Sprint Announces that it will use Alcatel's lightRadio Technology

[marioc21]

Sprint announced this morning that they will use Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio technology to boost coverage in high-demand areas. Here's the press release:

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sprint-leverage-alcatel-lucents-lightradio-130000390.html

[bigsnake49]

Nice! I guess they are serious about their network.

[ericdabbs]

Love this news. So I guess Sprint is going to use these Alcatel Lucent's lightRadio Metro cells as their picocells in malls, stadiums and areas of high traffic demand to relieve capacity of the macro network.

 

I don't know if any other carrier has announced plans for picocells yet.

[jefbal99]

Awesome, with the Nascar and NBA deals, I'm guessing those facilities will be priorities to get these installed.

[4GHoward]

Has there been anything announced yet for Ericsson or Samsung?

[marioc21]

Has there been anything announced yet for Ericsson or Samsung?

 

Haven't found anything. May be that alcatel equipment will be exclusively used in urban areas.

[pyroscott]

Has there been anything announced yet for Ericsson or Samsung?

 

It appears to me that the Alcatel Lucent picocell equipment is for the whole Sprint network, not just their Network Vision deployment area. Thus, Samsung and Ericsson wouldn't be doing any.

[doomstang]

Awesome, with the Nascar and NBA deals, I'm guessing those facilities will be priorities to get these installed.

 

I hope they put one at Scott Trade center in St Louis which is where the Blues (NHL) play. Every time I go to a game I get medium to low signal but the speeds are just awful. With so many people there, it's nearly impossible to get any data to transfer. After about 5 mins I can maybe get tweets to refresh (important to know about injured players who went to the locker room etc).

Anyway, it's good to hear they are at least gonna start taking some steps forward with those.

[Guest 503ducati]

The first I recall reading about these was back in September. Earlier this year there was talk of Sprint using these new products. http://www.fiercewir...gear/2012-02-14 Telefónica announced the first LTE network using Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio technology, at Mobile World Congress.http://www.dailywire...o-in-barcelona/

 

http://www.dailywire...ly-2012-launch/

 

 

 

[amazin1988]

So this means 4g will be out a lot sooner

 

iTz Young Amazed

[jefbal99]

So this means 4g will be out a lot sooner

 

iTz Young Amazed

 

No, this will allow Sprint to add small cells to high usage areas or in areas where naturally or man made formations prevent signals from getting through.

 

The best examples of high usage areas are stadiums/arenas/racetracks where you can get 20K-200K people all trying to use a mobile device at once and overloading the voice/data carriers and backhaul. Adding these small cells give Sprint the ability to have say 10 POPs rather than just the one tower near the arena.

 

An example of formations preventing signal propagation would be a downtown urban arean where skyscrapers and buildings prevent signals from traveling to a device. Setup these small cells on lamp posts, stop lights, etc And supplement your coverage so users don't drop calls.

[S4GRU]

And universities, airports, civic buildings, large corporations...

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[boomerbubba]

The press release was about a deal, but was petty silent about the timing of actual installation projects. Which I take to mean this wouldn't happen for a while. Good news, though.

[WiWavelength]

And as we have recently discussed (in the LTE 700 thread) potential LTE coverage shortfalls compared to that of EV-DO, Sprint may need these small cells just to extend LTE coverage into many high traffic indoor areas.

 

AJ

[dannible]

what kind of backhaul would be considered for say a small sight on a lamp post?

[S4GRU]

what kind of backhaul would be considered for say a small sight on a lamp post?

 

An AM radio set to a free form Jazz station.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[avb]

 

 

An AM radio set to a free form Jazz station.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

Amazingly that's better than Sprint's backhaul per Network Vision right?

[S4GRU]

 

Amazingly that's better than Sprint's backhaul per Network Vision right?

 

What is that supposed to mean???

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[avb]

 

 

What is that supposed to mean???

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

Sorry forgot the /sarcasm tag. (it was supposed to say pre Network Vision - darn autocorrect)

[S4GRU]

 

Sorry forgot the /sarcasm tag. (it was supposed to say pre Network Vision - darn autocorrect)

 

 

Figured you were picking a fight with me. A few people have done that today. Seemed par for the course.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[MacinJosh]

I'd love to have one of these at my house in Pahrump since I'm so far from the tower and the fact that all the layers of trees between me and the tower in town would just wreck my LTE signal to nothing.

 

Sent from my LG Viper 4G LTE using Forum Runner

[WiWavelength]

Is love to have one of these at my house in Pahrump...

 

Josh attempts a sonnet to lightRadio.

 

AJ

[MacinJosh]

 

Josh attempts a sonnet to lightRadio.

 

AJ

 

I hate Swype at times. It was supposed to say "I'd". But that would sure help my service issues in Pahrump.

 

Sent from my LG Viper 4G LTE using Forum Runner

[Dan_LRMobile]

Hi

 

I spoke to Iyad Tarazi back in June. He told me then they were working on 3 different small cells for this year. Followed by outdoor models for 2013-2014.

 

This is the first of them.

 

Dan Jones

Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile

[ericdabbs]

Hi

 

I spoke to Iyad Tarazi back in June. He told me then they were working on 3 different small cells for this year. Followed by outdoor models for 2013-2014.

 

This is the first of them.

 

Dan Jones

Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile

 

I am glad that Sprint is deploying indoor and outdoor models for small cells. Definitely any small cells indoors or outdoors that can relief the macro network is more than welcome. Not only that but since Sprint primarily deploys LTE in the 1900 MHz spectrum, hopefully small cells can increase the overall coverage of the LTE footprint.