the consensus plan implementation. In fact, they had to slow down Boost’s growth and recently filed with the FCC an extension and emergency use of the other bands. Unfortunately, with that good will Nextel instilled with the FCC and other SMR providers, they hurt themselves because it slows down everything especially when you take off spectrum, re tune in, then put it back on. It is very difficult to do that with the 16 million customers Nextel has. Moreover, with the spectrum position they had, they were already having issues with capacity in many areas and that is why they wanted contiguous band and have the 1.9ghz band to allow for an easy transition or ...
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Nextel was still posting the best churn numbers and profits per subscriber of any wireless network prior to the merger. The Sprint name, though it's unfair, has hurt Nextel's reputation and image. That is why I say the profits and stocks went down for both companies, plus everyone thinking this was a marriage of unequals.

The reason for migration to the CDMA side is probably due to the fact that many people were under the impression that IDEN was being shut off in the near future, plus all the talk of Nextel's supposed irreparable capacity issues (which SouthernLinc subscribers don't have). Most people I've talked to who switched did so because they thought IDEN was history in a year or two and full of problems.

The reason Nextel purch...
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Yea, but Nextel started to have problems when it came to net ads on both the postpaid and the prepaid segments but it was at a slower pace especially going into the consensus plan and implementation state situation. There was need that Nextel needed to do something and quick in order to become the next step wireless carrier, because there seemed to be a slow in growth that Nextel was getting when it came to push to talk applications but more importantly data applications. Customers wanted to have faster than WIDEN on the network and sometimes capacity issues on the voice side. This marriage on paper was excellent because it brought the minds of both companies, which are great, and the assets of both companies, which are industry standards, t...
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Interesting. I hope QChat will perform as predicted, because current Powersource phones will not provide adequate coverage for many users.

The interference issues I mentioned ARE for real. If you take a regular Nextel phone and use the PTT next to a cordless 900 mhz phone, or a Verizon phone, it creates static and signal loss for both.

This is not the case with PCS + IDEN because they are so different. I have had no problems with static or signal loss due to both technologies being in the same phone.

The only drawback is that if you don't live in a good overlapping coverage area (like I do), then you experience a big difference in where your device will operate simultaneous functions and won't. Hopefully, tower integration will mini...
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Well currently the overlap is about 85% or so but they need to obviously get that to the ultimate of coverage overlap. I think the issue has to deal with the lack of devices. The 402 and 502 are great handsets but they need to come out with newer devices as if they are with the 902 and those kinds of devices.

402 and 502 are nothing different than the current IDEN phones only that 1x might be a bit faster than WIDEN and obviously you have the dual CDMA/IDEN instead of just IDEN network. So the 902 and other type devices such as that, will allow consumers on the IDEN network to say, he check this out this is something different that I could use because I still use the IDEN push to talk, but I want to expand my data applications, but right...
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nextel18 said:
Well currently the overlap is about 85% or so but they need to obviously get that to the ultimate of coverage overlap. I think the issue has to deal with the lack of devices. The 402 and 502 are great handsets but they need to come out with newer devices as if they are with the 902 and those kinds of devices.

In the Chattanooga, TN area, the overlap is pretty close. I can't speak for other areas. Both services have superb coverage and my wife's PS phone (ic502 blue/silver) is doing well.

nextel18 said:

402 and 502 are nothing different than the current IDEN phones only that 1x might be a bit faster than WIDEN and obviously you have the dual CDMA/IDEN instead of jus

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That’s great. More and more we will see the IDEN and CDMA coverage overlapping into the high 80s to lower 90 percentile, which obviously is very important.

The point I was talking about with IDEN and the dual modes was that the data users on the IDEN network want more applications and higher speeds, and currently it doesn’t give them that while the newer dual mode 902 will. A lot of users from the IDEN platform actually don’t use the data as much but it will change when they have the access to. IDEN data ARPU is in the $5 range while you know what the blended data ARPU and the CDMA alone data ARPU is. Customers want an expansion while currently they can’t get it and that is why a lot of the customers left. Just IDEN you can only do so ...
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are they going to continue their god awful practice of cutting peoples phones off as soon as a new bill is generated and the cust hasnt had a chance to receive it?

Nextel only cuts service off your old phone and activates the new one IF you request them to. I've never had a phone I was currently using de-activated prior to doing it myself.

umm dude... im talking about the sprint practice of cutting peoples phones off for being over spending limit when the bill hasnt even been generated and sent to the customer...

Oh. O.k.

Well you have to remember they still, Nextel that is, still has many customers who highly depend on them such as the government and many businesses. Unfortunately, on the IDEN network you can only do so much to provide to the customers and that is needed to do other things such as Wimax or other initiatives.

Many customers on the IDEN platform actually do what CDMA but they want more applications which IDEN cannot offer so that is one of the reasons why Sprint and Nextel merged.
Even when you have the best of everything, which they still have in some regards, execution, is necessary and since they did not execute they lost a huge battle but they can regain their market share losses if they work Qchat, Wimax, IC phones, and other initia...
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The idea of the hybrids weren’t to use the 800/850 bandwidth anyway it was to use the 1.9ghz that they have which was a very good idea, the problem is, they didn’t map it out correctly. 85% is overplayed which is good but they need to do more.

The execution was not there so obviously, we are seeing the problems, but if it was smooth like it ought to be, we could have seen some amazing success. Right now, putting on one platform is a lot better and those dual modes are even better. The i902s would bring a lot more success than the 402 and 502.

One more thing I forgot to mention. This dual mode device is helping tremendously, because it eases the capacity issues on the IDEN network. I can mention more if you want me to.