Entry posted by S4GRU
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by Robert Herron
Sprint 4G Rollout Updates
Monday, June 25, 2012 - 12:08 PM MDT
The next market in our Network Vision/LTE deployment schedule update series is just about to get moving...the Norfolk and the Virginia Tidewater Region. The Norfolk market has yet to be announced by Sprint, but is expected to be announced in the near future. Perhaps around the time of the first market launches.
The Sprint Norfolk market covers basically all of Southeast Virginia and the Hampton Roads, from the Norfolk/Virginia Beach metro area, up through Hampton/Newport News and Williamsburg, on the Virginia portion of the Delmarva peninsula and the Northern portion of North Carolina's Outer Banks. Sprint's Network Vision OEM Alcatel/Lucent is scheduled to begin mobilizing in this area with its subcontractors this month. Completed Network Vision sites should start coming online in July.
Market Launch and Remaining Schedule
It was Sprint's original plan to launch markets when they reached 50% of sites converted to Network Vision. However, it has now been determined that Sprint will move up launches sooner than 50% completion in several markets. This is likely to maintain a Mid 2012 launch in markets that have already been announced. However, in an unannounced market like Norfolk, we don't know if they will resume pushing back market launches to 50%, or if they will now settle on a 40% completion to be the new normal for market launches.
If Sprint waits for 50% completion to launch the Norfolk market, it would make the launch month to be November (should the OEM stay on schedule). If they plan on a 40% market completion for launch, that would be October. You may think that 40% - 50% site completion is not enough to launch LTE service, but it would provide pretty good coverage. Even Verizon doesn't launch on all sites in a market initially. Usually less than 50%, then filling in with more and more sites every few months.
Anticipated Sites Complete at Market Launch. According to the Network Vision schedules that S4GRU has reviewed, if Sprint launched the market in October, these are the anticipated sites that would likely have LTE complete at that time. This would provide fairly good LTE coverage over many parts of the market.
The bottom line...
We currently do not have a date that Sprint will formally "launch" the Norfolk market. It is really hard to call at this point, but the schedule as of today would indicate an October or November market launch (going on a 40% - 50% completion for launch). But there is no way to know if Alcatel/Lucent and their subcontractors will actually hit their schedule dates this early in the deployment for this market. We will be able to gauge better after a few months of production.
AlcaLu will only need to hit a production rate of 35 sites per month to stay on schedule. This seems like an easy to achieve rate, compared with how other Network Vision markets are progressing. In fact, they may be able to beat this conservative production rate and complete the market early. Here's to hoping!
S4GRU has examined the schedule in great detail in this market and sees that most of the sites will be complete by February 2013. However, there may be a few sporadic sites that will linger past the completion.
Photo of Norfolk skyline provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
NOTE: S4GRU Sponsor Members can track regular updates of
Network Vision sites completed nationwide. Completed sites are shown in an interactive Google Maps interface. Information about sponsorship can be found here: S4GRU Sponsorship
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