Sprint Direct Connect Achieves One Million Customer Milestone in One Year

Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE:S), a company that offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services, announced that its Sprint Direct Connect Push-to-talk (PTT) service has now surpassed the one-million customer milestone.

Sprint Direct Connect service has three times greater coverage area than Sprint’s legacy iDEN network.

The feature-packed services of Sprint Direct Connect are proving to be a big draw as customers continue to migrate to the industry’s latest push-to-talk-gold-standard service on Sprint’s CDMA network.

Sprint launched Sprint Direct Connect less than a year ago, ushering in the next generation of PTT services from the company that had been the pioneer of the PTT technology. The newly launched Push-to-talk service packs broadband data capabilities, familiar push-to-talk features, reliable handsets and a push-to-talk coverage map.

Sprint Direct Connect has now evolved into the industry’s push-to-talk gold standard with its enhanced capabilities. It now has three times the coverage compared to Sprint’s legacy Nextel National Network. On domestic PTT calls, there is also a facility of instant call set-up time. International coverage now extends up to Latin American companies who are the most frequent users of PTT services.

A range of rugged handsets, including Motorola ADMIRAL smartphones, are also provided with the service.

Paget Alves, Sprint’s chief sales officer, said one million customers in less than a year is an important achievement and reflects well on the permanence of push-to-talk as a communications solution. Sprint Direct Connect has reportedly met the increasing demand for faster data speeds and better and broader coverage on push-to-talk devices.

In the last quarter, about 60 percent of Sprint subscribers who had left the postpaid Nextel platform migrated to postpaid Sprint Platform. The numbers were up from 46 percent in the first quarter.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, recently migrated to Sprint Direct Connect from legacy Nextel service. Sprint will now be providing FEMA about 2,000 Sprint Direct Connect handsets.

These handsets are equipped with an Actsoft GPS tracking and navigation solution to support FEMA’s endeavors.

Qualcomm has created Sprint’s upgraded push-to-talk platform. The IP based platform has played a significant role in capturing and drawing customers from iDEN to broadband CDMA. With an impressive portfolio of push-to-talk services, subscribers can get more done at the push of a button, with ease and efficiency. Direct Connect instantly connects to other Direct Connect subscriber as it is designed for interoperability across Nextel and Sprint platforms.

With its Group connect facility, a subscriber can connect to 20 other Sprint Direct Connect subscribers.  But with the Team Direct Connect facility, subscribers can connect with 200 Sprint Direct Subscribers, all at the push of a button.

The NextMail feature enables one to send a recorded message to any e-mail or mobile handset worldwide via text message by using the Direct Connect button.

Michael Wallace, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Internet Services, said the Qualcomm platform represents a carrier-grade, IP-based solution for Sprint that delivers the advanced push-to-talk experiences that customers demand today.

It sets a solid foundation for Sprint Direct Connect to support even more advanced communications in the future.

As a part of Network Vision plans, Sprint has announced that it will decommission its iDEN network as early as June 30, 2013. Network Vision is expected to add net economic value for Sprint from more efficient use of capital, energy cost savings, reduced roaming costs, cell-site reduction and backhaul efficiencies.

In most channels, the company has already discontinued selling iDEN devices; Sprint will continue to support business customers with iDEN devices in their transition to Sprint Direct Connect service. 

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