Nextel/IDEN still live in Indiana?? Bizarre

[pickles37]

So I have used Motorola I365's for a couple of years mainly for Direct Talk, but I also used them on a Nextel service before it went down in the summer. The I365's I have duly showed "No Service" and no bars since the Nextel cutoff date.

However, something bizarre just happened. I bought some second hand I365's with SIMs from eBay to use with Direct Talk. When I turned them on, to my amazement they showed four bars signal and "Ready"! Trying to make a phone call unsurprisingly shows "Service Restricted" but it seems like they have a genuine connection to a Nextel tower. I confirmed this by going into Trace Mode and looking at the tower locations listed - the GPS coordinates are exactly where my nearest Nextel tower (used) to be. My original I365's still show no signal.

Does anyone have a clue what might be happening? I live in Southern Indiana, and to my knowledge there are no other IDEN services operating. My only guess is that Nextel has left some towers up for some kind of emergency use (WPS?) and the phones/SIMS I have in the phones I just bought are somehow tagged to allow access

Thanks! David

 

[KevinC]

Hmm..I've been out of iDEN for 5 years, but as far as I know the phones never showed the location of the tower, they show your location. The tower site would have no reason to broadcast it's exact location as it never moves.

Are the 365's actual Nextel or just Motorola branded?

 

[MTS2000des]

Not surprised, this is SPRINT we are talking about. It's very likely that site was never decommissioned by one of their many contractors. The core is gone, the DAP servers have been physically removed from their NOCs and switching centers, and most of the backhaul is completely gone.

They just haven't sent anyone to physically pull the plug and remove the equipment for Network Vision.

Would be interesting if you had a pair of radios programmed for ISO if they would actually pass traffic over the site (albeit locally) on a talkgroup!

 

[KevinC]

Would be interesting if you had a pair of radios programmed for ISO if they would actually pass traffic over the site (albeit locally) on a talkgroup!

The iSC's would had to have been provisioned for ISO also, which very few (as in a handful) were ever like that nationwide.

 

[gatuckey]

Your not the only one. I have bought a hadful for the Direct-Talk compatible phones over eBay the last few days. My i580, on the way to work linked up with the tower down the road from me.