-
June 19, 2013They said it, we said it, now we'll say it again: The shutdown of the Nextel National Network is happening at the end of this month. Are you ready with another wireless communication solution to replace Nextel push-to-talk phones? We've known for years that the Nextel National Network, which is based on iDEN technology inadequate to meet the data needs of modern smartphones, was on its way out. Sprint, which now owns the network, announced the shutdown in late 2010. Later it set the date: June 30, 2013. Earlier this month, Sprint laid out the plan down to the minute. In a news release the company said, "Sprint remains on schedule to decommission the iDEN Nextel National Network beginning at 12:01 a.m. eastern time on June 30. iDEN devices will then no longer receive voice service—including 911 calls and push-to-talk—or data service. Sprint will shut down switch locations in rapid succession on June 30, followed by powering down equipment and eliminating backhaul at each
-
April 30, 2013Businesses are always looking for options, and a once-important wireless communications option is going away on June 30, 2013. That's the date the Nextel National Network is being officially decommissioned. With just two months left, plenty of businesses are considering their options to replace their push-to-talk communications systems; and BearCom has them.
Nextel Network Shut Down
To highlight the choices available, BearCom this week published a white paper, Considering All the Options for Replacing Nextel Push-to-Talk Communications Services. In it, BearCom reminds organizations impacted by the shutdown that they have choices from among push-to-talk phone systems but can consider two-way -
March 13, 2013Read part one... As we look back on BearCom and its history as a company, we see it had its first successes in two-way radio rentals. But it became a true power in wireless communications with the 1995 business merger of Bear Communications and PageCom that combined the industry's largest field office distribution dealer and its largest catalog dealer.
The Business Merger
PageCom had been founded in Dallas in 1981 and acquired a decade later by a group led by Texas businessman John Watson. PageCom's IT infrastructure, warehouse capabilities, and financial department depth meant the combined company would call Dallas home. It would call itself BearCom, Watson would be its Chairman, and it would become the largest Motorola dealership in the world. The company wasted little time, judging by what it accomplished in 1996, the year after the business merger. It supplied more than 3,000 radios