Verizon Wireless announced it will shut down its slow-speed wireless data CDPD network by December 2005, following a similar move by CDPD network operator AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
The move comes as little surprise because much of the wireless industry is working to migrate to faster-speed wireless networks like CDMA 1xRTT and GPRS. Verizon said it is working to alert its CDPD customers and will urge them to move to the carrier’s 1x network.
Another CDPD carrier, Alltel, said it will continue to operate its CDPD network for the foreseeable future.
AT&T Wireless late last year said it will shut down its network by June of next year. The carrier too said it will work to migrate its subscribers to its faster-speed GPRS network.
Several wireless carriers, including AT&T and what is now Verizon Wireless, first started building CDPD networks in the mid 1990s as an addition to their existing analog networks, and the networks supported speeds of up to 19 kilobits per second (kbps). The Internet Protocol-based wireless data service was much trumpeted in its early years, but CDPD providers currently have little to show for their efforts. Carriers do not currently offer CDPD subscriber numbers, but those in the industry estimate the total user base to be around several hundred thousand.
Verizon would not say how many CDPD customers it has. Many CDPD users are public-safety agencies like police departments.
Verizon said its CDPD infrastructure providers are Hughes and Lucent Technologies. Many CDPD infrastructure providers, including L.M. Ericsson, have stopped making such equipment.
AT&T Wireless and Verizon will not be the first carriers to shut down networks. Nextel Communications Inc. and Telus Mobility in Canada have also made such moves with other outdated network technologies.
CDPD is not the nation’s only slow-speed wireless data network technology. Other slow-speed wireless data networks include Motient Corp.’s DataTac network, Cingular Wireless’ Mobitex network and two-way ReFLEX paging networks.
