Telus’ Mike network not going away any time soon: McFarlane

Rumours of the demise of the iDEN network have been greatly exaggerated, according to Telus Corp. CFO Bob McFarlane. Speaking at the Citigroup 16th Annual Global Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference on January 10, he noted that there is a convergence that’s going to occur between iDEN – the technology behind Telus’ Mike network – and CDMA. "I think the notion that iDEN is going to disappear in a few years is an incorrect one. I think we’re going to see that today iDEN continues to have on a push-to-talk basis a superior capability than any solution we see in the marketplace and, therefore, there’s going to continue to be a role for it," McFarlane said. The comments came following a question regarding the potential integration of the two technologies in light of Sprint Nextel’s decision to explore such possibilities in the next two to three years. Sprint Nextel president and CEO Gary Forsee made a slight mention of this move coming in the 2007-2008 time frame during his presentation at the Citigroup conference a day earlier. This isn’t the first time Telus has defused rumours regarding the demise of iDEN technology. More than three years ago a Telus manager told Report on Wireless that the company was developing CDMA 1X services that would replace Mike and CDPD wireless data services (RoW, Dec. 9/02). Soon after the article was published, Telus denied that it was going to phase out its Mike network. McFarlane noted that developments are coming down the pipe such as dual-mode, dual-band handsets and that there "is development in terms of gateway architecture with Motorola. I think the bottom line, if you take a 10-year window here, a 10-year outlook, you are going to see a distinct convergence to the advantage of anyone who has both CDMA and iDEN. And that means we’ll be able to benefit from the integration that Sprint Nextel are going to pursue."

Telus’ Mike network not going away any time soon: McFarlane

News | January 25, 2006

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