Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has said that Sprint will eventually shut down iDen (which it picked up with Nextel in 2004), and I’m guessing a good chunk of people might be a little annoyed by that. Hesse says that fewer customers are being added to the iDen network and more onto its CDMA network, so the move makes sense. Additionally, Sprint is focusing on the expansion of its WiMax or 4G network, which is where its future seems to lie.
FierceWireless interviewed the Sprint CEO and reports:
“Over time, we’ll have fewer and fewer customers on the iDEN network,” he said. “That allows us to use some of that capacity on the network that is freed up and use it for CMDA. It’s a gradual process. There will be an end date for all 2G, just like there was an end date for 1G.”
Bob Azzi, senior vice president of networks at Sprint, told BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk in September that one possible outcome of the company’s network modernization project could be that Sprint replaces iDEN with CDMA 1X Advanced on its 800 MHz spectrum and use it for voice services. Hesse said Sprint hopes to name its network modernization vendors by year-end.