SoftBank is lighting a fire under Sprint

[jamisonshaw125]

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/softbank-lighting-fire-under-sprint-ill-be-waiting-results/2013-12-11

 

This makes me quite happy.

[WiWavelength]

Be clear that the piece is an editorial, not a news article.  And, honestly, I am disappointed that Phil makes an unflattering comparison to T-Mobile progress but fails to acknowledge that T-Mobile is overlaying LTE only where it already has advanced backhaul -- leaving out much of its geographic network, just as it has done with W-CDMA.

 

AJ

[Destroyallcubes]

Be clear that the piece is an editorial, not a news article.  And, honestly, I am disappointed that Phil makes an unflattering comparison to T-Mobile progress but fails to acknowledge that T-Mobile is overlaying LTE only where it already has advanced backhaul -- leaving out much of its geographic network, just as it has done with W-CDMA.

 

AJ

Isnt T-Mobile just changing out the Equipment in the tower, and a few things on the ground, just like AT&T? They aren't replacing everything? Unless in a rare occurrence they have to replace the old stuff? I did read one thing , I believe in the comments, and was a good point, why Don't they recycle the old equipment and put it on EDGE only towers?

[WiWavelength]

Isnt T-Mobile just changing out the Equipment in the tower, and a few things on the ground, just like AT&T? They aren't replacing everything? Unless in a rare occurrence they have to replace the old stuff? I did read one thing , I believe in the comments, and was a good point, why Don't they recycle the old equipment and put it on EDGE only towers?

 

T-Mobile is adding/replacing antennas and RRUs for selected sites that already have advanced backhaul.  For GSM only sites, T-Mobile has not obtained advanced backhaul.  Backhaul is the choke point.  W-CDMA and/or LTE speeds on those sites would be incredibly slow.

 

AJ

[Destroyallcubes]

T-Mobile is adding/replacing antennas and RRUs for selected sites that already have advanced backhaul.  For GSM only sites, T-Mobile has not obtained advanced backhaul.  Backhaul is the choke point.  W-CDMA and/or LTE speeds on those sites would be incredibly slow.

 

AJ

AH they supposedly were supposed to be expanding W-CDMA.  But I guess they do not want to spend money on the backhaul for the GSM sites? 

[briank86]

Be clear that the piece is an editorial, not a news article. And, honestly, I am disappointed that Phil makes an unflattering comparison to T-Mobile progress but fails to acknowledge that T-Mobile is overlaying LTE only where it already has advanced backhaul -- leaving out much of its geographic network, just as it has done with W-CDMA.

 

AJ

I find it comical how a majority of wireless journalists seem to not understand that the 2 chokepoints sprint has faced in NV is backhaul and the base station. Once those are complete i am awaiting the articles to start saying, "SoftBank revitalizes a dead beat company" giving all praise to SB and no love for Sprint. The follow up articles will be "SoftBank takes fight to big red and big blue" once they realize that Sprint is a real threat to the big 2.

Edited December 12, 2013 by briank86

[lilotimz]

Note that in Nokia solutions and network regions tmobile is indeed swapping everything out just like sprint. New NSN base station, hybrid flex, RRU's antennas and shebang.

 

Ericsson markets are a mixed bag but typically is retrofitting cabinets and replace antennas with new Ericsson Airs. On other occasions where they're lacking AIRs they'll deploy a RRU and base station so solution similar to Sprint GMO.

 

In some rural areas where their legacy GMO sires are failing or failed, they'll replace with new equipment and active Hspa. As they are fed with a single copper line they'll run around 300-700 kbps.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

 

[Destroyallcubes]

Note that in Nokia solutions and network regions tmobile is indeed swapping everything out just like sprint. New NSN base station, hybrid flex, RRU's antennas and shebang.Ericsson markets are a mixed bag but typically is retrofitting cabinets and replace antennas with new Ericsson Airs. On other occasions where they're lacking AIRs they'll deploy a RRU and base station so solution similar to Sprint GMO.In some rural areas where their legacy GMO sires are failing or failed, they'll replace with new equipment and active Hspa. As they are fed with a single copper line they'll run around 300-700 kbps.Sent from my Nexus 5

well thanks for the clear up! I was only aware of the the top tower changes. They still have one advantage already having back haul at W - CDMA sites

[Nickel]

I just saw this, I love how SoftBank basically told Sprint that they're going to use NSN.

[richy]

So much is wrong with that oped. 

 

This is a Sprint upgrade:

Scope: ROOF TOP - TELECOM FACILITY

1. Remove (2) existing equipment cabinets, (4) battery stacks. Replace with (2) new equipment cabinets on rooftop building #1, Mechanical Room. 2. Install (3) panel antennas, (6) RRHs with associated fiber distribution box and hybrid cable/coaxial cable on Mech Room. 3. Remove (1) existing GPS antenna and replace with (1) new GPS antenna.

 

 

This is AT&T

 

Scope: MODIFY EXISTING TELECOMMUNICATIONSFACILITY ON ROOF BY INSTALLING 3 REMOTE RADIO UNITS AND REPLACE 1 BTS EQUIPTMENT CABINET WITH DC POWER CABINET.

 

 

This is tmo

 

Scope: Remove and replace existing five (5) existing antennas with new (upgrade). Add 4 additional panels. Panels olong roof top of building and on existing ballast frame.

 

 

Note all three are either the same location or identical setups (hotel roof tops a mile or two away from each other), The readers digest version is sprint pushes everything over the side of the root and starts from scratch, the other guys are swapping a couple of antenna.

 

Sprint is not walking at half the speed of tmo, tmo has all but stopped here. They covered one island with mostly LTE. Another island got two sites changed if that, perhaps only one. Now we 'have' LTE. Sure the service is good off peak and their faux G service is ok for now anyway but I get the distinct feeling the author would have trouble differentiating between his ass and a hole in the ground. Sprint is going as fast as it can, money does not seem to be an issue. Locally I can say it is a retarded permitting system seems to be the biggest culprit. Elsewhere not enough crews, but given the fact that all 4 networks seem to be rolling upgrades virtually non stop I can understand crews would be in short supply for at least a few more years as new staff can be trained and get experience.

[The Dave]

Anyone who thinks that Sprint is moving slowly is a misinformed idiot. What Sprint is basically doing is simultaneously operating a coast to coast network of ~40,000 towers while building a completely new and cutting edge network of ~40,000 towers. It's a huge undertaking. It's like the equivalent to Sprint deciding to go over to Europe and building a new network from scratch over the entire continent in only 3 years. I am not sure if people really realize the size of this country, the size of a national network here and how quickly nearly an entire modern network was built. It's only been a handful of years. If someone asked me to estimate the time frame for a project like this, I'd guess at the very least it'd take a decade just for a basic network to be established. It's only been a couple of years. That has to be one of the most ridiculous and awe inspiring achievements in the history of the modern world.

[utiz4321]

Anyone who thinks that Sprint is moving slowly is a misinformed idiot. What Sprint is basically doing is simultaneously operating a coast to coast network of ~40,000 towers while building a completely new and cutting edge network of ~40,000 towers. It's a huge undertaking. It's like the equivalent to Sprint deciding to go over to Europe and building a new network from scratch over the entire continent in only 3 years. I am not sure if people really realize the size of this country, the size of a national network here and how quickly nearly an entire modern network was built. It's only been a handful of years. If someone asked me to estimate the time frame for a project like this, I'd guess at the very least it'd take a decade just for a basic network to be established. It's only been a couple of years. That has to be one of the most ridiculous and awe inspiring achievements in the history of the modern world.

Slowly is a relative term. What they are doing is incredible and there are proceeding quickly. However, the original timeline had them being complete with only a negligible amount of towers needing work. So compared to this timeline they are in fact moving slow.

[Nickel]

So much is wrong with that oped. 

 

This is a Sprint upgrade:

 

This is AT&T

 

This is tmo

 

Note all three are either the same location or identical setups (hotel roof tops a mile or two away from each other), The readers digest version is sprint pushes everything over the side of the root and starts from scratch, the other guys are swapping a couple of antenna.

 

Sprint is not walking at half the speed of tmo, tmo has all but stopped here. They covered one island with mostly LTE. Another island got two sites changed if that, perhaps only one. Now we 'have' LTE. Sure the service is good off peak and their faux G service is ok for now anyway but I get the distinct feeling the author would have trouble differentiating between his ass and a hole in the ground. Sprint is going as fast as it can, money does not seem to be an issue. Locally I can say it is a retarded permitting system seems to be the biggest culprit. Elsewhere not enough crews, but given the fact that all 4 networks seem to be rolling upgrades virtually non stop I can understand crews would be in short supply for at least a few more years as new staff can be trained and get experience.

Man, if HawaiiD sees this he's going to write a sonnet of anger and dismay at how wrong you are.

[richy]

Man, if HawaiiD sees this he's going to write a sonnet of anger and dismay at how wrong you are.

Any site which didn't need some permit got done quickly (edit: 2 sites on federal land). Sprint are having the same fun with permits the other 3 providers are having, only sprint are doing far more work so the permits are even tougher to get. Sure they could have started earlier but I understand the multiple phase approach. Once the permits are done work well be rapid. Please remember this is life on the side of a volcano 2500 ish miles from the mainland that also had an extremely strict permitting process due to the amazing beauty of the area and the past behavior of companies digging up graves and tossing people's bones in a heap to build a hotel. Permits are not a walk in the park here, plus on top of that you the normal political aspect and keeping important people 'happy'.

To give an example, kanaka maoli built loko ia (fishponds), usually by blocking off the mouth of a bay with a large stone wall and installing sluice gates. Over time tsunamis knock down the walls. If at any point the wall drops below the level of low tide and you want to repair it you need between 17 and 30 permits costing between 80k and 115k and a good 2 years to file and wait, all to repair something that has been there for 1000+ years, and that's on top of adding 6ft of height to a wall that's 20-30ft wide and 1000ft long all whilst observing the correct protocol. So yup, the permit system can be rough, especially if you are doing anything near a shore our that might affect the skyline. Sprint had my upmost sympathy and there should be a torrent of lte unleashed in the near future whereas tmo will have about half of Oahu coveted and a small area of Maui from Lele to Napili because the only have one permit waiting.

[Nickel]

Any site which didn't need some permit got done quickly (edit: 2 sites on federal land). Sprint are having the same fun with permits the other 3 providers are having, only sprint are doing far more work so the permits are even tougher to get. Sure they could have started earlier but I understand the multiple phase approach. Once the permits are done work well be rapid. Please remember this is life on the side of a volcano 2500 ish miles from the mainland that also had an extremely strict permitting process due to the amazing beauty of the area and the past behavior of companies digging up graves and tossing people's bones in a heap to build a hotel. Permits are not a walk in the park here, plus on top of that you the normal political aspect and keeping important people 'happy'.

To give an example, kanaka maoli built loko ia (fishponds), usually by blocking off the mouth of a bay with a large stone wall and installing sluice gates. Over time tsunamis knock down the walls. If at any point the wall drops below the level of low tide and you want to repair it you need between 17 and 30 permits costing between 80k and 115k and a good 2 years to file and wait, all to repair something that has been there for 1000+ years, and that's on top of adding 6ft of height to a wall that's 20-30ft wide and 1000ft long all whilst observing the correct protocol. So yup, the permit system can be rough, especially if you are doing anything near a shore our that might affect the skyline. Sprint had my upmost sympathy and there should be a torrent of lte unleashed in the near future whereas tmo will have about half of Oahu coveted and a small area of Maui from Lele to Napili because the only have one permit waiting.

Uh, Richy, I'm with you on this one. I was merely pointing out that HawaiiD was rather vocal about the Hawaii Sprint/TMO thing. And to be honest, the main reason I brought him up was because his posts were formatted strangely.

[richy]

Uh, Richy, I'm with you on this one. I was merely pointing out that HawaiiD was rather vocal about the Hawaii Sprint/TMO thing. And to be honest, the main reason I brought him up was because his posts were formatted strangely.

Sorry my bad, misunderstood Too much time in the sun yesterday lol. Sprint just gets a lot of flack here and its sad because if you look at the process it's all stalling on the permits.

[Nickel]

Sorry my bad, misunderstood Too much time in the sun yesterday lol. Sprint just gets a lot of flack here and its sad because if you look at the process it's all stalling on the permits.

I understand the Sprint bashing thing, that's everywhere. It is sad that people don't understand what they're really doing but there's nothing anyone can do.

[Terrell352]

In the fairness of the people if they are misinformed I blame Sprint. How misinformed would you be if it wasn't for S4GRU? I can't speak for everyone but if I never found this site I would have left Sprint the moment my contract ended in November. We wouldn't even need the NV map on here if Sprint did something as simple as actually saying whether a site was 3g or 4g completed on there maps instead of just numbers that dont tell you anything.

Anyone who thinks that Sprint is moving slowly is a misinformed idiot. What Sprint is basically doing is simultaneously operating a coast to coast network of ~40,000 towers while building a completely new and cutting edge network of ~40,000 towers. It's a huge undertaking. It's like the equivalent to Sprint deciding to go over to Europe and building a new network from scratch over the entire continent in only 3 years. I am not sure if people really realize the size of this country, the size of a national network here and how quickly nearly an entire modern network was built. It's only been a handful of years. If someone asked me to estimate the time frame for a project like this, I'd guess at the very least it'd take a decade just for a basic network to be established. It's only been a couple of years. That has to be one of the most ridiculous and awe inspiring achievements in the history of the modern world.

[Rawvega]

In the fairness of the people if they are misinformed I blame Sprint. How misinformed would you be if it wasn't for S4GRU? I can't speak for everyone but if I never found this site I would have left Sprint the moment my contract ended in November. We wouldn't even need the NV map on here if Sprint did something as simple as actually saying whether a site was 3g or 4g completed on there maps instead of just numbers that dont tell you anything.

 

I don't think that's really practical. For one, I don't believe that their peers offer that level of detail on their coverage maps so why should Sprint? Second there are competitive forces at play here as well. Sprint tried to offer a map with a high level of transparency with regards to the Nextel shutdown and look what happened. Salespeople at rival carriers promptly used Sprint's own map against them to steal customers. It's not hard to imagine something similar happening again if they were to proceed as you suggest.

[Rawvega]

One fire that SoftBank is supposedly trying to light may not be all that popular in Overland Park:

 

 

Sprint management also is reluctant to integrate T-Mobile, a move that would require merging incompatible networks, one of the people said. Still, the company has been asked by Son to evaluate potential cost savings and regulatory obstacles, that person said.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-20/softbank-s-son-said-to-approach-six-banks-to-fund-t-mobile-deal.html?cmpid=yhoo

[RCM]

One fire that SoftBank is supposedly trying to light may not be all that popular in Overland Park:

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-20/softbank-s-son-said-to-approach-six-banks-to-fund-t-mobile-deal.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Since this revelation, I'd give careful consideration to anything Bloomberg reports:

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensation-2013-12

[richy]

Since this revelation, I'd give careful consideration to anything Bloomberg reports:

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensation-2013-12

 

It sounds like they hired an editor from somewhere like the global inquirer,  source of such cutting edge journalism as "president caught in gay sex orgy with dachshunds" and "Queen dead for years, operated by team of puppeteers". Got to love those supermarket tabloids for keeping us up to date with the news not even Fox will run. 

[The Dave]

It sounds like they hired an editor from somewhere like the global inquirer,  source of such cutting edge journalism as "president caught in gay sex orgy with dachshunds" and "Queen dead for years, operated by team of puppeteers". Got to love those supermarket tabloids for keeping us up to date with the news not even Fox will run.

 

Doesn't Fox News' slogan go something like "We report, you decide".

[The Dave]

In the fairness of the people if they are misinformed I blame Sprint. How misinformed would you be if it wasn't for S4GRU? I can't speak for everyone but if I never found this site I would have left Sprint the moment my contract ended in November. We wouldn't even need the NV map on here if Sprint did something as simple as actually saying whether a site was 3g or 4g completed on there maps instead of just numbers that dont tell you anything.

If a customer is going to lock into a 2 year contract with a company for a service, it is the customer's responsibility to research and find the info needed to make an informed decision. That is what I did back in August when I joined here. I've been with Sprint for a good number of years. I knew there was a good chance I'd stay a Sprint customer, but I still did my due diligence of Googling for relevant info on the competition and on how Sprint was fairing with their NV upgrades. I quickly found links to the NV network thread here and began reading. Within days I had a good grasp on how the wireless network industry was and where it was going in the next two years.

 

I understand that it is important for a company to keep info available to the public and allow us to see what is important to know. I feel that Sprint does a fair job between their website, Newsroom site, various interviews and a dose of tech site articles. But, there comes a point where Sprint as a company shouldn't have to hold your hand and spoon feed you. As customers, we have to take responsibility to understand for ourselves what we are getting ourselves into when we decide on a product or service. This is why I have a Denon system at home instead of a Pioneer, a Panasonic V series plasma tv instead of a Vizio and why I have a Sprint phone instead of a Verizon phone. Heck, this is why I have a G2 instead of a single band S4. I researched and found out where I should put my money to achieve the best customer experience.

[bigsnake49]

The story was broken earlier by the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg was late but at least they are providing details about the potential deal, like the banks involved. This deal will revolve around the FCC's approval and possible divestment. Congress might also get involved because they want successful auctions to pay for the PS boondoggle, aka nationwide PS data network. and while the 600MHz auction could be very successful if the broadcasters participate, the other auctions might not.

Edited December 21, 2013 by bigsnake49