Editing IDEN (section)

=== History ===
iDEN, the platform which WiDEN upgrades, and the protocol on which it is based, was originally introduced by Motorola in 1993, and launched as a commercial network by Nextel in the United States in September 1996.

WiDEN was originally anticipated to be a major stepping stone for United States wireless telephone provider Nextel Communications and its affiliate, Nextel Partners. However, beginning with the December 2004 announcement of the [[Sprint Nextel]] merger, Nextel's iDEN network was abandoned in favor of Sprint's [[CDMA]] network. WiDEN was deactivated on the NEXTEL National Network in October 2005 when rebanding efforts in the 800&nbsp;MHz band began in an effort to utilize those data channels as a way to handle more cellular phone call traffic on the NEXTEL iDEN network. The original Nextel iDEN network was finally decommissioned by Sprint on June 30, 2013 and the spectrum refarmed for use in the Sprint [[LTE (telecommunication)|LTE]] network.