Present and Projected Technology
The joint venture of Sprint and Nextel has served more than 49.9 million subscribers. To beat the competition they decided to deploy innovative engineering technology, which would be widely recognized and will also help them to have firm grip over the new mobile Internet market.
Nextel is a sub-brand under Sprint, which uses iDEN technologies that uses 800-900 MHz bands for its direct connect or walikie-talkie push to talk phones. Some of the Boost Mobiles by the prepay division also uses this network. In order to focus 4G and expanding CDMA network, Sprint will be replacing iDEN by the end of 2013. The iDEN cell sites are expected to be phased out and will be replaced by advanced version of CDMA using broadband PTT applications.
The network that is operated for 2G and 3G, which has served more than 190 million subscribers is presently using EV DO/1xRTT standard that is a part of CDMA standard. The upgraded version of 3G EV-DO can support up to 260 million subscribers. This technology allows Sprint to offer services such as Sprint Radio Stations, Sprint TV, Sprint On-Demand, Sprint Music Store, unlimited Web access, wireless chat & games and video & picture mail.
For mobile wireless networking, Sprint uses PCS/CDMA technology. For 4G, they are presently using WiMAX with Clearwire by combining the Xohm service and broadband networks. This technology can support 100 subscribers in metropolitan region and 120 million subscribers in other parts.
Sprint is planning to switch from its present WiMAX standard to LTE standard, but no technological changes has been announced and seen as such.
