Sprint Exec Says 25 LTE Market By End of Year

[marioc21]

Sprint gave a presentation at a conference in Colorado this week. Seems like not too much news except for the the following:

 

Interestingly, Nevshemal also said that the company will likely accelerate its launch of LTE markets in the fourth quarter. He said the carrier will have around 25 markets equipped with LTE by year-end. In mid-July, Sprint launched LTE in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio. He said that Sprint will begin notifying customers of the impending LTE launch in a market about 30 days in advance of the service being commercially available.

 

http://www.fiercebro...-FierceWireless

 

I don't know that 10 new markets by the end of the year is "accelerating" LTE deployment. Sounds like it might be on pace or a tad slow. They already said 5 more markets around labor day no? That means just 5 more the rest of the year?

 

Also interesting to hear the comments about backhaul. Really makes it clear that wireless companies are using data as profit centers. Their delivery costs go down but they charge the end user the same or more to use it.

 

Edit: Just realized thread title might be misleading Trying to say Sprint will have total of 25 LTE markets by year-end.

[Deval]

I think it's no different than paying $5 for a bottle of water at a concert vs $1 down the block outside. The demand is there, so someone wants to make money.

 

That being said, I'm more excited about the 20x bandwidth statement. That is more important in my eyes.

[irev210]

Sprint gave a presentation at a conference in Colorado this week. Seems like not too much news except for the the following:

 

 

 

http://www.fiercebro...-FierceWireless

 

I don't know that 10 new markets by the end of the year is "accelerating" LTE deployment. Sounds like it might be on pace or a tad slow. They already said 5 more markets around labor day no? That means just 5 more the rest of the year?

 

Also interesting to hear the comments about backhaul. Really makes it clear that wireless companies are using data as profit centers. Their delivery costs go down but they charge the end user the same or more to use it.

 

Edit: Just realized thread title might be misleading Trying to say Sprint will have total of 25 LTE markets by year-end.

 

Robert was spot on. Nevshemal states that Sprint has, on average, 3 T-1's serving each tower for CDMA voice/data.

 

You guys know the numbers, what it costs for a T1 on a month-to-month basis. With AV, it's roughly $500, we'll just

call it that. So you are spending roughly $1,500 per month at a tower for backhaul of the tower at meg and half per T1

of backhaul speed. So you have 4.5 megabits of backhaul speed at that tower for $1,500. When you flip to Ethernet at

the tower which is what effectively when we go to Network Vision, all of our towers will be Ethernet, when you flip to

that, you can – for the same roughly the same cost of $1,500 a month, you have almost 20 times bandwidth through that

location, right. You have now, let's just peg it at 100 megabits per second even though it's scalable to more than that. So

you're going from 4.5 megs per second at $1,500 to 100 megs per second at $1,500, which means your unit cost for that

part of your network, and that's how we think about our cost structure. For that unit cost, for that – for backhaul through

that, it's 95% cheaper to put a bit through that backhaul. That's Network Vision. That's why we're doing a lot of this is

to lower our unit cost.

 

 

Oh yeah, they will. I mean I'll give you an example is we are working on, I forgot the exact

number, I mean, but we're working on call it low-teens number of markets today, like today as in today. Three months

from now, we'll probably be working on twice that, which means we'll be working on kind of 25 markets or so by the

end of the year. And so, what will happen is like each market has four or five or six kind of submarkets to it. We'll have

more and more markets launched as we kind of get to the back half of the year. And that's kind of the way the program

was kind of developed

 

I mean, internally, we kind of structure the program in several phases. A lot of the first

markets that you've seen and heard of are kind of your big NFL cities and everything like that. It's kind of how it first

started. But at the end, what we're also telling the OEMs is we're not trying to target the OEMs to say you have to get

that site up at like 119th and [ph] Knoll (19:36), for those of you who know Kansas City. We're kind of saying, I want

you to go fast and my team and parts of the Sprint organization will figure out what markets are kind of PR ready and

kind of market ready, but I'm not trying to peg the OEMs to focus on just getting one mark – one site up or certain

amount of sites up, because in the end we want Network Vision up and running everywhere as quick as possible. And if

you kind pin the OEMs in the sand, you can only work on these four sites this month and please get these six sites up

next month, you're not optimizing them. So we've kind of said to those guys again, go quickly in as many places as you

can. When the sites come up, Marty and his team and other parts of the organization will look at, okay, how does that

look from a density and coverage perspective and then we'll figure out if a market's ready. That's kind of how we think

about it.

[KaoMinerva]

Is Memphis included here?

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Is Memphis included here?

 

Check the deployment list here...

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

[WiWavelength]

Is Memphis included here?

 

No, Memphis is not a priority. It is filled with poor, 'rastling fans.

 

 

 

AJ

[xenadu]

Also interesting to hear the comments about backhaul. Really makes it clear that wireless companies are using data as profit centers. Their delivery costs go down but they charge the end user the same or more to use it.

 

Well they need this to keep customers and attract new ones. They won't survive for long selling dial-up speeds even if it is unlimited. Their stated goal of 6Mbps LTE average is about 40X-50X what most people get in reality (3-4X in theory). Shutting down iDEN should free up cash to take that 20X backhaul and bump it further to keep up with current customers and new customers.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Gotta like how he said 25 by yr end and that lines up almost exactly with the NV list here and its dates!...

[EXLINE]

Well, only 5 markets have been launched ( I know they say 15 now but we all remember when they said 5). So with the 4 on labor day that leaves 21 markets. If you look at the deployment list and count to 30 and look at the anticipated launch they are about right on with the last few saying January 2013 so I am thinking its close

[EXLINE]

oops I counted 30 markets but you get the point and Slaughter beat me to the post

[jeffgus]

Robert was spot on. Nevshemal states that Sprint has, on average, 3 T-1's serving each tower for CDMA voice/data.

 

My brother has done some work on LTE upgrades for some of the carriers. He told me that the old racks took in one T1 for each sector (each side of the triangle is a sector). Once copper is dumped and there is fiber to the tower, there shouldn't be a backhall problem. If the RF data overtakes the fiber, it is fairly easy to upgrade the fiber interface on each side... no need to pull new wire. He didn't know what the speed of the fiber was, but I was guessing it to be around 100mbit/s. It sounds about right based on the article. We have 3 sectors * 1.54mbit/s each * 20 = 92.40mbit/s... right around 100mbit/s!

[S4GRU]

The site next to my home has two T1‘s. One for voice, one for data. All three sectors share the same T1's. Most rural and low usage sites have 2-3 T1's.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[Rasta Cheesehead]

Sprint gave a presentation at a conference in Colorado this week. Seems like not too much news except for the the following:

 

 

 

http://www.fiercebro...-FierceWireless

 

I don't know that 10 new markets by the end of the year is "accelerating" LTE deployment. Sounds like it might be on pace or a tad slow. They already said 5 more markets around labor day no? That means just 5 more the rest of the year?

 

Also interesting to hear the comments about backhaul. Really makes it clear that wireless companies are using data as profit centers. Their delivery costs go down but they charge the end user the same or more to use it.

 

Edit: Just realized thread title might be misleading Trying to say Sprint will have total of 25 LTE markets by year-end.

 

 

I think a lot of people are confusing cities with markets. Sprint has 99 total markets, to have started 25 markets with LTE that is a forth of all markets. i would not see that as slow

[jefbal99]

I think a lot of people are confusing cities with markets. Sprint has 99 total markets, to have started 25 markets with LTE that is a forth of all markets. i would not see that as slow

 

Hell, the entire state of Michigan is two markets. There are many, many cities in each market.

[dannible]

If all of the work is contracted out what is stopping/delaying the later round markets from deploying backhaul in advance of the other tower upgrades to account for the known backhaul installation delay?

[S4GRU]

If all of the work is contracted out what is stopping/delaying the later round markets from deploying backhaul in advance of the other tower upgrades to account for the known backhaul installation delay?

 

Backhaul is going in a little earlier in later markets. But Sprint doesn't have the cash flow to do all the backhaul in advance for all four rounds. But some backhaul is starting already in Round Three markets.

 

Additionally, some of the 2nd and 3rd Round markets placement was determined because of backhaul availability. For instance, some 2nd round markets would have been 3rd Rounders, but they can get backhaul deployed faster. And some 3rd Rounders could have been in the second round, but they had backhaul infrastructure issues that wouldn't have allowed so fast of a start.

 

If people understood this, there may be less complaining about market order. Sprint wants NV to be done as soon as possible. But there has to be an order and there has to be a budget. So they are trying to get it done as fast as possible within the parameters of reality of their situation.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[KaoMinerva]

I pray we keep unlimited forever

[jeffgus]

The site next to my home has two T1‘s. One for voice, one for data. All three sectors share the same T1's. Most rural and low usage sites have 2-3 T1's.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

I seem to remember my brother saying the most he has seen is 6 T1's for a service. He didn't know exactly how they were used (data/voice). All the new stuff is fiber and that is what he was working with.

 

It's pretty amazing that all those towers have been running on T1's all this time. Makes sense because T1's are available almost anywhere. Just to think, I was so happy to get T1-like speeds on my phone years ago!

[Thomas L.]

Out of curiosity, what does the backhaul situation look like in the SF Bay Area/South Bay. Is there any significance to eHRPD popping up almost ubiquitously after those sites on Apple's campus came online, and are those likely not indicative of any kind of market progress?

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent ICS Blue Tapatalk 2

[S4GRU]

Out of curiosity, what does the backhaul situation look like in the SF Bay Area/South Bay. Is there any significance to eHRPD popping up almost ubiquitously after those sites on Apple's campus came online, and are those likely not indicative of any kind of market progress?

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent ICS Blue Tapatalk 2

 

eHRPD means that they have started routing 3G data for LTE capable devices through the 4G cores. It must be done in advance of LTE going live in order for transitioning from LTE to 3G to be seamless. However, in some places, eHRPD showed up many months in advance of LTE going live. So, while eHRPD showing up is definitely a sign of progress, it does not mean LTE is imminent in your immediate area.

 

I have no details about backhaul specifically in the SF/South Bay markets, except a couple of blurbs about delays back in the March/April time frame. When I saw the schedule update last June that showed that work was scheduled to start finally in the SF Bay market (after several delays), I took that to mean their planning/permitting/backhaul delays have been worked through.

 

Robert

[dannible]

Backhaul is going in a little earlier in later markets. But Sprint doesn't have the cash flow to do all the backhaul in advance for all four rounds. But some backhaul is starting already in Round Three markets.

 

Additionally, some of the 2nd and 3rd Round markets placement was determined because of backhaul availability. For instance, some 2nd round markets would have been 3rd Rounders, but they can get backhaul deployed faster. And some 3rd Rounders could have been in the second round, but they had backhaul infrastructure issues that wouldn't have allowed so fast of a start.

 

If people understood this, there may be less complaining about market order. Sprint wants NV to be done as soon as possible. But there has to be an order and there has to be a budget. So they are trying to get it done as fast as possible within the parameters of reality of their situation.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

thanks. great explanation

[BenChase7]

...But some backhaul is starting already in Round Three markets....

Care to share which Round Three markets, please?

[S4GRU]

Care to share which Round Three markets, please?

 

It was an email chain I was copied on. It just said that some markets slated to begin deployment in 2013 are having some initial backhaul work starting in the 3rd Quarter of 2012.

 

Robert

[MacinJosh]

 

It was an email chain I was copied on. It just said that some markets slated to begin deployment in 2013 are having some initial backhaul work starting in the 3rd Quarter of 2012.

 

Robert

 

That's nice to hear. I like hearing that they will get the backhaul done early for 3rd round markets. Maybe by the end of the year I'll have better data speeds in places I travel.

 

Sent from my LG-LS840 Viper 4G LTE using Tapatalk 2

[Fifth313ment]

"When asked whether Sprint can continue to offer its $79 per month unlimited data package, Nevshemal said that it's hard for the company to predict whether it will be able to offer unlimited data to customers indefinitely because it depends on how much data consumers will use--U.S. operators have seen data usage skyrocket as consumers rapidly upgrade to smartphones and those smartphones become more sophisticated in their capabilities. Sprint made headlines last month when an executive said that the company expects to offer unlimited data service for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) LTE-compatible iPhone 5 when it comes out this fall--that is, if the rumored iPhone 5 actually launches and if Sprint gets it."

 

This type of paragraph scares me. I had a friend once who owned a restaurant and my family tried to support him as much as possible. We would eat there multiple times a week as he was having money problems and trying to renovate to bring in new clients at the same time. Soon after he finished renovating he changed the complete style of his restaurant and raised his prices exponentially. We haven't talked since. If Sprint moves to tiered data plans after upgrading to LTE I will be gone along with most of there user-base. Although I can see Sprint holding on to make the price changes until at least 80% of their footprint is covered in LTE making it harder to switch. And if Sprint doesn't get the iPhone 5 they will go down in history for making the worst iPhone deal ever. They basically have to have something in that contract which guarantees or allows for the next iteration of the phone.