by Robert Herron

Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - 12:30 PM MDT

We ain't no ways tired! We are now prepared to tell you about two more Round Two markets in Sprint's Network Vision/LTE deployment plans for 2012...

Orange County and Raleigh/Durham!

The Sprint Orange County market includes all of Orange County, California and the Raleigh/Durham market is the whole eastern third of the state of North Carolina, except for the coastal areas.

Sprint's Network Vision vendor Alcatel/Lucent 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 to determine at this point which markets will precede them. Even Sprint does not know definitively at this point.

Sprint's Orange County market

Sprint's Orange County market includes the whole county. Including the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Orange, Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Westminster and Buena Park. It is bordered by the LA Metro market to the north, the Riverside/San Bernardino market to the east and the San Diego market to the south. The Orange County market will have 401 sites in total after Network Vision is complete.

Sprint's Raleigh/Durham market

Sprint's Raleigh/Durham market is the RDU suburbs, extending out to include alll of Eastern Central North Carolina. It includes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, Cary, Greenville, Lumberton, Southern Pines/Pinehurst, Kinston, Goldsboro and Wilson/Rocky Mount. It is bordered by the Richmond and Norfolk markets to the north, the Winston-Salem and Charlotte markets to the west and Myrtle Beach market to the south. A total of 501 Network Vision sites.

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 Orange County and Raleigh/Durham markets today, that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to 28. 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 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!

Photos of Newport Beach and Raleigh skylines 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 Orange County and Raleigh/Durham market maps! Thank you!