I have a question for those BlackBerry insiders that read RIMarkable from time to time. Have we seen the last BlackBerry device on Nextel? Although they haven’t admitted it yet, Sprint seems to be slowly but surely phasing out the iDen network even though there are hoards of corporate subscribers who rely on the direct connect “Walkie-Talkie” feature that made Nextel popular.
Will the BlackBerry 7100i be the last device we see, or does, RIM possibly have future iDen BlackBerrys on the back burner?
I think we are seeing the begninning of the end of Nextel iDEN. I had lunch with my Government reps last week and they indicated that next year there will be an 8800 that will have a VoIP Walkie-talkie that can talk to both CDMA and iDEN customers…clearly this is the bridge and the future roadmap. They also told me that by 2012, iDEN would be turned over to the Government.
Sprint has officially confrimed it will use Qualcomm’s QChat technology for its next generation Push-To-Talk (PTT) on the Revision A network. QChat phones will be able to communicate with other as well as iDEN PTT handsets on network.Sprint is expected to launnch phones with iDEN for PTT and CDMA for calls and Data as astepping stone to this new CDMA technologly.
Its official, Sprint has come out with the IC401 and IC501 “Hybrids”, these are phones that use the iDEN network for PTT and the CDMA network for Phone and Data. However there has been some rumblings from RIM that there will be a new version of the BB for the iDEN/Nextel network. I for one as a Nextel/Sprint dealer hope to see a new version of the BB for the iDEN network, as the 7100i unit is plagued with issues.