The 3 markets listed above are active as far as Nationwide Direct Connect from Nextel in concerned!!!
So, teams from Boston or South California could to PTT (Push-to-talk a.k.a Walkie-Talkie) teams here in Florida RIGHT NOW if they knew each others “Private ID”. Other markets will be up over the next couple weeks/months.
(Now, if we could only improve coverage inside Reliant Stadium…yet another reason to go back to Disney World!!)
Communication amongst FIRST Teams will never be the same.
(No disrespect to CD but) Imagine not having to wait for a post by so-and-so. Instead “key him up” on your iDEN Nextel handset and chat or find the answer to a problem.
There are 100’s of other great use-case scenarios.
Improve your own teams communication!
This year staff at Dillard HS had Nextel, and the Motorolans were able to communicate instantly and much more effectively than in all year’s previous combined…imho.
Haven’t you heard the Nextel commercials? It’s the “digital two-way radio feature.” It lets you connect to any other Nextel subscriber in your area (for now) if you know their Private ID (sortof like an account number). You can then talk to them with the push of a button, just like if you were using a two-way radio. It’s a really neat feature. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to use it with any Nextel subscriber anywhere in the country.
I was going to get a nextel but i wanted to wait for the nation wide system, also theres not many people in my area with them I hope that once its nation wide i can talk to some of my friends from teams across the country with out the high prices.
oh, i have an LG phone, on a verizon plan. nation wide, nights and weekends free.
i find it perfectly fine, and just as useful. jim “fotoplasma” gold knows that, as me, meli w., and jeff wetzel called him from the annapolis regional at like, 6 or 7 in the morning PST, because we needed a phone number, that was on a website, and we had no other way to get it :p. needless to say, after a bit of convincing, jim got the phone number, and we got more gears :p.
*Originally posted by Ryan Dognaux *
**Are there any other cell phone providers that will have this feature available too???.. such as… Motorola or Verizon…? **
I believe Nextel is the only US provider that offers Direct Connect. It’s a proprietary feature of the iDEN network.
Nextel is the only service provider with the direct connect feature. That is why they can have such high plans and stillg et away with it. Dont get me wrong i think nextel is one of the best providers. They get good reception, they have the internet,speaker phone(i know some other companeys have it but not alot), and what boost them about the competiton is def the direct connect. How i pay foir my nextel, is my dad writes it off as a business expense so it brings the montly payments down alot. So if you are thingking about getting them for like yoru team or something and cant get them donated then try to write off as a business expense
Nextel should have a special “rate” for people in FIRST Robotics! It would be cool as heck. They can say they support FIRST robotics, while we save money!!
*Originally posted by Matt Attallah *
**Nextel should have a special “rate” for people in FIRST Robotics! It would be cool as heck. They can say they support FIRST robotics, while we save money!!
*Originally posted by Ryan_team710 *
**That would be cool, i dont know how we pull it off. But motorla could also help and get us teh i 95 so we dont have to pay the $300 price tag **
Heck, we’re one of the big Motorola teams and WE can’t even get the phones. My nokia always goes with me to motorola. Hey! If I got an iDen for the same price as my nokia, I’d DEFINETLY go with the iDen…but you can’t beat free
Oh, and yes, we’re the faceplate people and we’re still making them. Usually we don’t have many of them, but if you’ve got an iDen phone, come by the sigmaC@T Team next year and see if we’ve got any for ya. They’re pretty cool actually.
*Originally posted by Specialagentjim *
**Heck, we’re one of the big Motorola teams and WE can’t even get the phones. My nokia always goes with me to motorola…
Oh, and yes, we’re the faceplate people …**
Jim you’re off the team until you switch…
The team hasn’t all rx’d free phones b/c we haven’t won the chairman’s… That offer from years ago is still valid!! (Re)Tell your classmates!
The faceplates were for the i50sx model.
Yes, nextel is only nation-wide direct-connect provider. There is a company called Boost that sells same stuff under different name.
*Originally posted by Jeff Waegelin *
**Any idea when the full Nationwide Direct Connect is coming online? I know it’s soon, but is there any announced roll-out plan? **
nextel’s site used to have an interactive map that said which cities would be up in which month. they seem to have changed maps to just a static view of the entire nation…
during game 3 of cup finals they had a nation-wide commercial and didn’t mention anything about certain cities up or not up…
I have a schedule that lists the order of several large cities (mostly east coast), but not sure if that’s public info yet…
What’s interesting is the handsets have had the capability for 5+ years now… :ahh:
English students, in TECH? Your best bet was Mark, but hes gone now. Yeah, not to mention you’re stuck with '04, '05 and '06. Yeah, good luck finding those english students.
So I could actually finally use my Direct Connect with more than 2 people maybe?
**
