by Robert Herron
Sprint 4G Rollout Updates
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - 3:43 PM MDT

BAD NEWS: The majority of BTA's (Basic Trading Areas) that do not have service now, are not likely to get a 4G Protection Site. The reason: Clearwire subleases its EBS spectrum from colleges and school districts. Almost all of the subleased EBS BTA's already meet the FCC Minimum Coverage requirements.

In the ones outstanding, either the Educational Spectrum holder has either, A) Not yet transferred their license to Clearwire, and thus, Clearwire is not subject to the FCC Minimum Coverage requirement yet, or, the Educational Spectrum holder already has a network deployed that meets the FCC Minimum Coverage requirements and thus the license is already protected (which is what I suspect is the case in Columbia, South Carolina).

In the case of a BTA with no coverage at all at this point, you will likely not ever see a Protection Site. Most likely these areas will not see Sprint 4G until Network Vision comes to your market. Hopefully October 7th will shed a little light on this.