Hasta La Gadget!

The end of an era arrives Sunday, when Sprint will officially shut the door on its Nextel iDEN push-to-talk service. Subscribers who’ve held onto the legacy PTT standard with white knuckle grips (and extra fees) will have to switch to its CDMA-based Direct Connect offering for continued chirping capabilities — or migrate to the likes of Ma Bell’s haus. The freed up 800MHz spectrum won’t remain idle; if you’ll recall, it’ll be re-allocated to give a major boost to Sprint’s 4G CDMA voice/LTE data rollout for 2014. Hurry up and make that switch if you haven’t already and relive some Sprint Nextel memories with us after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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For Nextel push-to-talk subs, the writing’s been on the wall for some time now, what with that legacy service destined to sunset on June 30th, 2013. But for those unwilling to heed Sprint’s many early warnings and make the switch to its CDMA-based Direct Connect plan before this coming January, there’ll be an additional monthly penalty fee. Sprint’s confirmed to us that, starting in the new year, (stubborn) iDEN subs who’ve yet to migrate away from the network will incur an extra $10 charge per billing cycle. In lieu of that, the carrier’s advising users to transition now and take advantage of its myriad incentive programs while they last. It’s not a permanent change though, as this recurring fee will last only as long as the Nextel National Network does, at which point that 800MHz spectrum will be rolled over for the carrier’s planned LTE build-out. But PTT holdouts irked by this news won’t have to tie their fates to Sprint — AT&T’s been anticipating this churn and is waiting with open arms.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Sprint

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Via: PhoneScoop

If you didn’t get enough in mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This past week, Sprint hit more than one milestone that it just had to share and Nokia teased the latest app that’s exclusive to Lumia owners. We then discovered a very rare BlackBerry and also learned of the latest city to get prepped for T-Mobile’s LTE service. Hell, we even stumbled on a new smartphone for old people! These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of September 17th, 2012.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of September 17th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software, Mobile

Mobile Miscellany: week of September 17th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Sep 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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