Texting goes to hell in a handbasket on Boost; Seidenberg vindicated?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted May 1st 2009 6:07PM
posted May 1st 2009 6:07PM
Texting has never been iDEN's strong suit; it's simply not what the network was originally built to do, and when we approached Boost about this at CTIA earlier this year, we were told that the situation was under control. A company spokesperson says that they're working around the clock to get the delays resolved and expect to have it smoothed out by next week -- but with the $50 plan continuing to win conquest subscribers hand over fist and a network that's being stressed in ways it's never been stressed before, we have to wonder: is this every going to be fully resolved? Even more importantly, though, with Boost's pricing undercutting its national-level competition by a country mile, do they even have to fully resolve it to keep customers on board?
[Via mocoNews]
For a company that has to dismantle their iDEN network in less than 360 days, you would think they would not want to add new subscribers to it.
When AT&T moved from TDMA to GSM, it was about a 3 or 4 year transition that took a long time to get 20 million people off of. Ultimately, there were around 100k users who still wouldn't let go of their TDMA service (and devices). Some ultimately were shut off when that technology was turned down finally.
Sprint/Nextel really has a lot of work ahead of themselves. I was starting to think they were getting their business path corrected finally and setting course to make it 3 major players. If they can just get their network to support the push to talk and obtain some cooperation from a fledgling Motorola, they would probably both have considerably success from their efforts.
At this rate though, Sprint is pushing for bankruptcy.
I take issue with the phrase, "while voice and push-to-talk are still said to be performing flawlessly" aside from PTT, flawless and iDEN should probably not be put anywhere near each other.
I agree about texting and voice not being flawless, it's happened more than once where when I try and make a call, I get a pre-recorded message saying that all the circuits are busy, sort of like after an earthquake, etc when everyone is using the phone and it's quite difficult to get a call to go through, except that there hadn't been an earthquake.
And texting does at times take quite awhile for the recipient and myself to receive, especially when sending or receiving from TMobile, anyone else having the same problem?
PTT is the best though!
Chris: love your articles, and really enjoy listening to you and Sean on the podcast, but there's some cleaning up that needs to be done on this article.
Your tie in with the VZW CEO's comments made for a nice segue, but the texting issues on Boost/Nextel have nothing to do with capacity or a customer influx. That seems to be the newest excuse for this 4-year-old problem -- see Boost's PR guy on the Boost Facebook page. These texting problems have existed since Nextel launched MMS in 2004, and back then they blamed the delays on "too much text spam." Boost's variation, "we're just too successful to keep up," isn't any more true than the former excuse.
And while you're correct that iDEN wasn't originally built to do text messaging, that doesn't mean that texting on every iDEN network is unreliable. Southern LINC is an iDEN carrier in the southeastern US that has implemented an SMS gateway on their iDEN network, and it works very well for them. Nextel/Boost, with their MMS system managed by an (apparently) ineffective 3rd party provider, is the problem -- not iDEN.
Lastly, judging from all the discussion over on the Boost Mobile forum at HowardForums, I wouldn't say anything about the voice performance is "flawless." PTT, however, is still top notch.
@ED: Sprint Nextel has absolutely no plans to dismantle its iDEN network in "less than 360 days." If you're talking about the merger-era announcement about supporting iDEN till 2010, that was pushed forward to 2012 soon after, and then to "indefinitely" after they couldn't find a buyer for iDEN.
He is referring to the IPCS injunction that requires them to stop selling Nextel in IPCS markets only, not nationwide within the year. They got to buy IPCS or allow them to sell IDEN?
I think that unless Boost gets this text messaging problem fixed they are going to be losing customers, me included. It is a really big problem as it has sometimes taken until the next day to recieve my messages. Sometimes if I wait long enough, I can turn off my phone and they will be there, but that is not a viable option as it runs my baterry out really quickly. I thought I was getting an awesome bargain, but let it be said that you get what you pay for....
click settings scoll down to phone calls and notifications take message off of delay all and put it on recieve all.