Motorola's i1 hitting SouthernLINC Wireless, Georgians and Alabamians rejoice

Moto's i1 went from rumored device to ready for retail over the span of just a few weeks, and now we're finding out just where it'll be available -- though the news isn't exactly good. Motorola is announcing that the iDEN device will be hitting SouthernLINC first, a rural carrier that you may not have heard of if you're outside of Alabama, Georgia, or the western half of the Florida panhandle. That is the extent of this carrier's coverage, and so it's not a huge coming out party for this military spec push-to-talk smartphone, but we're hoping down the road it gets a little more love from carriers with slightly broader coverage maps.

[JXCGunrunna Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:26AM]

Well wouldn't sprint be the only other major IDEN option?

[Zerohour Posted Mar 30th 2010 9:46AM]

@JXCGunrunna It has already been announced for Sprint/Nextel, coming this summer. I'm not exactly sure why the writer would throw in "we're hoping".

[mastahc411 Posted Apr 2nd 2010 10:55AM]

@JXCGunrunna
It will be on boost mobile this summer

[albinomexi Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:27AM]

Woot?

[xtreker15 Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:38AM]

rejoice, with marriage proposals to their siblings.

[RealGame22 Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:41AM]

Not a bad looking phone.

[DrewMania Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:42AM]

hmmm the iDen is sexy but why not T-Mobile or at least att so I can unlock it

[SHOWYOURBIZNESS Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:46AM]

So will it work on boost mobile or not?

[shakeoctane Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:52AM]

I live in Georgia and I have never heard of this carrier... Granted, they said it was more rural and I love in Atlanta, but still... Why release this on such a small network?

[livioo Posted Mar 30th 2010 9:16AM]

@shakeoctane So the invading russian Troops can use stylish phones to call their wives back in Novosibirsk.

http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/fail-owned-geography-fail2.jpg

[autoexecbat Posted Mar 30th 2010 9:39AM]

@shakeoctane Born and raised in Stone Mountain and I've heard of SouthernLinc - it's been around for nearly two decades if memory serves. Of course iDEN is only for construction workers and the wives of construction workers so forget about it.

I used the i1 at CTIA Show and it was actually a pretty nice experience. Felt solid like most Moto devices and would be more of a requirement for SouthernLinc's typical customer.

[trotterkale Posted Mar 30th 2010 1:16PM]

@shakeoctane

i live in pensacola, fl, and a bunch of people down here have SouthernLinc. obviously it's push-to-talk, so that ridiculously loud beep in the grocery store is probably somebody on their network. they're owned actually by Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power, Alabama Power, and Gulf Power (among others), so anyone who works for SouthernCo and its affiliates probably uses a SouthernLinc phone just as work, if nothing else. never heard anyone complain about the service, though. maybe I'm just not in the right place.

[daveblaze Posted Mar 30th 2010 2:57PM]

@shakeoctane
It's the wireless side of Southern Company, Georgia Power's and Alabama Power's parent company. Having worked for the company in the the past I can personally attest to the crap this service is.

[PresidentObama Posted Mar 30th 2010 8:58AM]

Where's the Motoroi XT720????? March is almost over!

[rawmustard Posted Mar 30th 2010 9:18AM]

It's not unusual for SouthernLINC to start selling an iDEN device before Sprint Nextel. When something comes out on SouthernLINC, it's usually not more than a month that it hits Nextel.

[emaildejan Posted Mar 30th 2010 10:05AM]

The problem is that other countries have already been using this phone for nearly a year now. The iDEN network in Israel called MIR has had this phone out since Sept, 2009. So, this is not really a "brand new" phone for Motorola. It's actually fairly old. However, Sprint refuses to commit to any iDEN phone first...probably because of how they got burned by the i680 Brute (major software and hardware problems).

Anyhow, this phone isn't possessing any breath-taking technology. It's simply an Android OS iDEN phone. Nothing super impressive. Now, if it had WiMAX, THEN it would be super impressive!

[Caprice Dates Posted Mar 30th 2010 11:01AM]

Reminds me of my days with Spirnt/Nextel. If I was still with them, I would be jumping for joy over this thing. I know they are really slow to get good phones for the iDen network nut who would have ever thought Android. Thats a good leap.

[VZW611 Posted Mar 30th 2010 11:54AM]

SouthernLINC is one of those network where you will have service one second, then you will be searching the next. They do have a rural network tho. They cover most of GA and AL, southern MS, and the panhandle of FL.

[telmon Posted Mar 30th 2010 12:30PM]

Just so people are aware, the main claim to fame of this device are the mechanics and PTT...there was alot of effort put into integrating the PTT funtionality into the Android platform, so far the performance is decent...IDEN is not known for its breakthrough design SW capabilities, they make reliable rocks that make calls and can take crap loads of punishment, so a touch device running android is a big deal...and the PTT is gravy

[SonicGA Posted Mar 30th 2010 3:42PM]

Great phone, really limited service on SouthernLINC. If you don't travel at all or only stay in their coverage map, go for it.