Sprint says it's still committed to iDEN
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Feb 3rd 2008 11:21PM
posted Feb 3rd 2008 11:21PM
As we mentioned yesterday, Sprint has gone on record saying that it's going to continue to stand behind its legacy iDEN infrastructure, the massive PTT network inherited from its Nextel acquisition and marketed under the Nextel Direct Connect brand. We can understand that there are thousands of companies and millions of individuals that rely on Direct Connect to go about their business -- but by the same token, we're surprised that Sprint isn't instead saying that it intends to aggressively push its upcoming CDMA-based Qchat system over iDEN and make the transition as smooth and inexpensive as possible for its Direct Connect customers. Whatevs; we suppose it's good news that Sprint intends to inject a handful of relatively exciting new hardware into the mix in 2008 -- something Sprint alludes to in its press release, along with the promise of several new "press-to-x" features that will allow users to send texts, pictures and the like just as they would a PTT call. Last time we checked that was called SMS and MMS, but what do we know?
Sprint needs to just give up, close up shop and sell the hardware the the highest bidder to recoup costs. This is just ri-goddamn-diculous.
Considering that for *years* Sprint didn't even have regular text messaging that they only had "short mail."
Telus' Mike network already has the Push To View features for sending and receiving: Contacts/Pictures/Info/Location/Smart Replies. It works using the phone's IP address. I thought this would already be available on Sprint/Nextel's phones.
iDEN phones have had the ability to "push to x" since forever... you've been able to push to: send contact info, pictures, talk, it's not like this is new. it's just sprint doing a poor advertising job on those features.
I just ditched Sprint for AT&T. I really wanted to stay with Sprint, as the coverage in my area is excellent. But their choice of phones just SUCKS.
I will believe that they are fully committed to iDen when they release a new Blackberry model - it's been a pitifully long time since the 7100i was released.