They're just trying to cut costs and get cash in hand. It's that simple. They're doing extremely badly, in large part because of technology decisions taken starting around 13 years ago and continuing today that have always crippled the network to a certain extent and are preventing Sprint from either solving its reliability problems or selling modern, integrated, services.
The worst decision they've taken thus far is to treat Nextel as the obsolete system they want to get rid of rather than using it as the basis of a move to UMTS, which iDEN shares a lot of commonality with. WiMAX is a last ditch attempt to try to get some success by scoring a "first", by a management in denial that really doesn't want to admit it got it wrong with its major technology choices.
They need to get it over with. Break them up. Sell the iDEN network to AT&T or T-Mobile. Sell the CDMA2000 network to Verizon. Disentangle themselves from the whole Clearwire mess, or at least prepare it for an eventual migration to LTE. Verizon knows how to run a CDMA2000 network and can keep it going for as long as there's demand. AT&T and T-Mobile will find it easy to integrate iDEN with their GSM networks, whose backends are compatible. Dual-mode iDEN/GSM phones will work a hell of a lot better and more transparently than dual-mode iDEN/CDMA2000.
For now I suspect part of the organization knows this is coming, but is being hampered by a part that's convinced itself that continuing what it's been doing will eventually work out, like a gambler putting more and more money in a slot machine desperately hoping for a payout.
I agree with somewhat with your first paragraph, but not with the rest. First, WiMAX is NOT a last-ditch effort. As part of the Nextel acquisition, Sprint was required to have a 4G Broadband solution in the 2.5GHz spectrum (that came with the merger) serving at least 30 million people by Summer 2009. Sprint had no choice but to go WiMAX since it was the only 4G technology ready at the time. LTE was, and still is, in testing and UMB was pretty much abandoned by everyone.
Also, what are you talking about Sprint should sell iDEN and their CDMA network? What the hell are they going to have their subscribers running off of..a couple of cans and some really, really long string? Or are they support to hand all 50 million of their subscribers to Verizon, putting them at over 140 million subscribers and them along holding over 50% of the US's cellular population...
Sprint isn't have problems in their CDMA sector, mainly in their iDEN. Out of the 1.2 million subscribers they lost last quarter, 1.1 million were iDEN. Also, GSM and iDEN are NOT compatible. Just because they both are based off TDMA does not mean they can be easily interchanged; hell, Nextel, before the merger, was going to go with CDMA as their upgrade path for iDEN.
Sprint did a lot of things wrong with the merger, mainly with their whole attitude about how to treat Nextel which lead to an entire cluster**** of CS issues, network reliability (primarily on iDEN, especially with Boost killing capacity just before the merger), management/cultures (Sprint forcing their methods/ways, completely abandoning Nextel's), etc. which lead to their current shotty reputation. Heck, people even associate horrible coverage/quality with Sprint now due to Nextel's issues even though their CDMA network quality/coverage easily rivals Verizon's.
4G hasn't been standardized yet (according to current draft ITU specs, neither WiMAX nor LTE are technically 4G), it'd be fairer to say they were required to roll out broadband on those frequencies.
WiMAX is one of several technologies Sprint investigated, another being UMTS-TDD. The latter would have fit neatly into a transition to LTE. They picked WiMAX despite the overwhelming evidence that it was always going to be an also-ran technology for everything other than point-to-point FLoS ISPs.
I'm saying Sprint should break itself up. You seem to be missing the point of my comment, believing my suggestion is that Sprint should continue to exist in some way. I don't think it has any viability at this point. It has a history of myopic management which has always been more interested in marketing than putting together a solid network, and has infrastructure that can only be made to work as part of different environment. The iDEN network would sing if given to a GSM operator prepared to integrate it into their networks. Verizon has proven they can make CDMA2000 work, in part because they have the dual band capabilities that makes it easier to provide indoor coverage without "breathing" causing indoor users to get a second class experience during periods of peak usage.
What you end up with by divesting those two networks are happy customers of the CDMA2000 and iDEN networks, money to put into Clearwire to give it the resources to transition to LTE when the time is right, and a way to avoid certain bankruptcy.
Oh, and I never said iDEN and GSM are compatible (indeed, I implied the exact opposite several times), and I most certainly did not make any claim based on their air interfaces - which while TDMA are nonetheless entirely different and designed with different philosophies. I said SPECIFICALLY that their backends are compatible. Which is true. Motorola didn't re-invent the wheel. From Wikipedia:
> The interconnect-side of the iDEN network uses GSM signalling for call set-up and mobility management, with the Abis protocol stack modified to support iDEN's additional features. Motorola has named this modified stack 'Mobis'.
iDEN fits extremely well into GSM networks. In theory at least an iDEN user can switch from GSM to iDEN and vice versa (if using a compatible dual-stack phone) mid-call without interruption. It never made sense to me for a company like Sprint to buy them, except as part of an eventual move to GSM, but Sprint management's blind hatred of the latter (or perhaps recognition that choosing a GSM technology would mean admitting that their previous choices might have been less than sane) meant that was never on the table, and almost certainly explains the rejection of UMTS-TDD.
Nextel wanted to be bought by someone. They knew iDEN was dead-end tech beyond 2G and were independently exploring CDMA/EvDO as a 3G solution, so it made sense that they allowed themselves to be bought by Sprint. It's a shame the way it worked out.
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They're just trying to cut costs and get cash in hand. It's that simple. They're doing extremely badly, in large part because of technology decisions taken starting around 13 years ago and continuing today that have always crippled the network to a certain extent and are preventing Sprint from either solving its reliability problems or selling modern, integrated, services.
The worst decision they've taken thus far is to treat Nextel as the obsolete system they want to get rid of rather than using it as the basis of a move to UMTS, which iDEN shares a lot of commonality with. WiMAX is a last ditch attempt to try to get some success by scoring a "first", by a management in denial that really doesn't want to admit it got it wrong with its major technology choices.
They need to get it over with. Break them up. Sell the iDEN network to AT&T or T-Mobile. Sell the CDMA2000 network to Verizon. Disentangle themselves from the whole Clearwire mess, or at least prepare it for an eventual migration to LTE. Verizon knows how to run a CDMA2000 network and can keep it going for as long as there's demand. AT&T and T-Mobile will find it easy to integrate iDEN with their GSM networks, whose backends are compatible. Dual-mode iDEN/GSM phones will work a hell of a lot better and more transparently than dual-mode iDEN/CDMA2000.
For now I suspect part of the organization knows this is coming, but is being hampered by a part that's convinced itself that continuing what it's been doing will eventually work out, like a gambler putting more and more money in a slot machine desperately hoping for a payout.
I agree with somewhat with your first paragraph, but not with the rest. First, WiMAX is NOT a last-ditch effort. As part of the Nextel acquisition, Sprint was required to have a 4G Broadband solution in the 2.5GHz spectrum (that came with the merger) serving at least 30 million people by Summer 2009. Sprint had no choice but to go WiMAX since it was the only 4G technology ready at the time. LTE was, and still is, in testing and UMB was pretty much abandoned by everyone.
Also, what are you talking about Sprint should sell iDEN and their CDMA network? What the hell are they going to have their subscribers running off of..a couple of cans and some really, really long string? Or are they support to hand all 50 million of their subscribers to Verizon, putting them at over 140 million subscribers and them along holding over 50% of the US's cellular population...
Sprint isn't have problems in their CDMA sector, mainly in their iDEN. Out of the 1.2 million subscribers they lost last quarter, 1.1 million were iDEN. Also, GSM and iDEN are NOT compatible. Just because they both are based off TDMA does not mean they can be easily interchanged; hell, Nextel, before the merger, was going to go with CDMA as their upgrade path for iDEN.
Sprint did a lot of things wrong with the merger, mainly with their whole attitude about how to treat Nextel which lead to an entire cluster**** of CS issues, network reliability (primarily on iDEN, especially with Boost killing capacity just before the merger), management/cultures (Sprint forcing their methods/ways, completely abandoning Nextel's), etc. which lead to their current shotty reputation. Heck, people even associate horrible coverage/quality with Sprint now due to Nextel's issues even though their CDMA network quality/coverage easily rivals Verizon's.
4G hasn't been standardized yet (according to current draft ITU specs, neither WiMAX nor LTE are technically 4G), it'd be fairer to say they were required to roll out broadband on those frequencies.
WiMAX is one of several technologies Sprint investigated, another being UMTS-TDD. The latter would have fit neatly into a transition to LTE. They picked WiMAX despite the overwhelming evidence that it was always going to be an also-ran technology for everything other than point-to-point FLoS ISPs.
I'm saying Sprint should break itself up. You seem to be missing the point of my comment, believing my suggestion is that Sprint should continue to exist in some way. I don't think it has any viability at this point. It has a history of myopic management which has always been more interested in marketing than putting together a solid network, and has infrastructure that can only be made to work as part of different environment. The iDEN network would sing if given to a GSM operator prepared to integrate it into their networks. Verizon has proven they can make CDMA2000 work, in part because they have the dual band capabilities that makes it easier to provide indoor coverage without "breathing" causing indoor users to get a second class experience during periods of peak usage.
What you end up with by divesting those two networks are happy customers of the CDMA2000 and iDEN networks, money to put into Clearwire to give it the resources to transition to LTE when the time is right, and a way to avoid certain bankruptcy.
Oh, and I never said iDEN and GSM are compatible (indeed, I implied the exact opposite several times), and I most certainly did not make any claim based on their air interfaces - which while TDMA are nonetheless entirely different and designed with different philosophies. I said SPECIFICALLY that their backends are compatible. Which is true. Motorola didn't re-invent the wheel. From Wikipedia:
> The interconnect-side of the iDEN network uses GSM signalling for call set-up and mobility management, with the Abis protocol stack modified to support iDEN's additional features. Motorola has named this modified stack 'Mobis'.
iDEN fits extremely well into GSM networks. In theory at least an iDEN user can switch from GSM to iDEN and vice versa (if using a compatible dual-stack phone) mid-call without interruption. It never made sense to me for a company like Sprint to buy them, except as part of an eventual move to GSM, but Sprint management's blind hatred of the latter (or perhaps recognition that choosing a GSM technology would mean admitting that their previous choices might have been less than sane) meant that was never on the table, and almost certainly explains the rejection of UMTS-TDD.
Nextel wanted to be bought by someone. They knew iDEN was dead-end tech beyond 2G and were independently exploring CDMA/EvDO as a 3G solution, so it made sense that they allowed themselves to be bought by Sprint. It's a shame the way it worked out.