Qwest unhappy with Sprint deal

I don't think it would be easy for Qwest to migrate over 800K+ customers over to different phones and/or different technology.

 

They could probably find a way to use the existing CDMA phones until new handsets are pushed out. That is the key to using Verizon is the compatabilty.

 

Myabe but I would think software/PRL upgrades and reprogramming would be needed and it could still be a mess. Also I don't see how they could do anything with AT&T unless all of the customers received new phones.

 

They would have to run a PRL update, probably a market at a time and at night. Other wise they would have to run both systems until all the handsets are swapped.

 

They will have to force users to migrate to new devices at some point. Almost none of the Verizon games/apps/multimedia content would work on Sprint phones since Sprint uses Java and Verizon devices run off Brew for their enhanced content.

 

Another good point, it takes forever to migrate people over from one thing to the other so they will have to at least offer just voice with no apps. I dont know if Qwest uses its own apps or content.

I think they will have to run both phones on Sprint and Verizon at the same time then sweet talk them over for a bit then eventually force the stubborn ones.

 

Whatever they decide to do it won't be easy. I think they would be better off staying with Sprint and coming up with a new deal of some kind.

 

It certainly would be the easiest option. Perhaps they are even using the talks with VZW as leverage to get more out of Sprint.

 

Generally I think it's a bad idea to try to get that many customers to switch to a new phone. Seems like it's too much trouble and they could easily lose a lot of customers in the process.

 

exactly thats why 12 years after analog starting getting replaced with TDMA and CDMA there are still people out there with analog only phones. People find something they like and they want to keep it.

 

honestly........Nextel and Sprint are living proof of what happens when you try to force customers to switch platforms...........unless they managed to do mass overnight OTA software updates and have them pushed to the phone so that it would happen regardless of the customers choice and you would have to send customers inserts in the mail on how to do the *228 and then you would have to migrate them to a new billing system if that is required and the Premier to ENSEMBLE transition that Sprint is making is proof yet again of how difficult that can be.........

 

Switching platforms has been done several times before with no major loss: AT&T Wireless and Cingular switching from TDMA to GSM, Alltel acquisitions from AT&T/Cingular merger conversion to CDMA, networks acquired by Verizon converted to CDMA, and others acquired by Cingular which converted them to GSM. I'm sure if managed properly they can pull it off just fine.

 

yeah but that is a lot of customers most of those changes were on a smaller scale

 

When AT&T and Cingular migrated TDMA to GSM those were several times more customers than the entire Qwest base.

 

Correct. The difference is, I do not believe subscribers had to give up any calling features when transitioning from TDMA to GSM (or even TDMA to CDMA like US Cellular).

For a true migration from iDen to CDMA (meaning no more need for the iDen network), Nextel customers would lose the one feature (Direct Connect) that probably brought them to Nextel to begin with.

That should be less of an issue come April, when some QChat phones are set for release. But we shall see...the hybrid CDMA-iDen devices were supposed to work wonders too.

 

so is April the public date that they announced for Qchat release?

 

They would work wonders...if they could support 850mhz roaming. My bro loved his powersource phone, but now hes got to travel to the midwest a lot and 1900 only just isnt cutting it. Now i got him a mogul and he couldnt be happier. QChat is supposed to be the same as iDen, w/ the excpetion of ~1 sec connect time...we'll see how that pans out.

Qwest said they're looking for a "new technology that allowed a mobile phone to switch seamlessly from a wireless network to a customer’s home Wi-Fi network." It looks like they are looking for a UMA type of network. That would mean that AT&T or T-Mobile would be highly possible candidates for Qwest to move to. Does CDMA have a standard similar to UMA (aside from femtocells)?

 

April is the release date for some Qchat phones (one LG, two Sanyos that I know of), as to whether April will also be the launch date for the Qchat service, I am not sure.

I agree. I might have one of the hybrids myself if they were capable of 850MHz roaming. The fact that they are not is an irritating step back to 2002 when all Sprint phones were almost exclusively 1900-only, with analog thrown in for backup.

 

I guess it's all on your area, so far I have had places where my Buzz wouldn't have a signal and forcing it to Verizon didn't help because of the 1900 only restriction.

I did notice in SC & VA it happened more often then NJ, from my understanding they can't add the 850 because of the interference with the DC side.

 

Yeah, I guess that (interference) makes sense. It would be bad to have two different radios on nearly identical frequencies I presume.

 

And the phone would have to be quite a bit larger to include the extra, different technologies.

 

well.........with T-Mobile the cell to WiFi transition isn't seamless but the WiFi to cell is..........idk why but thats how it is........does AT&T offer UMA???