Sprint lte vs Verizon lte

[pyroscott]

ok folks...actually the information i base my thoughts about sprintlink isn't hard to find and you don't need insider access. The same goes for vz and att backbone as well. If you folks want to mock me(along with the site admin) go for it..you just make yourselves look uneducated. This isn't positive thinking but thoughts from years of reading and research. No insider access is needed. I know i don't know any legalities involved on the backend...otherwise do some research instead of mocking somebody who already has.

 

We know about Sprintlink and debated the usefulness of it as backhaul for NV sites in this thread http://s4gru.com/ind...c/347-backhaul/ in fact, I personally posted a map of Sprintlink's connected cities here http://s4gru.com/ind..._6624#entry6624

Sprintlink is a Tier 1 global backbone, and while it is present in many of the major US cities, it is not intended as a "metro loop" it is intended for the local ISP to connect to, and distribute the connection across the ISP's infrastructure, or "metro loop." Sprint spun off the fiber infrastructure that could have connected their cell sites to Sprintlink as Embarq, which later became CenturyLink, but even if they still owned those fiber runs, it wouldn't be able to be used for all their sites anyway. (see this map http://s4gru.com/ind..._5292#entry5292 for reference)

 

The reason I mocked you, was because your post was insinuating that Sprint was somehow unaware that they had Sprintlink and was wasting their money buying backhaul from other sources when they had their own fiber right there, when in all actuality, they would have to invest billions of dollars and years of installing fiber to accomplish what you were suggesting, not to mention reentering the ILEC game to recoup the billions they would have to invest.

[MacinJosh]

That map is now out of date, since CenturyLink acquired Qwest.

 

 

My hope is that is going to get a lot of their backhaul in the Vegas area from CenturyLink.

[pyroscott]

That map is now out of date, since CenturyLink acquired Qwest.

 

 

My hope is that is going to get a lot of their backhaul in the Vegas area from CenturyLink.

 

For the discussion, the only fiber network that was relevant was the network spun off by Sprint as Embarq.

[MacinJosh]

 

For the discussion' date=' the only fiber network that was relevant was the network spun off by Sprint as Embarq.[/quote']

 

True. Sorry for going off track.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus running Paradigm 3.0 using Forum Runner

[briank86]

Due to the cost of directional boring, trenching, maintenance, etc. to lay fiber is using microwave backhaul a more feasible solution? What are the advantages and drawbacks of using microwave for backhaul?

[digiblur]

I believe those are self explanatory. Licensing, reliability, cost, etc.

 

Sent from a little old Note 2

 

 

[Ryan]

Got a noob question for you. Is it harder for sprint to run backhaul to their sites when fiber is not avaliable. Or is it one of those things that 9 times out of 10 their is fiber....just in those few cases in which their is not...such as the 100 or so legacy sites that wont get NV?

[bigsnake49]

Some people are confusing backhaul with backbone. Sprint is a Tier1 global internet backbone provider (MPLS actually). They have plans to upgrade their backbone to 100G and later to 400G. As far as I know they don't have any metro fiber loops which is required to be a backhaul provider. If they had that capability, would they be using T1s?

[jefbal99]

Got a noob question for you. Is it harder for sprint to run backhaul to their sites when fiber is not avaliable. Or is it one of those things that 9 times out of 10 their is fiber....just in those few cases in which their is not...such as the 100 or so legacy sites that wont get NV?

 

I think a lot of the sites are AAV (Alternative Access Vendor, I think) basically a local ISP that can provide the contracted speed by any given means. This is usually ethernet where the local vendor will extend their fibre as far as they can, then the rest will be ethernet that can scale up to GB and beyond.

[JeffDTD]

Big picture: Verizon has an advantage

 

Retort: sprint is just lazy and or incompetent

 

Big picture: No, not the same thing

 

Retort: wahhh.

 

Big picture: You will get the precious lte you lust about quicker this way. Trust us.

 

Retort: rabble rabble waaahhh.

 

Me? Ill take your word about it guys. Merry christmas.

[Ryan]

 

 

I think a lot of the sites are AAV (Alternative Access Vendor, I think) basically a local ISP that can provide the contracted speed by any given means. This is usually ethernet where the local vendor will extend their fibre as far as they can, then the rest will be ethernet that can scale up to GB and beyond.

 

That makes sense. I just recently saw centurylink at the well ton tower but Verizon just launched lte here so that could be the case as well

[hescominsoon]

Some people are confusing backhaul with backbone. Sprint is a Tier1 global internet backbone provider (MPLS actually). They have plans to upgrade their backbone to 100G and later to 400G. As far as I know they don't have any metro fiber loops which is required to be a backhaul provider. If they had that capability, would they be using T1s?

they can leverage their backbone for backhaul..no confusion between the two.

[S4GRU]

they can leverage their backbone for backhaul..no confusion between the two.

 

They do. And they connect to the backbone via contracted backhaul from each of their 38,500 sites. Because it would cost billions and take 5+ years to direct connect to their backbone via their own new fiber. They need a high speed backhaul solution immediately.

 

Robert

[bigsnake49]

They do. And they connect to the backbone via contracted backhaul from each of their 38,500 sites. Because it would cost billions and take 5+ years to direct connect to their backbone via their own new fiber. They need a high speed backhaul solution immediately.

 

Robert

 

Or they could acquire a company that owns a lot of these fiber loops, other than the ILECs

[S4GRU]

 

Or they could acquire a company that owns a lot of these fiber loops, other than the ILECs

 

Yes, that's another way to achieve it.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[Josh]

 

 

Or they could acquire a company that owns a lot of these fiber loops, other than the ILECs

 

I remember months ago before Softbank came into the picture, we were happy that sprint had a plan that didn't include going bankrupt... Don't think that all sprints problems can be avoided by M&A activity. Verizon might be in the local fiber business and still have a old copper phone business, but those are not everywhere their towers are, therefore even Verizon has to subcontract backhaul. Sprint spun off embarq because it had a much smaller profit potential, and it was not until century link acquired them that the company looks enticing to merge back with sprint. Actually this idea had been floated on another site that I follow, Seaking alpha, one writer said that sprint should merge with century link instead of Softbank because they did not like a foreign company owning 70% of sprint. Personally I think Softbank cares more about really expanding what sprint is capable of & has more of the consumer's experience in mind.

[bigsnake49]

I remember months ago before Softbank came into the picture, we were happy that sprint had a plan that didn't include going bankrupt... Don't think that all sprints problems can be avoided by M&A activity. Verizon might be in the local fiber business and still have a old copper phone business, but those are not everywhere their towers are, therefore even Verizon has to subcontract backhaul. Sprint spun off embarq because it had a much smaller profit potential, and it was not until century link acquired them that the company looks enticing to merge back with sprint. Actually this idea had been floated on another site that I follow, Seaking alpha, one writer said that sprint should merge with century link instead of Softbank because they did not like a foreign company owning 70% of sprint. Personally I think Softbank cares more about really expanding what sprint is capable of & has more of the consumer's experience in mind.

 

I meant somebody like XO communications or Level 3 or other such CLEC's

[Josh]

I do like those 2 better for purposes of this discussion, I was mainly just reporting on the other article that I had read. But the companies would need to find some synergies other than just sprintlink b/c one of the reasons sprint dumped their telephone business was b/c it is a dying industry and they saw a much higher potential in the wireless industry. With Sprint purchasing Clearwire, I see this trend continuing. Sprint could compete head to head with any isp in a city where clear has a license. The tests that used 40MHz of spectrum were resulting in around 100Mb/s download speeds. Imagine deploying LTE in all of their spectrum holdings! And if they could match the security of the other clec's, they could compete there too . I will admit that I only know a small amount on this subject b/c I have not researched it, but it is my opinion that they will continue to focus on wireless & pay for others to lay the fiber backhaul.

[Deval]

On topic though, Verizon was able to deploy LTE rapidly by simply dropping in a base station with antenna panels for LTE, and plugging in upgraded backhaul. Since their deployment is using the 700mhz band, they are able to cover a wider area with less sites.

 

On the other hand, Sprint is deploying LTE while upgrading their core EVDO network as well. Instead of dropping in LTE sites randomly, they are upgrading all their sites so LTE will be running on the same towers as their EVDO (3G).

[Deval]

I do like those 2 better for purposes of this discussion, I was mainly just reporting on the other article that I had read. But the companies would need to find some synergies other than just sprintlink b/c one of the reasons sprint dumped their telephone business was b/c it is a dying industry and they saw a much higher potential in the wireless industry. With Sprint purchasing Clearwire, I see this trend continuing. Sprint could compete head to head with any isp in a city where clear has a license. The tests that used 40MHz of spectrum were resulting in around 100Mb/s download speeds. Imagine deploying LTE in all of their spectrum holdings! And if they could match the security of the other clec's, they could compete there too . I will admit that I only know a small amount on this subject b/c I have not researched it, but it is my opinion that they will continue to focus on wireless & pay for others to lay the fiber backhaul.

 

The good part about contracting out access to the AAV (alternate access vendor) is that they already have fiber in place, and offer much cheaper rates than the local LECs.

[JohnHovah]

I vote for you to be the next sprint VP of network expansion. You obviously know how to run fiber to towers way better than the current people making 6 figures to plan and execute network vision.

 

Maybe the power of positive thoughts will run fiber from Sprint's backbone to the cell sites. Positive thoughts are cheap.

 

 

Silly guy, don't you know that it "runs on imagination". Now where the hell is the sesame street spoof video on that by the way? I can't recall where I saw it (oh so many years ago)

[JacobSDN1]

I personally think the reason for this thread, and hescominsoon writings, is the same reason we are all here for, Sprint's lack of communication, and past management decisions.

 

I think we can all admit to at some point asking "Why would Sprint do that?" or simply being frustrated by their decisions.

 

Most of you should admit that Sprint hasn't always made the best decisions in the past. One of my favorite example is Android, Sprint used to be really good friends with Google, Sprint was offered the G1 before anybody else, but turned it down.

 

Its not exactly wrong for hescominsoon to feel they are just doing much of the same type of management they have done in the past. He is probably just frustrated with Sprint at the moment. Sprint seems to like to buy(or merge) their way out of problems.

 

Personally my experience with Sprint, has been frustrating, every time I call to report an area with a problem, I am magically told that they are aware of the problem, and that there is no ETA, worse is that these areas seem to stay broken. I have just given up on calling, and just roam when possible.

[supert0nes]

I knew there was a thread where my Verizon aws LTE device belonged.

 

Tab 10.1 Verizon AWS LTE

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-device-support-aws-lte-approved-fcc/2013-01-03

[ericdabbs]

I went to my local Verizon store today to check out the LTE phones particularly the Droid DNA phone because I am intrigued with the 5 in screen. I did several LTE speedtests on several phones (Droid DNA, RAZR MAXX, SGS3, SG Note 2) and the average LTE speeds were in the 6-8 Mbps range. This is a far cry from when I first went to that exact same store when the HTC Thunderbolt, Rezound, RAZR MAXX first came out when LTE speeds averaged 20-25 Mbps.

 

This makes me wonder how soon Verizon really needs to deploy LTE on its AWS spectrum to help alleviate capacity to keep up their lightning fast speeds. Verizon would have its work cut out for them since they need to upgrade its base station equipment to implement LTE-Advanced ready hardware.

 

I just hope when Sprint LTE is live on every single Sprint tower that I can get a consistent 10-12 Mbps and I will be happy.

[vryan44]

Seeing many Verizon towers as I drive they really don't have room to add extra antennas let alone RRU's for AWS. Guess thats where creativity comes in.