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Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands Network Vision/LTE Deployment schedule update


S4GRU

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by Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Friday, July 6, 2012 - 12:55 PM MDT

 

The next market in our Network Vision/LTE deployment schedule update series is way down yonder...Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The PR/VI market has yet to be announced by Sprint. Network Vision work is under way, with Samsung and their subcontractors actively working around the market. The Sprint PR/VI market encompasses all of Puerto Rico (including Culebra and Vieques) as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands (including St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John).

 

Samsung has this market deployment configured in a completely different manner than any other we have reported. Samsung did show up and begin work at the end of April. Their subcontractors are running around the islands installing base station equipment, new cable runs, remote radio units and new Network Vision antenna panels. We have had S4GRU members in Puerto Rico submit some pictures of this work being completed at sites near them. This work appears to be on schedule from our previous report for the market.

 

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Network Vision site in Yauco, Puerto Rico. S4GRU Member Edil Montalvo provided this shot of a site in Yauco that received NV upgrades in early May. This site is slated to get Microwave backhaul which will not arrive until this Fall.

 

Sprint and Samsung are currently working on the 4G Core in Bayamon that will handle all the LTE data and eHRPD data that will come from completed Network Vision sites. The Bayamon 4G Core will not be ready until this Fall. Sprint's backhaul vendors are actively working to install high-speed backhaul that will connect these NV sites to the completed core.

 

Once the 4G core is complete and a good chunk of the backhaul is in place, Samsung will get back out to completed Network Vision sites and get the 3G upgrades and LTE hooked up to the new backhaul. Then the eHRPD and LTE networks can be running. The deployment dates in this article will discuss the dates that LTE sites are scheduled to start going live this Winter after everything is in place.

 

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Anticipated Sites Complete at Market Launch. According to the Network Vision schedules that S4GRU has reviewed, if Sprint launched the market in February, 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.

 

Schedule details and the bottom line

 

We currently do not have a date that Sprint will formally "launch" LTE service in the PR/VI market. It is difficult to try to pick a date now this far out, but we will attempt to. In looking at the schedule as of today, it would indicate a February-March LTE launch (going on a 40% - 50% completion for launch). We will have a better idea how deployment is going after the Bayamon core and backhaul work are completed and LTE starts to go live.

 

S4GRU has examined the schedule in great detail in this market and sees that most of the sites will be complete by May 2013. However, there may be a few sporadic sites that will linger past the completion. There is a chance that if the Bayamon core and backhaul can get completed ahead of schedule that these LTE live dates can be improved upon.

 

Christiansted%2C_US_Virgin_Islands%2C_from_Recovery_Hill.jpg

Photo of Christiansted, St. Croix 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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Thanks for the update Robert, still though I am pretty positive that PR will get upgraded fairly quickly, I am just nervous that the VI will get shafted like they do with everything else thats related to technology.

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ES: Muchos de los clientes en PR se va a enojar acerca de este articulo. LTE no estara disponible muy pronto. Se sigue trabajando.

 

EN: I think most customers in Puerto Rico are going to be pissed about this latest article. LTE is not coming very quickly. But work still progresses on.

 

Robert

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Thanks for the update Robert, still though I am pretty positive that PR will get upgraded fairly quickly, I am just nervous that the VI will get shafted like they do with everything else thats related to technology.

 

Yes. I have a feeling you will continue to be jaded about LTE in the VI until the 4G icon appears on your device. Can't blame ya.

 

Robert

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I have to say.. I love PR and can't wait to go back.. but why the hell is PR getting NV before many many markets in the US?? Sorry PR, I love you.. but need NV in Cleveland first.

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I have to say.. I love PR and can't wait to go back.. but why the hell is PR getting NV before many many markets in the US?? Sorry PR, I love you.. but need NV in Cleveland first.

 

The population of Cleveland is about 400,000

The population of Puerto Rico is about 3.7 million

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I have to say.. I love PR and can't wait to go back.. but why the hell is PR getting NV before many many markets in the US?? Sorry PR, I love you.. but need NV in Cleveland first.

 

Please explain why the Sprint customers in Puerto Rico paying their bills in U.S. dollars automatically deserve to be backburner-ed in favor of Cleveland.

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I have to say.. I love PR and can't wait to go back.. but why the hell is PR getting NV before many many markets in the US?? Sorry PR, I love you.. but need NV in Cleveland first.

 

Dude just deal with it. Cleveland has been announced to come live sometime shortly after the end of second round markets come live. Honestly why pick on only PR when there are a bunch of other markets which you could also say should not be so high on the second round but they are.

 

Also like muffinman said there are more people in Puerto Rico than in Cleveland.

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Jajajajajaja te Guillas

The population of Cleveland is about 400,000The population of Puerto Rico is about 3.7 million

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PUERTO RICO IS SO SMALL, SPRINT SHOULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT IN ORDER TO COMPETE WITH ATT WHO HAS ABOUT 60% COVERED WITH LTE , OPEN MOBILE ALREADY START LTE SERVICE WITH ABOUT 40% AND PLANS TO HAVE ABOUT 70 % OF THE ISLAND COVERED BY DECEMBER NOT TO MENTION CLARO WHO WILL LAUNCH LTE SERVICE IN DECEMBER AND PLANS TO HAVE ABOUT 80% AT LAUNCH .SO IF SPRINT WAITS FOR A FEBRAURY LAUNCH WILL BE BEHIND, ITS NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO COMPETE. WILL LOOSE SOME CUSTOMERS

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Robert...I understand your points. But Sprint is even further behind on the mainland when it comes to LTE. But if they can improve these dates, they will.

 

Robert

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Yell at me all you want. The Greater Cleveland Metro area has over 2 million people and the City of Cleveland has a population density of about 5 times greater than PR. /rant

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Yell at me all you want. The Greater Cleveland Metro area has over 2 million people and the City of Cleveland has a population density of about 5 times greater than PR. /rant

 

Ok and?

 

Whats your point?

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The population of Cleveland is about 400,000The population of Puerto Rico is about 3.7 million

 

Although I agree with you that PR is important just like any other large area in the united states and deserves a NV update as soon as schedule and financing can allow... your numbers are wrong, and I wanted to make you aware how close in population these areas are.

 

The main city of San Juan in PR has a CSA (Combined Statistical Area) that includes the city and surrounding counties that are connected economically. This area of PR has a population of 2,723,347 people, which leaves around 1 million for the whole rest of the island.

 

Cleveland has a CSA population of 2,891,988 which you can see is comparable to the population of the largest city in PR.

 

I know that scheduling is not because sprint doesn't think that an area is better/bigger/etc than another area. It's been planned to maximize efficiency and have the whole network changed in 2 years! (its going to take VZW over 2 years to complete their LTE roll out, and I do not know if it will ever be every tower like sprint is deploying)

It is also up to the venders Ericsson, Alcatel/Lucent, and Samsung's schedules for equipment and contractors in each area. Be PATIENT the results will be amazing compared to what we have been used to for years... and even if they just picked by throwing darts at a map, they had to start somewhere!

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There has to be an order for deployment and there will be some winners and losers in any order that is selected. And if I had selected the order, I would have selected Non WiMax markets in population order first. That would have put PR/VI in front of Cleveland too. But who asked me?

 

Robert

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Man, that Cleveland-Puerto Rico rivalry is intense. I hope they meet up in the playoffs.AJ

 

Its bigger than Puerto Rico-Mexico in boxing LOL

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we never had wimax here and puerto rico was one of the first deployments for att and att is just starting lte service in the mainland and here. so what was the strategy. to follow?

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we never had wimax here and puerto rico was one of the first deployments for att and att is just starting lte service in the mainland and here. so what was the strategy. to follow?

 

There are some areas in the island where you can get 4G Wimax connections, Ive personally had in Bayamon and San Juan. Great news for PR none the less.

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