Sprint to Create a Single Platform for All Networks

Well hopefully Sprint can get on the right track. They haven't been doing very well lately. I assume that further details on this were not available? Any thought on how phasing out iDEN will fit into the plans of streamlining Sprint's varying network technologies?

 

HMM nice I want to hear how it goes when peoples phones are upgraded.

 

Here's a link to the report Phonescoop referenced on this topic:

Sprint Plans One Platform for Many Networks

This a repost of the article:

Sprint Plans One Platform for Many Networks

Stephen Lawson, IDG News ServiceThu Mar 20, 10:40 AM ET

Sprint Nextel plans to use a single core infrastructure for all its networks, including the WiMax wireless broadband system coming later this year, and to capture information that will help third parties customize services.

A common optical backbone, IP (Internet Protocol) network, cell-site infrastructure and IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) will serve all of the carrier's networks, said Ben Vos, vice president of core technologies at Sprint, in a speech at the VON.x conference Tuesday in San Jose, California. The carrier will also give third-party software developers and content owners access to that infrastructure through common APIs (application programming interfaces).

All this is necessary to deliver a consistent experience to subscribers using multiple devices, Vos said.

"You need to have a unified service architecture at the heart of the network that is agnostic of those underlying technologies at the edge," Vos said.

For consumers, it means they should have a consistent type of experience when they access Sprint's services from a mobile phone, a PDA (personal digital assistant) and a laptop computer, for example.

In building this single architecture, the ailing Sprint is taking on yet another ambitious project on top of its nationwide WiMax rollout. Many service providers are working on building overarching service platforms using IMS and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), but those technologies are still in their infancy and there are numerous legacy systems already in place. Sprint has three separate networks, counting CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), the iDEN cellular network from Nextel and WiMax. Meanwhile, the third-place U.S. mobile operator has suffered numerous subscriber complaints about its customer service and billing, according to news reports.

Along with the common service infrastructure and APIs, Sprint wants to make information about subscribers available to developers so they can offer customized services to individual subscribers, Vos said. For example, service developers could access a customer's location or presence status to present valuable real-time information, he told reporters after the speech. These types of information could also be used to provide detailed billing for third-party content providers on a Sprint bill. Ultimately, information about the people driving along a particular stretch of highway could be used to control what's displayed on a digital billboard, Vos said.

Vos also gave some information about the emerging WiMax service, called Xohm, though the company is holding back in a few areas until it releases financial results for the first quarter of the year.

The soft launch of Xohm in Chicago and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area is under way, and the wide-area wireless network is still on track for a commercial launch in the second quarter, he said. But Sprint is holding off until the first-quarter report to say how much it will invest and how widely the network will be rolled out this year. It had said last year the service would reach 100 million U.S. residents by the end of 2008.

Despite its continuing high hopes for a wide range of devices, and partner Intel's disclosure Tuesday that more than a third of the portable devices coming in the second quarter on its Atom Centrino platform will include WiMax, Sprint is focusing first on modems for laptops and for home broadband, Vos said. It also is concentrating on non-real-time applications, and on nomadic use-- using the service in one place, then moving to another and starting up again-- rather than true mobile use in a car or train. For example, mobile VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) on WiMax requires more work on call handoffs, he said.

 

The change is in the core network, not radio access, so no change in phones. Customers won't really notice it. Well, except maybe only improvements like less congestion in transport networks, easier hand-overs to other systems, common billing, etc. And of course if things go wrong while upgrading, customers will notice that too

Most operators are migrating to a common core systems that are IP based. Sprint isn't doing anything that everyone else isn't doing allready or will be doing soon.

 

the other nice thing about making the core more IP-based is that it will put users closer to the network and remove proxies and unneeded road blacks along the way......i'm looking forward to see some simplification........the IP especially will put CDMA closer to WiMax as well seeing as that technology is already IP-based......its core should be IP-based as well.......thats prolli what forced this decision........"data is important and we're already gonna have to put together an IP-core for WiMax....why not do it for everything"

out of curiosity.....how long does a massive upgrade like this take???

 

Thanks for posting that article.

 

The whole architecture of the core network is being changed. It''s a major operation. And Sprint has a massive network. I'd give it a year or 2 minimum.

 

oh wow......well wouldnt the Wimax network be IP-based already??? but yeah if they have to make two other networks onto the same platform that could take a while.....will they be doing this for Nextel as well considering their data sucks as it is and they're just shutting it down in a few years anyway?

 

I suppose that IDEN will require some sort of gateway before it can be interfaced with the IP core network.

 

although from the look from some of the settings on Nextel phones......its already an IP-based technology right???

EDIT: like when you look in My Info on Nextel phones there is IP1 and IP2 and Circuit IP or Circuit data or whatever

 

Supposedly by 2012 the iDEN network is supposed to be history. But if they cannot get a network with PTT as good as the iDEN network it's not going to happen. One of the big attractions of the Nextel network is their "Direct Connect" PTT implementation. Right now the CDMA version of PTT isn't up to the task.

 

You mean Sprint's current PTT offering "ReadyLink"? Or the upcoming QChat?

 

QChat will be better than Verizon or AT&T cuz they use Kodiak which is a server based system.........QChat is peer to peer and although it still uses data instead os a dispatch switch.......its still faster and efficient and organized like a voice dispatch system......Readylink on the other hand is server based and cumbersome

 

Everything will need to be translated into IP (GSM; CDMA; WCDMA) since none of them are IP-based. "Legacy" networks are built around the 64kbps POTS phone line. But the future is all IP. Today we are transforming between the two. Hence core network upgrades, new IP-based radio technologies like LTE and WiMAX....stay tuned...

 

so i suppose the initiative was made because they already are building an IP core for their WiMax and they figured......why not stretch out the bottlenecks and make everything up to date