The death of 800 MHz Nextel iDEN network (in pictures-spectrum view before and after)

[ecps92]

Been there, Done that (have both PTT models)

1st update was a complete failure on the Kyocera (Can you hear me Echo)

2nd Update on the Admiral has resulted in Duplicate/Triplicate emails
3rd Update was no better.

Time to go back to the Real phone Companies

It sounds incredibly dumb, but.........

Try upgrading the firmware, then get the software updates, then reboot the phone. The Kyocera brand phones have not failed me yet, and I've been on Sprint DC since it was released. We've had the DuraPlus and the DuraCore. We will likely be switching to the Kyocera Torque, still on DC.

Also, it seems that some Metros are better than others with Sprint, and always have been.

My last iDen phone was a Motorola i1, and it was good at some things. The DC was fast, the music player was loud, and the voice phone was clear. It just sucked at being a smartphone.

 

[Thayne]

Best 2 things about Nextel being gone is that the interference when trying to use scanners in congested areas is now much improved, and a lot of free replacement radios were given out.

The only downside to that around here is that most of the replacements were Ma\Com-Harris and have required a lot of shall we say "tweaking" to make them useful---

 

[DiGiTaLD]

It will be nice not having so much high power RF in the 800 MHz band anymore - it should allow the weak front ends of our scanners to be a bit happier

So I guess 800 MHz rebanding was all for naught...

 

[Jimru]

The death of 800 MHz Nextel iDEN network (in pictures-spectrum view before and

It's crazy that they caused the interference, paid for a gargantuan rebanding process and now, they are pulling out?

Truth is stranger than fiction!

 

[ecps92]

No one has ever said they are abandoning 800 Mhz :roll:

It's crazy that they caused the interference, paid for a gargantuan rebanding process and now, they are pulling out?

Truth is stranger than fiction!

 

[WayneH]

It's crazy that they caused the interference, paid for a gargantuan rebanding process and now, they are pulling out?

Sprint needs to complete the rebanding process so they have full contiguous use of the upper LMR 800 spectrum. The technology they intend to use takes up MHz worth of spectrum which would have never worked spaced within common two-way radio systems.

 

[greenthumb]

Sprint needs to complete the rebanding process so they have full contiguous use of the upper LMR 800 spectrum. The technology they intend to use takes up MHz worth of spectrum which would have never worked spaced within common two-way radio systems.

True statement! Contiguous spectrum is worth far more than the fragmented spectrum that they had...it will be worth their while in the end to have done the rebanding.

And didn't SoftBank give Sprint-Nextel the loan or letter of credit required by the FCC to do rebanding?

 

[johnoconnor98]

True statement! Contiguous spectrum is worth far more than the fragmented spectrum that they had...it will be worth their while in the end to have done the rebanding.

And didn't SoftBank give Sprint-Nextel the loan or letter of credit required by the FCC to do rebanding?

Yep. We just got a notice last month that Sprint will be implementing LTE in Arkansas. I guess the FCC required the notice since we are in a bordering State.

FCC clears Sprint to run CDMA, 4G LTE on 800MHz iDEN airwaves

 

[jpm]

Now due to the death of iden I'm happy that Lake county STARCOM21 comes in a hell of alot better. thank goodness for this death.

 

[billrobbins93]

Sprint needs to complete the rebanding process so they have full contiguous use of the upper LMR 800 spectrum. The technology they intend to use takes up MHz worth of spectrum which would have never worked spaced within common two-way radio systems.

Looks like that won't happen. There have been talks and rumors going around that the FCC may take that and give it to Amateurs.

That wouldn't be a bad idea because we already have 900 Mhz so why not give us 800 Mhz as well?

 

[GTR8000]

Looks like that won't happen. There have been talks and rumors going around that the FCC may take that and give it to Amateurs.

That wouldn't be a bad idea because we already have 900 Mhz so why not give us 800 Mhz as well?

Extremely unlikely that any 800 MHz spectrum will ever be allocated for ham. It's much too valuable a chunk of spectrum, especially these days in light of the lurking T-Band giveback.

And for the record, ham doesn't "have" 900 MHz all to themselves. 921-928 MHz is allocated to ham on a secondary basis. The primary allocation is for Part 18 ISM devices.

 

[WayneH]

And for the record, ham doesn't "have" 900 MHz all to themselves. 921-928 MHz is allocated to ham on a secondary basis. The primary allocation is for Part 18 ISM devices.

Ignore him. You responded to another half-assed Emmett Gulley account.

 

[Jimru]

The death of 800 MHz Nextel iDEN network (in pictures-spectrum view before and

Sprint needs to complete the rebanding process so they have full contiguous use of the upper LMR 800 spectrum. The technology they intend to use takes up MHz worth of spectrum which would have never worked spaced within common two-way radio systems.

That makes sense. Did not consider that!

 

[USCG-FL]

Gents, hold on to your Nextel's if you want to use it for ''MOTotalk-Off-Network, I still use it with others if we dont want to tie up our main Radio channels. Pretty cool, gives like 3-5 miles or so.

 

[KevinC]

And the previous iDEN 800 frequencies are now popping up with CDMA (above 862 MHz).

 

[ElroyJetson]

Moto made their money on that system. So did Nextel/Sprint. Considering when the technology was first rolled out, they got a lot of mileage out of it.

It was some time in the late 80s that I visited a trade show and the Motorola booth was giving out electronic "greeting cards" simulating the sound quality of the "MIRS" predecessor to iDen. They advertised up to 6:1 channel efficiency. Which of course, never materialized in iDen.

A lot of departments, and some people who were crafty enough to work with some departments, benefitted greatly from when Nextel started exchanging worn-out old 800 MHz non-rebandable radios for brand new reband capable radios on a one for one basis. There were people and departments who saw this coming and stockpiled their retired radios and traded in those stockpiles for truckloads of
new "FREE" radios and made out like bandits.

And now that the whole rebanding thing is over and done and now that Sprint has taken the network off the air, you have to wonder, what happens next? When will we see iDen 2 start up and start interfering again?

 

[grosengr]

Iden Capacity

Iden does have the 6:1 capacity. I don't know how Nextel had it set up but the ARINC systems have 6:1. The first BR (Base Radio) at a site uses one slot for a control channel and the other 5 for voice. Any additional BR's at the site have 6 slots per frequency for voice calls. The TETRA systems replacing our iDEN will have 4:1. The press release for the first TETRA system at LAX came out on 24 September.

Jerry
ARINC Field Service Technician
LAXMM

 

[speedway_navigator]

I can still remember the day ecps92 and I did our first nationwide DC once Nextel opened it up.


I spent 3 hours 2 weeks ago at a local recycle place pulling out 1/2" hard line jumpers, combiners and multicouplers from a Nextel site someone brought in.

 

[MTS2000des]

Moto made their money on that system. So did Nextel/Sprint. Considering when the technology was first rolled out, they got a lot of mileage out of it.

It was some time in the late 80s that I visited a trade show and the Motorola booth was giving out electronic "greeting cards" simulating the sound quality of the "MIRS" predecessor to iDen. They advertised up to 6:1 channel efficiency. Which of course, never materialized in iDen.

A lot of departments, and some people who were crafty enough to work with some departments, benefitted greatly from when Nextel started exchanging worn-out old 800 MHz non-rebandable radios for brand new reband capable radios on a one for one basis. There were people and departments who saw this coming and stockpiled their retired radios and traded in those stockpiles for truckloads of
new "FREE" radios and made out like bandits.

And now that the whole rebanding thing is over and done and now that Sprint has taken the network off the air, you have to wonder, what happens next? When will we see iDen 2 start up and start interfering again?

Sprint is in the middle of their "Network Vision" project which modernizes and replaces all their older CDMA base stations and complete teardown and removal of legacy iDEN equipment and are replacing them with new BTS/RRU's from select vendors such as Samsung, Ericcson, and Alcatel-Lucent.

all the new RRU's are capable of LTE and CDMA/1XRTT, and 1XRTT has been reported as showing up on the old 860MHz band in many places. Eventually, Sprint plans to put LTE on their old ESMR channels. The NV equipment is completely re-configurable, and can operate on ALL the bands (including the old 800MHz ESMR channels where iDEN used to be) that Sprint has, or will have, in the future.

if you want to get an in depth look at the new installs of NV sites, look here:

How to Spot Sprint Antennas and RRUs (Samsung Style) - Network, Network Vision/LTE Deployment - Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

There are also other sub forums dedicated to the spotting of 800MHz ESMR Sprint CDMA coverage. It's a big deal to some people.

But you will NEVER see anything ESMR from Sprint- ever again. They are totally committed to LTE and are spending money like crazy to basically rebuild all their cell sites from the ground up.

 

[mikewazowski]

They advertised up to 6:1 channel efficiency. Which of course, never materialized in iDen

Sure it did. Every site in Canada was running 6:1 and I don't believe the US was any different.