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Nashville & New Orleans are scheduled to be in the Second Round of Sprint Network Vision/LTE Deployment in 2012


S4GRU

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blog-0753772001331152678.jpgby Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - 2:01 PM MST

 

Ready for some more announcements? We are now prepared to tell you about two more Round Two markets in Sprint's Network Vision/LTE deployment plans for 2012. Music City and the Big Easy! The Nashville market engulfs all of Eastern Tennessee and the New Orleans market is the whole eastern section of Louisiana.

 

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Ericsson will likely begin Network Vision and LTE deployment in these two Sprint markets in 2012. This is not an imminent start in the next few weeks. These are Second Round starts. Which means that the start of these markets is dependent on when the previous market before it wraps up. There is no way for me to determine at this point which markets will precede them. Even Sprint does not know definitively at this point.

 

Sprint's Nashville market

 

Sprint's Nashville market basically includes every Sprint site in Central and East Tennessee. Including the cities of Nashville, Clarksville, Murfreesboro, Knoxville, the Tri-Cities (Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol), Chattanooga, Cleveland and Dalton, Georgia. It is bordered by the Atlanta market to the south and Charlotte market to the east, which were announced previously. The West Kentucky and the East Kentucky market borders to the north, and the Alabama market also to the south. These three markets are yet to be announced. The Nashville market will sport a whopping 804 sites in total after Network Vision is complete.

 

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Sprint's Nashville Market. All 800+ Network Vision sites are shown for the Nashville market in this map. Click on image to enlarge.

 

Sprint's New Orleans market

 

Sprint's New Orleans market is the whole eastern portion of Louisiana (where the toes go into the boot!) and the part of southern Mississippi along I-55 in Pike County. It includes Greater New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houma, Morgan City, Hammond, Slidell and McComb, Mississippi. It is bordered by the Louisana market to the west, Mississippi market to the north, and Gulf Coast market market to the east. All of these adjacent markets are yet to be announced. 344 Network Vision sites in all.

 

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Sprint's New Orleans Market. All of the approximately 340 Network Vision sites are shown for the NOLA market in this map. Click on image to enlarge.

 

We would love to give you the date, but...

 

There is absolutely no way for S4GRU to be able to provide a start date for these markets, or any of the Second Round 2012 markets that will be announced after these. We are announcing these markets to you for your information, to give Sprint customers a rough idea of when these second round markets can be anticipated.

 

There is absolutely no guarantee of the order in which these markets come live, because there is a lot of variability in the plan. The most significant variable being how quickly the preceding market before it wraps up. If things go quickly in the preceding market, work may start early. Things go late, these would likely start late. And to complicate start dates in each market, Sprint has said they may elect to slow down Network Vision in future quarters if cash flow becomes strained.

 

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. First round market starts are much easier to predict, but second round and third round markets starts are increasingly difficult to predict and put dates to. This is likely the reason why Sprint has 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 Network Vision second round markets in the order that they are anticipating to start deployment, based on the schedules as they exist 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 do so in a series of articles over the next few weeks. 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 the 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 Nashville and New Orleans markets today (and Central Jersey last night), that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to 21. We have created 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 announcing the next 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 Thursday evening. Come join us!

 

NashvilleSkyline.jpg

LPD18USSNewOrleansPassingNewOrleans.jpgPhotos 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 Nashville and New Orleans Market maps! Thank you!

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Di

I wish I was announcing Albuquerque and New Orleans! :(

 

Didn't you just announced New Orleans. Regardless Sprint was just snubbed from the Ipad 3 today, and if they don't get the big markets done by the end of September they might have an Iphone LTE problem.

 

The funny thing is Apple announced that they had to build two separate Ipad for Verizon and AT&T even though they use the same low 700mhz band. From looking at this I think they will do the same thing with the Iphone.

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Di Didn't you just announced New Orleans. Regardless Sprint was just snubbed from the Ipad 3 today, and if they don't get the big markets done by the end of September they might have an Iphone LTE problem. The funny thing is Apple announced that they had to build two separate Ipad for Verizon and AT&T even though they use the same low 700mhz band. From looking at this I think they will do the same thing with the Iphone.

 

I did just announce New Orleans. I was just stating that I would prefer that ABQ was being deployed at the time Nashville is in the schedule. And thus ABQ and NOLA would be announced together. That is, because, I live in the ABQ market.

 

Many believe that the reason Apple snubbed Sprint with an LTE iPad that supports their network is because Sprint's LTE network isn't live. It doesn't seem hard to fathom that Apple wouldn't want their new LTE iPad tarnished on the Now Network, because all those LTE capable units wouldn't be able to use LTE. Apple doesn't seem to be the kind of company that would want devices for future networks. There is a lot of risk to your brand doing that. There are still lots of angry Evo customers.

 

Most likely Apple will allow Sprint to carry an LTE capable version of the new iPad when its LTE network is not only running, but a little more mature. Maybe in the ballpark of active markets that AT&T is now?

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I did just announce New Orleans. I was just stating that I would prefer that ABQ was being deployed at the time Nashville is in the schedule. And thus ABQ and NOLA would be announced together. That is, because, I live in the ABQ market.Many believe that the reason Apple snubbed Sprint with an LTE iPad that supports their network is because Sprint's LTE network isn't live. It doesn't seem hard to fathom that Apple wouldn't want their new LTE iPad tarnished on the Now Network, because all those LTE capable units wouldn't be able to use LTE. Apple doesn't seem to be the kind of company that would want devices for future networks. There is a lot of risk to your brand doing that. There are still lots of angry Evo customers.Most likely Apple will allow Sprint to carry an LTE capable version of the new iPad when its LTE network is not only running, but a little more mature. Maybe in the ballpark of active markets that AT&T is now?

 

Most likely by the end of the Summer the Ipad arrives on Sprint.

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I am guessing a Sprint iPad LTE could come around the same time as the new iPhone 5 which is around October and not any sooner. Hopefully Sprint will be done with all or if not the majority of the first round markets by that time and some second round markets would be starting up. It sucks that the timing of the iPad is so early in the year before the first markets of Network Vision are up.

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Di Didn't you just announced New Orleans. Regardless Sprint was just snubbed from the Ipad 3 today, and if they don't get the big markets done by the end of September they might have an Iphone LTE problem. The funny thing is Apple announced that they had to build two separate Ipad for Verizon and AT&T even though they use the same low 700mhz band. From looking at this I think they will do the same thing with the Iphone.

AT&T uses band class 17 for LTE and Verizon uses band class 13. The reason why nobody has been able to make a device that can work on both is because of the preamp diplexer filtering necessary. In Verizon's band class 13, the uplink frequencies are actually higher than the downlink frequencies, which is backward from just about every other FDD band class. This puts BC 13 downlinks at 746 - 756 MHz. Band class 17 has the uplink frequency lower (like normal), but that puts its downlinks at 734-746 MHz. There are some filtering issues that complicate the LNA and diplexer design that make a single device compatible with both bands very difficult to engineer.

The other complication is the antenna design itself-- you have to use two receive antennas with their physical separation dictated by the frequency of the downlink. All these factors make the production of a single multiple band LTE device smaller than an 8" tablet very unlikely for a year or two. The chips (baseband processors) are already available to handle multiple frequencies; however, the LNA/diplexer/antenna/filter design takes alot more work and physical space.

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All these factors make the production of a single multiple band LTE device smaller than an 8" tablet very unlikely for a year or two.

 

I guess this means I can stop fantasizing that the wait for the first Sprint LTE devices is the fact they'll have installed a triband (800-1900-2500) LTE antenna.

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It's a shame with NV they don't convert more Nextel towers to CDMA. Baton Rouge's iDEN coverage is way better than the Sprint CDMA coverage-- and it's not just the frequency difference-- Nextel goes into more areas with whole towers and cells than Sprint here. I guess they've lost so many subs in this market they'll wait until their financial situation is better before they try to revive this market and expand coverage...

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It's a shame with NV they don't convert more Nextel towers to CDMA. Baton Rouge's iDEN coverage is way better than the Sprint CDMA coverage-- and it's not just the frequency difference-- Nextel goes into more areas with whole towers and cells than Sprint here. I guess they've lost so many subs in this market they'll wait until their financial situation is better before they try to revive this market and expand coverage...

 

I agree! I was very disappointed to discover that iDEN only sites in non-CDMA coverage areas will not be converted to Network Vision. This is probably the most critical item I have of Sprint in Network Vision. It's a crying shame. Especially in Louisiana.

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I guess this means I can stop fantasizing that the wait for the first Sprint LTE devices is the fact they'll have installed a triband (800-1900-2500) LTE antenna.

The first LTE device, the LG Viper (LS-840) does LTE in 1900 MHz PCS band only. It does support 1xA CDMA & EVDO Rev. A/B in Cellular 850 MHz and PCS 1900 MHz bands. It also does 1xA CDMA in ESMR 800 MHz band. There wasn't room in the device for additional antennas to support EVDO in ESMR 800 or LTE in any other band.

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The first LTE device, the LG Viper (LS-840) does LTE in 1900 MHz PCS band only. It does support 1xA CDMA & EVDO Rev. A/B in Cellular 850 MHz and PCS 1900 MHz bands. It also does 1xA CDMA in ESMR 800 MHz band. There wasn't room in the device for additional antennas to support EVDO in ESMR 800 or LTE in any other band.

 

I have seen the channel assignments for SMR in Network Vision specific to carriers. Just one 1xA voice carrier at Channel 476 (in most markets). The rest will be allocated to future LTE carrier. So no need for EVDO capability in SMR. Because Sprint won't be deploying it anywhere, by what I've seen. However, the channel assignment for the 1xA carrier is higher in New Orleans market (526). Blocking the ability to put the 5x5 LTE carrier. I'm still not clear why. Either they will be deploying a smaller LTE carrier in New Orleans, or the channel assignment is temporary due to possible ongoing rebanding.

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I have seen the channel assignments for SMR in Network Vision specific to carriers. Just one 1xA voice carrier at Channel 476 (in most markets). The rest will be allocated to future LTE carrier. So no need for EVDO capability in SMR. Because Sprint won't be deploying it anywhere, by what I've seen. However, the channel assignment for the 1xA carrier is higher in New Orleans market (526). Blocking the ability to put the 5x5 LTE carrier. I'm still not clear why. Either they will be deploying a smaller LTE carrier in New Orleans, or the channel assignment is temporary due to possible ongoing rebanding.

 

They have tested all their existing ESMR handsets for EVDO there and they specifically retested and had an FCC permissive change for the SPH-D710 in December, so they must be planning something (or at least keeping their options open). The reason for the 526 channel assignment on the 1xA is so they can run an EVDO channel at 476, 576, and 626. This wouldn't be a smart move, however, since when they decide to do Rev. B and setup a 3 carrier multilink, it's best that the three carriers be side-by-side. I really think it was a bad deal that carriers didn't implement 3xEVDO back when EVDO came out rather than 1xEVDO-- the 3.69 MHz carriers would have the capacity to match HSPA W-CDMA carriers and we'd not be having as many capacity issues today.

 

Consider the logic behind this: Sprint has about 10 handsets existing in the field that do EVDO in ESMR. The new LG LS-696 will also (and doesn't have LTE or 4G at all). The FCC has approved EVDO in ESMR. LTE is not approved here, and I'd be willing to bet that the FCC will require a new band class established (817-824 uplink only) rather than use BC 18, which might allow them to (accidentally) bump down into public safety channels-- look at what they made them do with BC 12 vs. 17! The other issue is the enormous difficulty (right now) of making a dual band LTE device-- it may be quite some time before this is overcome, and I'd bet that you'll have to lose a CDMA band to gain an additional LTE band. Remember that 1xA requires Rx diversity (2 Rx antennas) just like EVDO and LTE do; 1xRTT didn't require that.

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