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Evidently Dan Hesse left his heart in San Francisco...because Sprint 4G Rollout Updates is announcing this as a Network Vision/LTE city for 2012!


S4GRU

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blog-0441403001329509466.jpgby Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Friday, February 17, 2012 - 1:06 PM MST

 

As many of you have seen and heard, Sprint 4G Rollout Updates is preparing a long series of announcements of Network Vision updates. We have been teasing you for over a week now. Well, we are prepared to release one market name to you. S4GRU has been able to obtain information that Sprint’s Network Vision contractor Samsung is actively working on Network Vision and LTE deployment in the Sprint San Francisco Bay Market.

 

The SF Bay Area Market includes nearly 900 sites to be converted to Network Vision. Preparation for deployment is well under way and work will begin soon. The entire market will take approximately 6 months to complete. This means that NV/LTE will not be completely live in the area until approximately October/November. But in the interim, the market will be brought on line one site at a time, tower by tower. So there will be many usable locations in Northern California by the time LTE devices start to be sold in the next few months.

 

Note that Sprint has several markets in Northern California, including South Bay (San Jose area), Upper Central Valley (Sacramento area) and Lower Central Valley (Fresno area). These areas will receive separate deployments and will not be a part of the SF Bay Area Network Vision deployment. You can stay tuned here to Sprint 4G Rollout Updates for more information about these and other markets in the future.

 

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S4GRU currently does not have many more details about the rollout in San Francisco at this time. Hopefully in the not too distant future, we can provide a neighborhood by neighborhood analysis of this deployment like we have been able to do in Chicago.

 

With the release of San Francisco today, that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to eight. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Baltimore and Kansas City as announced by Sprint. Chicago and San Francisco announced by Sprint 4G Rollout Updates.

 

Stay tuned to Sprint 4G Rollout Updates. Early Monday morning we will be releasing another Network Vision/LTE market. This time from Sprint Network Vision partner Alcatel/Lucent. Check in at S4GRU.com for all the latest updates! Become a member today. Membership is free and easy.

 

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Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

Information about the source: The information for the San Francisco deployment and all of our Network Vision information has been obtained by several internal sources close to the Network Vision program who choose to remain anonymous. The documents will not be released to protect source anonymity.

 

EDITED 3/5/2012: To include market map.

38 Comments


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Can't wait for to hear the A/L market that is currently being worked on. So far it seems like they have been the only network vision contractor that has been non-existant

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Eric...don't worry. I have info on every single A/L market, including yours. Just pouring through all the data. Will be announcing markets, one at a time.

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That is great news, but I am afraid that if Apple announce an IPhone 4G LTE for June Sprint will be royally screwed. I live in NYC and it seems coverage has gotten worse. I spoke with a Sprint technician and he told me work for network vision is under way.

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SprintNYC...although Network Vision is active in your area, you cannot trust CSR's for the information. We know several Sprint CSR's in these forums and they have not been told anything about when and where Network Vision work is occuring beyond what has been released to the press already.

 

Stay tuned to S4GRU.com for all the latest Network Vision info. And thanks for joining!

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How come Network Vision is active here in Manhattan when the coverage has gotten worse?. Heck even 4G Wimax has gotten worse. I used to get over 5 megabits down indoors , and now I can't get not even .50megabits.

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How come Network Vision is active here in Manhattan when the coverage has gotten worse?. Heck even 4G Wimax has gotten worse. I used to get over 5 megabits down indoors , and now I can't get not even .50megabits.

 

SprintNYC, Network Vision has nothing to do with WiMAX. Furthermore, Sprint has relatively little to do with WiMAX. Clearwire controls WiMAX, while Sprint holds just an investment in and a wholesale agreement with Clearwire.

 

AJ

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How come Network Vision is active here in Manhattan when the coverage has gotten worse?. Heck even 4G Wimax has gotten worse. I used to get over 5 megabits down indoors , and now I can't get not even .50megabits.

Network Vision is likely being planned/built, but not fully active. That will probably be a few months away.

ALSO, Are you saying coverage/signal strength OR speeds have gotten worse? Since you reference speeds as evidence, I have to assume you are talking about data speed. In which case, speeds can decrease due to network load, which is increasing at an exponential rate, particularly due to the increase in smartphone and wireless data users. Just because speeds have decreased does not necessarily mean coverage has decreased. Network Vision (which is in progress) is designed to handle increased loads (capacity), as well as increase data speeds significantly. In addition, it should also increase general network reception/coverage. I do this as a hobby, and am far from an expert; but, this much I do know. Hope this helps. :)

 

EDIT: and, (good point AJ!), Network Vision's upgrades are for increasing current 3G and upcoming 4G LTE... Not the 4G WiMax you currently have.

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I know clear owns Wimax and runs it, but Sprint 3G here has been worst than dial up. I can't use the 3G or 4G because both are pitiful.

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Sprint Network Vision has not been deployed in Manhattan, yet. Sprint has 1,121 cell sites in the New York City market. It is going to take months and months to overhaul every site to Network Vision standards. Stay tuned to S4GRU.com for the latest on Sprint Network Vision in New York.

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SprintNYC...although Network Vision is active in your area, you cannot trust CSR's for the information. We know several Sprint CSR's in these forums and they have not been told anything about when and where Network Vision work is occuring beyond what has been released to the press already.Stay tuned to S4GRU.com for all the latest Network Vision info. And thanks for joining!

 

I can vouch for that. Sprint is very tight-lipped with its employees. It repeatedly reminds us not speculate.

 

Sprint reveals more to industry analysts, insiders (as Robert seems to be), and the press than they do with their reps.

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Out of curiosity, is there a map that shows what Sprint considers to be the SF Bay Area? I'm curious as to what the southern cut-off is between it and the South Bay.

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I would like to know myself, but I haven't seen a map. I just have listings of the 97 Sprint markets with data. I would love to get a hold of one. If anyone out there has a Sprint market map, hook a brother up!!!

 

- Robert

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Robert,

Thanks for all your work! Hahah... so you realize every time you make an announcement, questions are going to pour in about other markets ?

 

For me, I have zero expectation of seeing NV until 2013/2014, but it will be cool to hear about what users in all the big markets experience, once they start calling markets "launched". The news from other users alone is enough to keep me patiently waiting , long as its good!

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This we know... We didn't get "native" 3G (were natively roaming on Alltel before) until 2009!! Long as they keep the 3G enabled when we roam, I'm good ;)

Separate, I've long wondered why Sprint doesn't seek out more rural affiliates in markets that they hold considerable spectrum but choose not to deploy based on subscriber potential.... for the number of customers they have here, it could be cheaper or less troublesome just to let someone else have us , use the spectrum, and beef up what the rest of the markets see as "native" coverage.

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Separate, I've long wondered why Sprint doesn't seek out more rural affiliates in markets that they hold considerable spectrum but choose not to deploy based on subscriber potential.... for the number of customers they have here, it could be cheaper or less troublesome just to let someone else have us , use the spectrum, and beef up what the rest of the markets see as "native" coverage.

 

I think that I can address that wonderment.

 

Keep in mind that Sprint has previously tried numerous affiliate (e.g. Alamosa PCS, iPCS, Ubiquitel, etc.) and Rural Alliance (Nex-Tech Wireless, United Wireless, Pioneer Wireless, etc.) relationships. The partnerships were advantageous in the beginning but have become somewhat problematic over the past several years.

 

First, at least one affiliate (iPCS) sued Sprint over the Nextel merger because it viewed Nextel iDEN as competition in its market, hence a violation of its affiliate contract. The same competition issues could arise (or could have already arisen) with Clearwire.

 

Second, recall the recent falling out between Sprint and Pioneer -- as Pioneer defected from the Sprint Rural Alliance to the VZW LTE in Rural America program -- and AT&T speciously seized on that to slander Sprint. Sprint partitioned and disaggregated PCS 1900 MHz licenses to Pioneer in exchange for expanded footprint and a pseudo native coverage roaming agreement. Now, Pioneer gets to run off with that Sprint spectrum and go shack up with VZW (priming itself for the inevitable VZW buy out).

 

So, the Sprint affiliate and Rural Alliance initiatives have been decidedly mixed bags. Some relationships have turned out well, others unexpected headaches for Sprint (which does not need more problems than it already has). So, you can imagine why Sprint might be reluctant to pursue further partnerships for expanding what is, honestly, exceedingly peripheral coverage.

 

AJ

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AJ:

 

Excellent points. Verizon has established smarter relationships with it's rural 700MHz LTE partners. Verizon maintains control of the spectrum. Sprint would have to do something more similar to that setup if they ever proceed with alliances in the future.

 

I believe with Pioneer, they set up an independent company that took control of the spectrum. Is that correct? And then basically that new company had control of the spectrum, and then can ultimately do what it did down the road. I think this has now proven to not be a model way to set up future rural spectrum alliances. But hindsight is always keenly superior, eh? :)

 

Robert

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