by Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 3:41 AM MDT

Sprint fans in the plains of Northern Indiana and also along the white sandy beaches of Florida's Paradise Coast have cause to celebrate! We are now prepared to tell you about the final pair of Round Two markets in Sprint's Network Vision/LTE deployment plans for 2012...

South West Florida and Ft. Wayne/South Bend!

Sprint's South West Florida market

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Ericsson is scheduled to begin the South West Florida market in the middle of the Second Round. Ericsson and their subcontractors are tentatively scheduled to begin mobilization into the Sarasota/Ft. Myers area in August 2012 with the first sites should start to come live around Labor Day weekend.

Sprint's South West Florida market covers Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties. Including the cities of Sarasota, Bradenton, Cape Coral, Ft. Myers, Naples, Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda, Venice and Marco Island. It is bordered by the Tampa market to the north and Miami/West Palm market to the east. The SW Florida market will have 208 sites in total after Network Vision is complete.

Sprint's Ft. Wayne/South Bend market

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Samsung is scheduled to begin the FWA/SBN market later in the Second Round. Samsung and their subcontractors are scheduled to begin to start Network Vision/LTE deployment work late in the Fall in the Northern Indiana area.

This Sprint market includes all of Northern Indiana. It includes Fort Wayne, South Bend, Marion, Elkhart, Mishawaka, Logansport, Warsaw, Goshen, Plymouth and Wabash. It is bordered by the West Michigan market to the north, Chicago market to the west, Indianapolis market to the south and Toledo market to the east. A total of 191 Network Vision sites.

Although we know the scheduled start date...

It's exciting that we can tell you the start dates of the SW Florida and Ft. Wayne/South Bend 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 South West Florida and Ft. Wayne/South Bend markets today, that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to 41. 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 Friday we will be releasing a special edition article regarding two markets with unique circumstance. You won't want to miss it. We will be talking about it in a few hours in advance in a S4GRU Live Chat at 9:30 PM Mountain Time on Thursday evening. Come join us!

Photo of Ft. Wayne 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 South West Florida and Ft. Wayne/South Bend market maps! Thank you!