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Silver Lining for Phoenix and Tucson/Yuma Markets...the schedule appears to be moving up for the Grand Canyon State


S4GRU

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by Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Friday, March 30, 2012 - 1:46 AM MDT

 

What about Phoenix? What about Phoenix? What about Phoenix???

 

I get asked that every day. Sometimes several times per day! On social media, our forum pages and our chat rooms are filled with Phoenicians and Arizonans who feel they have been more than patient with Sprint awaiting for first 4G WiMax and now just even to hear an announcement on 4G LTE.

 

And here we are, S4GRU.com has announced all of the markets that Sprint has planned for the First Two rounds of Network Vision/LTE deployment. There was no mention of Phoenix in any of those continual announcements. What gives?

 

Officially, Phoenix and its market neighbor Tucson/Yuma are in the Third Round. However, S4GRU.com can reveal to you that the dates for RF Design and backhaul dates for these two markets are significantly earlier than other 3rd Round markets. Additionally, in a Network Vision schedule update S4GRU obtained a few weeks ago, both the Phoenix and Tucson/Yuma markets engineering schedules moved up from previous schedules.

 

Now with the latest schedule updates, the Phoenix and Tucson/Yuma markets engineering and design are only 30 days later than what is shown for the last 2nd Round markets. Whereas 3rd Round markets are typically 4 to 5 months later. However, even with the improved dates, Alcatel/Lucent still shows these two markets being in the 3rd Round.

 

800px-PhoenixdowntownArizonaUSA.jpg

Photo of Downtown Phoenix provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

Are these markets being moved up to the Second Round? Will they be in a no man's land schedule wise between the 2nd and 3rd round? Did someone realize that it would be crazy to do this work in Arizona at the hottest part of the year in 2013, so it should be moved up to Winter? We cannot say with certainty at this time.

 

It appears that something is a foot. We will continue to monitor schedule progress and let all of you in Arizona know if there are any more changes. I am now cautiously optimistic for you Phoenicians. If I were a betting man, I would wager that you will start seeing sites come live before the end of the 2nd Round.

 

Panorama-nw.jpg

Photo of Tucson provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

We will also be announcing two more markets in the same boat in an article on Monday morning. Then, the market announcements will stop for awhile. I can't think of why we would announce 3rd Round markets so early. There is way too much variability to what can happen with their schedules. We may repeat this exercise again with 3rd and 4th Round markets later in the year.

 

Source: Undisclosed internal source

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Finally Arizonians can breathe a sigh of relief. It never made sense to me why Phoenix was so low on the totem pole. To be honest, I would have expected Phoenix to be in the early to mid 2nd round announcements. Hopefully as time goes along we can see more markets being accelerated and looking forward to Sunday's chat.

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could you explain the 4-5mo time difference from last 2nd round to 3rd round docs?

 

I assume thats 4-5mo from the start of the last 2nd round market maybe?

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Nice, hopefully we see some sites completed by the end of the year. Here in Tempe I was getting download speeds of about 20kbps for the past few months but all this week I've been averging about 200kbps. Today though I'm getting about 600kbps and upload speeds of about 300kbps, one of the very few times my download speeds are higher than my upload speeds. Things are looking good right now :D

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So we are looking at late 2012 early 2013. I do believe that is also a window for a lot of EVO customers to come off contract.

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So we are looking at late 2012 early 2013. I do believe that is also a window for a lot of EVO customers to come off contract.

 

Yes, that's about when it should start. And I think that the high number of EVO customers in the Phoenix area has to weigh heavy on their mind.

 

Robert

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Let's not forget that during the winter months our population nearly doubles with the influx of snowbirds (winter visitors). At least for Yuma it does; and I know some travel to Phoenix and Tucson as well. Take Yuma for example. Our population is right around 100k locals. during the winter our population grows to about 200k filling all our trailer parks.

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My contract with sprint ends in Sept 2012. With news of the galaxy note 2 coming out and possibility of sprint carrying it with 4g lte. I will be looking forward to getting it and hope the rollout for phoenix goes as what i read above. Went I went into a sprint store a few days ago the rep said they have i think 5 phones now that they sell using there 4g lte. with the s3 the most recent. It will be interesting to see if samsung gets it out for the usa before apples iphone 5.

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im sorry im new to these boards. could someone explain to me what 2nd round and 3rd round means specifically? in time frame? and is there any new info about phoenix and its 4glte here? thanks.

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im sorry im new to these boards. could someone explain to me what 2nd round and 3rd round means specifically? in time frame? and is there any new info about phoenix and its 4glte here? thanks.

 

Each half year is broken down into Rounds. There are Four Rounds in Network Vision. First Round markets mostly started in the 1st Half of 2012, Second Round in the 2nd Half of 2012, 3rd Round is 1st Half of 2013 and 4th Round is 2nd Half of 2013. There is a little variability, but that's pretty much what they mean.

 

Phoenix market is still looking like it will start this Winter. The design has finished up. Now they are working on final planning, scheduling and permitting.

 

Robert

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Well with the latest 100 city news for 2nd round doesnt look good for phoenix. If anyone hears about phoenix lined up of 3rd round please let me know. I cant believe citys with populations of 12,000 are getting it and phoenix population almost 2 million??? doesnt make any sense, any comments..?? sprint sure isnt rolling it out based on population size.

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Well with the latest 100 city news for 2nd round doesnt look good for phoenix. If anyone hears about phoenix lined up of 3rd round please let me know. I cant believe citys with populations of 12,000 are getting it and phoenix population almost 2 million??? doesnt make any sense, any comments..?? sprint sure isnt rolling it out based on population size.

 

Sprint has the country broken down into 97 markets. Here is a market map: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/gallery/image/156-nationwide-sprint-market-map-medium/

 

Sprint is deploying LTE nationwide, market by market, while they are doing Network Vision upgrades in every market. So it is not as if Sprint is selecting smaller cities ahead of Phoenix. It's just that the smaller cities are located in much larger master markets that are being completed before Pheonix. Places like LA, Chicago, New York, Miami, etc.

 

I would have preferred Phoenix to be one of the first markets, myself. I live in New Mexico and travel often to Phoenix. However, Phoenix deployment should begin in just a few more months. Some time this Winter.

 

Robert

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Robert,

 

Do you think once Sprint will activate the network once work is finished in Phoenix (since they are beginning in Winter)?

 

Or, do you think they will build early and just deploy with the first 3rd round markets?

 

Thank you.

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Robert,Do you think once Sprint will activate the network once work is finished in Phoenix (since they are beginning in Winter)?Or, do you think they will build early and just deploy with the first 3rd round markets?Thank you.

 

 

I think they will start work right after the first of the year. Once they have enough coverage for pre launch, then I think they will start turning on sections of the city. I think the earliest we will see a prelaunch in this market is February/March.

 

Robert

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Robert,

 

Im in Tucson AZ and have been waiting for forever for WiMax. Right now I actually have a 4g WiMax signal and some parts of Tucson has small areas of 4g goodness. My question is on network.sprint.com it used to show future upgrades ("next 6 months") and now it doesn't. Furthermore for one weekend on 3g i got 1.4 mbps down and I thought that meant network vision was starting, but after the weekend the speeds returned to a meager 200 kbps. I called sprint and they said they were stopping the upgrades for the next forseeable future. Any ideas on what all this means?

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Robert,Im in Tucson AZ and have been waiting for forever for WiMax. Right now I actually have a 4g WiMax signal and some parts of Tucson has small areas of 4g goodness. My question is on network.sprint.com it used to show future upgrades ("next 6 months") and now it doesn't. Furthermore for one weekend on 3g i got 1.4 mbps down and I thought that meant network vision was starting, but after the weekend the speeds returned to a meager 200 kbps. I called sprint and they said they were stopping the upgrades for the next forseeable future. Any ideas on what all this means?

 

They have removed the future upgrades portion of the Sprint site. Maybe they are going to accelerate Network Vision and push it out to all markets. So band aid fixes aren't going to be needed anymore. But I do not know for certain. :(

 

Robert

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Thanks so much for all of the great information. Wanted to respectfully ask if anyone has heard any new updates on the Phoenix area.

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Deployment started in the Phoenix market a few weeks ago. They are upgrading towers now. However, it is still likely to be another 45-60 days before the very first LTE signals start to light up. But work is underway! :tu:

 

Robert

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It has been more than 60 days since your comment on Mar 14.  Is there any LTE service in Phoenix yet?  The Sprint website says no.

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It has been more than 60 days since your comment on Mar 14.  Is there any LTE service in Phoenix yet?  The Sprint website says no.

 

No, no service live, yet.  119 sites have had equipment installed.  It should be any time now that the first ones should start going live.  It may even be this week.  :fingers:

 

Robert

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S4GRU - Where do you get your information? 119 sites installed? Wouldnt Sprint be more proactive at letting it's Customers know these details if it were true? In past posts you've said.... late 2012, early 2013 -  I'm very sceptial of your postings.

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S4GRU - Where do you get your information? 119 sites installed? Wouldnt Sprint be more proactive at letting it's Customers know these details if it were true? In past posts you've said.... late 2012, early 2013 -  I'm very sceptial of your postings.

 

We provide information from sources within Sprint.  If you were a S4GRU Sponsor member, you would have access to site maps that would show you which sites have upgrades.  You could then even go check them out yourself.

 

We do provide this thread for non-sponsors:  http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/212-network-visionlte-deployment-running-list/page-4&do=findComment&comment=145628

 

It shows that as of the end of May, 18% of sites had received upgrades. If Phoenix were a Samsung or an Ericsson market, you would already have started seeing some LTE signals around Phoenix.  However, your market is an Alcatel Lucent market.  A/L waits until they have a lot of sites upgraded, and then starts bringing LTE live when they have a good backlog of sites to keep their LTE techs consistently busy.

 

The Phoenix market is just about to that threshold when A/L will start firing up the LTE side of upgrades.  There will be live LTE soon in the Phoenix market.  As for the delay, Sprint is behind schedule.  They started a few months late.  What can I say?  I'm not deploying the stuff.  But even Sprint has said their Network Vision upgrades are running between 3 - 6 months behind.

 

Robert

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