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I came across this article today on SouthernLINC's medium-term plans for LTE and iDEN (obviously this came out before announcing their tie-up with Sprint through the roaming hub): http://mccmag.com/onlyonline.cfm?OnlyOnlineID=448 Coupled with SouthernLINC joining up with RRPP, it looks like their roadmap is becoming clearer: the iDEN + GSM dual-SIM devices are an interim solution, with iDEN being migrated to the 1.5x1.5 outside of band 26 and/or into the 900 MHz range (Sprint may well have given SouthernLINC access to their dormant 900 spectrum to facilitate some of this). This should free up a combined 10x10 between SouthernLINC and Sprint's holdings, which if current configuration holds up will probably be allocated as 3x3 LTE (SouthernLINC) - 1.4x1.4 1xA (Sprint) - 5x5 LTE (Sprint). Deploy Ericsson RRUS 11 B26 to match the existing iDEN footprint, with or without PCS 1x/band 25 and possibly band 41 as SouthernLINC sees fit. Once the majority of the new towers are live and existing sites retrofitted, SouthernLINC can start migrating customers to modern PTT-capable devices with VoLTE and CDMAone+WCDMA fallback. The last trick up their sleeve: once iDEN is off completely, or at least all on 900, Sprint + SouthernLINC can reband their combined 800 ESMR as 1.4x1.4 1xA + 5x5 LTE + 5x5 LTE or 1.4x1.4 1xA + 10x10 LTE (my hunch is the former, since band 26 is the capacity band rather than the bandwidth band); band class 10 for CDMA starts at 806 MHz, so the CDMA carrier can go below band 26 leaving all 10x10 available for LTE in band 26. Bottom line: both Sprint and SouthernLINC in this configuration should be very competitive with Verizon and AT&T in the SouthernLINC service area, and of course this buildout should also help additional RRPP partners CSpire and Public Service Wireless as well, although there will need to be some 700 and AWS sites constructed (likely on the same towers) for license preservation or organic buildout for them.

Developing, non-mature market with millions of potential customers, plus opportunities for a US carrier to create some plans that could potentially attract millions of Mexican-American customers away from non-Sprint MVNOs with robust cross-border roaming and/or family plans at a better value proposition. Carlos Slim made his billions off his dominant position in Mexican telecoms; a savvy businessman like Son could come in, make millions, and help out his US property at the same time. There's far more synergy for a Sprint hookup with América Móvil's divested assets than there is for Sprint-Softbank from a pure crossover market perspective (outside of the Japanese tourist market in Hawaii, there's just no mass market for crossover services, while millions of people cross the US-Mexican border weekly).

No such offer on my account (either on my two lines that are out of contract or my Phone Connect that is on-contract for another year).

If 1X 800 is in testing mode on the SID 22429, your calls may be rejected since you're not supposed to be able to access 800 on that SID with a normal PRL. I had a similar problem here that went away when I went back to using a normal PRL that ignores that SID.