by Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 1:29 AM MDT

From the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes to the gates of Graceland! We are now prepared to tell you about two more Round Two markets in Sprint's Network Vision/LTE deployment plans for 2012...

Memphis and Minnesota!

Sprint's Memphis market

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Ericsson is scheduled to begin the Memphis market early in the Second Round. Ericsson and their subcontractors are scheduled to begin mobilization into Memphis in June 2012 with the first sites starting to come live before 4th of July weekend.

Sprint's Memphis market covers Western Tennessee, Northeastern Arkansas, the little boot of Missouri and Northern Mississippi. Including the cities of Memphis, Jackson, Union City and Dyersburg in Tennessee; Jonesboro, Paragould, Blytheville and Forrest City in Arkansas; Tupelo, Columbus, Starkville, Oxford, and Greenwood in Mississippi. It is bordered by the Arkansas market to the west, the Mississippi market to the south, Alabama and Nashville markets to the east and the Missouri and West Kentucky markets to the north. The Memphis market will have 333 sites in total after Network Vision is complete.

Sprint's Minnesota market

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Samsung is scheduled to begin the Minnesota market later in the Second Round. Sammy and their bands of merry men are scheduled to begin to start work late in the Fall in Minnesota. This seems like a less than ideal time to start work in a place like the Upper Midwest. But if you live in this market, you have to welcome this over having to wait until Spring thaw. Although the weather this past winter would have been ideal for Winter work!

Sprint's Minnesota market is East Central, Northeast and Southeast Minnesota, as well as Western Wisconsin. It includes Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, Mankato, Austin, Winona, Grand Rapids and Brainerd in Minnesota; Eau Claire, La Crosse and Superior in Wisconsin. It is bordered by the Dakotas market to the west, North Wisconsin market to the east and Central Iowa market to the south. A total of 807 Network Vision sites.

Although we know the scheduled start date...

It's exciting that we can tell you the start dates of the Memphis and Minnesota markets. However, we cannot guarantee at this time that things will not change. Sprint has not officially announced these markets and for good reason.

Sprint has three different OEM vendors, with several different crews in many markets at once. There could be final permitting and design delays, some vendors and/or crews will work at different speeds, weather issues and any number of unforeseen circumstances to complicate matters even further.

The work hasn't started and they are keeping their options open. Sprint has said they may elect to slow down Network Vision in future quarters if cash flow becomes strained. And this could affect these markets.

All of these reasons explain why Sprint likely elected not to announce these markets themselves at this time. But we know you don't want to wait for Sprint to tell you! With these caveats understood, we are releasing the information about these markets as it exists to date.

We won't stop digging for you!

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates will continue to scour through the data and gather deployment information for your use. It is our intent to provide at a minimum, all the Sprint markets that will likely begin Network Vision/LTE upgrades in 2012. And we intend to release the remaining unnamed markets in the next week. We will not likely announce communities slated for 2013, because the dates we hold for 2013 markets appear very tentative and subject to change. With many variables to sort out between now and 2013. Sprint could make significant shifts in deployment plans based on dynamic need change, funding, market permitting difficulties, etc.

With the release of Memphis and Minnesota markets today, that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to 39. We have have a thread in our forums where we are keeping track of all the markets announced by Sprint and S4GRU.com. Click on this link here to view the Network Vision Market Running List.

Stay tuned to Sprint 4G Rollout Updates. On Wednesday we will be releasing our Final two Round Two markets for Sprint Network Vision and LTE deployment. We will be talking about it in a few hours in advance in a S4GRU Live Chat at 9:30 PM Mountain Time on Tuesday evening. Come join us!

Photo of Minneapolis skyline courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Information about the source: The information for all of our Network Vision information has been freely provided by several sources close to the Network Vision program who choose to remain anonymous. No source information will be released to protect anonymity.

Special thanks to S4GRU Member digiblur for creating the Memphis and Minnesota market maps! Thank you!