Fraydog

You would expect then that analysts would have some choice words for VZW, but I bet that VZW (the "Teflon Don") gets not a whit of criticism, even though it managed to do something almost unthinkable -- lose money on a spectrum investment. If Sprint had done something similar, Craig Moffett would be cheering for Sprint's imminent demise.

 

AJ

Yeah, that guy...

Seriously, why don't one of these investment firms give you a call and see if you would work for them? I know you'd be loath to take such an offer, but why not?

Since I live in the ATNI area that's part of the transaction, I'll comment.

First off, ATNI botched integration so poorly that even AT&T would look better. Now if Sprint had been announced as the buyer, I'd have no issues with that either, but let's face it, Sprint has bigger fish to fry at the present time. That's a big reason why Southern Illinois, with the exception of Carbondale being a college town with Chicago transplants, is not a big area for Sprint coverage.

I assume the 3G roaming will be intact for the length of the current agreement between ATNI. After that... I don't know if it makes sense for Sprint to do anything coverage wise in that area other than a 1X agreement with AT&T or Verizon. It's simply too small, it's shrinking in population, and too rural.

I remember having the debate about Sprint not natively serving Chester with AJ. He was right. Short of some local telco's doing a Shentel like setup with Sprint, I don't see how you can profitably serve that area.

Through most of Southern Illinois, all this deal does is draw AT&T even with Verizon on spectrum and they'll be starting far behind the Big Red Monopoly here on customers as Alltel bled people away like crazy. At least someone will be able to compete with Verizon here. We're simply trading in a monopoly for a duopoly. That's all. At this point, given the degradation of Verizon service where I live, I'd take the duopoly. Maybe it will get Verizon kicking in LTE deployment where I live. I hope so. 98% of the people here have Verizon and the old 3G network is congested.

 

I'm definitely not shooting the messenger. I understand. My point is that if we all did like that and joined AT&T and VZW, competition would go out of business and these two networks usage would swell and performance would degrade. Prices would skyrocket and they would have no incentive to do anything to compete and upgrade.

 

The "come join us" mentality kind of perturbs me. Because if we all joined them, it would be the end of the wireless industry and the American Consumer would get completely shafted. Our buying decisions are much larger than most people realize. People think of it as the difference in choice between Chocolate and Vanilla. And it is much bigger than that.

 

Robert

I live in the land of Chocolate only, I understand completely. I am looking to bolt from VZW, but the only way I can move to Sprint is to literally move. I could go to AT&T, but they aren't any better here, and T-Mo is a big fat ball of EDGE. Alltel doesn't have any real quality phones to speak of here. They're the closest thing to Sprint in Chester, but they have lousy phones and worse coverage. Most of the time I'd be roaming on Sprint anyway.

So yeah, I'm stuck. I'll wait until the bitter end but I'm probably going to have to sign another deal with Satan, I mean Big Red.

 

I'm sorry, I read that and it makes me think of Jonestown and your family members are chiding you for not drinking the Koolaid.

 

Robert

That's what normal people are thinking that don't read boards like this. Please don't shoot the messenger.

This sounds a lot like what I hear from my family in Kirkwood that's still on Sprint. Verizon and AT&T's LTE has tested great there, and T-Mobile is really going bananas with the refarm.

Most of the people at the table couldn't believe the family members that did even renewed with Sprint. I tried using some of the knowledge I learned on here to calm the table down, but most of them were like "Why didn't you go to AT&T?" Keep in mind AT&T and Verizon are both really good here.

I just hope something gets moving soon. Maybe acquiring the USCC spectrum will help.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1765908-Nextel-iDEN-Life-On-A-Dying-Network?p=15008451#post15008451

I kept the light on in the HoFo thread about the Nextel Dying Network article on Pocketnow. The author of the article, Michael Fisher, has popped in the thread a few times.

He'll do another story when the Nextel platform shuts down.

In my opinion, widespread use of SMS killed PTT. It's the same speed and ease of use, without the annoying CHIRP CHIRP YEP WHAT'S UP ASSHOLE HEY IM AT WALMART BUYIN SOCKS

(real conversation I overheard in the 90's or early aughts)

 

One of the current big advantages of the current incarnation of QChat is that it functions over 1x, even while Roaming. This gives Sprint an absolutely massive coverage map for near-instant PTT. Switching to PTT-Over-LTE wouldn't really offer much in the way of improvements (unless being IP-switched somehow gives lower latency), and would reduce their coverage area.

 

I was never defending the Boost Mobile garbage, which hurt PTT for serious business uses because it overloaded the Nextel Platform. QChat can be adapted for LTE, and it's already a VoIP platform. What would LTE help? Obviously, it would lower latency below the range it's on for TDMA-based IDEN, which CDMA 1X Advanced PTT doesn't help.

 

Doesn't sprint only have about 1.4 million subs clinging to iden? Sounds to me that they could handle that loss, Softbank or not...

They already have a good chunk of the Nextel consumers on the Sprint platform. I'm saying there's a difference between "handle" and "optimal", That's all. IDEN is a dying tech, that doesn't mean all PTT has to die. Now whether you think it should or not is a separate opinion.

What I said was they Sprint could lose all Nextel subs tomorrow and be fine. I stand by that.

That was only true after the SoftBank investment. Would that be optimal, however? Obviously not. Sprint cares; otherwise, they would not push QChat.

It would be nice if this test were run with more modern handsets in an area with better LTE coverage, like South Korea where active VoLTE networks are deployed. Then we can see where the true gap in battery consumption is on handsets that use 28nm basebands.

"Love or hate the old Nextel subs, they're needed on board." I'm pretty sure Sprint already decided that any Nextel subs left aren't needed at all.

 

.

Again, you're confusing IDEN with PTT. Sprint does need the big corporate accounts and FEMA that has PTT. Otherwise you would not have QChat on the Sprint network. PTT over LTE is an option once you deploy that 800 MHz spectrum anyway. You need to have Network Vision complete first.

I don't know that I'd call most people's reaction to PTT as 'hate', but rather 'apathy'. I have nothing against it by any means, but I kind of agree with what AJ said....I think most people could just really honestly care less about the concept these days outside of certain commercial uses. I think I've read more than a couple articles that underscore that more and more people are trending towards text communication than actual live realtime methods of interaction, whether that be still-wireless voice communication, in person interaction or otherwise.

That still doesn't mean it should be ignored. There are good solutions for PTT over LTE from the public safety side of things that will work eventually. I'm not arguing for Nextel, all I'm saying is that PTT is a tool. That's it. Doesn't deserve strong feelings one way or the other, IMO.

I just can't stand these speeds..

Don't feel bad, that's faster than EV-DO for Verizon is through most of St. Louis. Far faster than where I live, actually.

Yup. If anyone finds any LTE work going on in St. Louis it will be news to us all.

 

Yes, they can, but let's not burden the rest of us with PTT features on all the phones. Those that need it should pay for it. I thought that Sprint made a major mistake lowering the price of plans for Nextel subscribers. It did not make them feel special enough .

I think PTT doesn't have to be on all phones. Well it can be as a OTT option that could be downloaded over the Play Store or iTunes, but I'm not for baking it in all phones. That's crazy.

As far as lowering the Nextel fees, that was a panic move, but it's mostly in the past now. I just don't think PTT is "passé", I'm not calling a service used by first responders and big corporate clients "passé." The future is PTT over LTE, but the technology isn't there yet, sort of like VoLTE. All QChat really needs to do is be a bridge to the future.

 

Yes/no, who really cares? PTT is largely passé. The industry and society have moved on.

 

AJ

If Sprint could revive it, it could be a powerful differentiator. I do not understand the hate for PTT as a service. To me, Sprint needs all the positive buzz it can get. I completely understand the desire to retire IDEN but there's still some big clients who provide money for Sprint who can be served by the Direct Connect service.

 

Not a holy war, this is an eviction. The derelict house has been condemned, the land slated for redevelopment. The bulldozers are already waiting at the property line.

 

AJ

Are you 100% confident that QChat can outperform IDEN?

If Google wants to be a participant in this industry, I don't get why they don't just make a massive investment in T-Mobile.

What forum was this on? Anyone mind DM'ing me a link?

I am sure that Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have already performed these tests and that's why they aren't rushing to deploy VOLTE. The only one that jumped the gun is MetroPCS. Even they will cool down once the merger goes through.

The MDM9625 might provide enough gains in battery life to deal with the battery concerns. I'd sacrifice some battery life for better voice quality. I know that HD Voice can be achieved on EVRC-NW but I don't know how much of a starter that technology is. Is anyone other than Sprint even using this?

Recalcitrant iDEN users, pay your penance, convert to the CDMA2000 faith, or get out. Done.

 

AJ

I thought only GSM fanboys got into format holy wars.

http://pocketnow.com...-network-part-1

I'd love to get @Captain2Phones over here and see if he's still operating his iDEN phone.

Also, from what I can gather, QChat operation is less than perfect. Still, I think it's something the entire Sprint platform should embrace. Love or hate the old Nextel subs, they're needed on board. It wasn't their fault Nextel and Gary Forsee were incompetent.

Qchat's where it's at!

The good news is you can run LTE CoMP - the LTE version of soft handover - with LTE Advanced. That may help with any dropped calls or handoff issues.

The other major problem is coverage. A lot more cells will be needed for VoLTE. It will be a nice technology in its prime. There are still issues to work out.

I think Verizon's strategy is to use LTE for everything eventually. They're going to have to get LTE over way more cells for that to happen. 1X will truck on for a long time as a fallback standard.