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S4GRU

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Blog Comments posted by S4GRU

    S4GRU

    Posted

    Yeah in the Manhattan market they have done 140 bandaid fixes and 84 more planned. These as far as I know are not NV. But why are they doing these bandaid fixes in NYC when NV is starting shortly? Seems like a waste of money.

    I ask that question my self all the time. Especially since Sprint is in such a cash crunch right now that they can't afford to spend more money than necessary. Instead of spending millions on these little patch jobs they're doing, they should have used those resources to speed up NV a little more.

     

    Sprint believes its not wasting money with these pre-NV band-aid fixes. They believe that they need to do something to keep their customer base from crossing the boiling point. And for 2013 NV markets, this work is definitely not a waste. And in later 2012 markets, it still probably a fair idea. However, in Atlanta (and other markets), while NV is going on? That does seem wasteful. But many of these capex improvements were ordered a long time ago. Like we mentioned in one of our Chicago articles, some of the T1's coming on line there were ordered almost a year ago!

     

    Also I have a question for S4GRU...We know that Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Samsung are currently building out NV but what I want to know is if any of SPRINT's engineers are also out there building out NV in other markets?

     

    No. Network Vision was a new program. Sprint did not have the manpower on staff internally to deploy a program like this in the field. Sprint also handed over all its field site/network management to Ericsson. Sprint does have some oversight personnel, but they do not have their own crews.

     

    As much as I respect those guys at Sprint, this is definitely a good move by them. You pass on the burden and responsbility to your OEM's and their subcontractors with critical milestones and contract penalties. This will go much faster this way. Even A/L will perform better than Sprint would have if they tried to internally deploy NV.

     

    Undoubtedly, some N/V OEM's will do better than others. Having a competitve atmosphere where they are directly side by side will create the best result possible. Can you imagine if one of them got the whole national contract? This was a brilliant move by Sprint!

    • Like 1
    S4GRU

    Posted

    I was reading an argument between two people in a forum about this. They were arguing over whether 2500 mhz penetration improves when going from WiMax to TD-LTE. I don't know enough about it.. anyone know if the penetration/coverage improves based on the tech for the same given frequency (WiMax, TD-LTE, FD-LTE)?

     

    Does the signal improve between WiMax and TD-LTE, all other things being perfectly equal? No. However, if they do a new deployment of radios and adopt a behind the panel RRU in the new LTE rollout, then this would provide a modest signal gain and thus a modest penetration and coverage gain over what was deployed with WiMax. But it has nothing to do with the difference between WiMax and LTE. The same improvement would occur if they were switching out to WiMax 2 now with new radios.

     

    However, all this aside, it's my understanding that Clearwire is deploying its LTE directly within the WiMax ecosystem. No new radios. No new antennas/panels. All the changes occurring at the base cabinet only. Clearwire was touting this when they said it was only going to cost them $600M to rollout LTE. A price tag that I thought was suspect from the moment I heard it.

     

    Supposedly, Clearwire said that most of their markets could have TD-LTE added to the base stations and broadcast over the same radios/antennas, coexisting with WiMax operations. This could occur in most of their markets. The original WiMax markets like Baltimore and Portland would need much greater work, as these older WiMax system will not accommodate the LTE additions.

     

    So in this light, I would say that there is likely to be no noticeable signal difference between Clearwire's WiMax and the TD-LTE broadcast from the same site, using the same equipment.

     

    But I am going to throw one caveat out there to you. Sprint is supposedly going to add Clearwire TD-LTE hotspots to some of its Network Vision towers starting in 2013. In markets where Sprint needs Clearwire hotspots for LTE capacity, but Clearwire does not have sites, then Sprint NV sites will host Clearwire LTE. And these sites would likely be deployed with new remote RRU's. These sites would likely have moderately improved propagation over other Clearwire sites. And even though there are some improvements in signal here, it is not because of the difference between WiMax and LTE.

     

    Clearwire will not convert each tower to LTE initially. They said in their Q4 CC that they plan to launch 5000 towers with LTE by June 2013 and if all goes well, then another 3000 towers will be added with LTE shortly for a total of 8000 towers Clearwire has about 16000 towers throughout the country so even by end of 2013, only half of the towers will have the LTE overlay. Of course this is their current plan based on the finances that they have. If Clearwire can get some major customer and minor customers from Lightsquared then things may change and they can cover all 16000 towers with LTE. 16000 towers is obviously not enough especially with 2.5 Ghz to deploy enough coverage nationwide and that is a problem Clearwire will have to deal with for future growth.

     

    It takes roughly five 2500MHz sites to cover the area of one 1900MHz site. That means in the most crudest estimate, it would take almost 200,000 Clearwire LTE (or the previous WiMax) sites to cover the entire existing Sprint coverage area. Of course, this is based on the maximum spacing allowed by each. You can see why with number like this, Clearwire was never going to make it as a nationwide 4G wireless solution.

     

    The real number would be smaller, because in the densest urban environments, the cell size between PCS and EBS/BRS would be pretty similar. So maybe the final number of sites needed would end up being 125k or 150k. But it's a lot! And more than could ever be economical feasible. Especially now in a wholesale environment that Clearwire is pursuing, with lower margins.

     

    Clearwire's new approach to convert its existing markets in the highest capacity areas and providing hotspot capacity adds for other wireless companies is probably the best shot they have. Clearwire will never be a seamless coverage carrier in any market, nor nationwide. To build that kind of network in a country like the U.S. is cost prohibitive and will never work with a business model designed to make money.

    • Like 2
    S4GRU

    Posted

    They released it, just like they have for other cities, to show they are working on their network. To give their customers a peace of mind. One of the big complaints Sprint got was that they weren't letting anyone know what was happening.

     

    But in this case, they already released they are working on Network Vision in this market. This will just lead to confusion. I have been fighting that confusion all day!!! :mad:

    • Like 1
    S4GRU

    Posted

    Based off the "geographic proximity theory," my predictions for the next two Sammy sites are Detroit and Portland. Of course it depends highly on their direction of travel. Green Bay, Pittsburgh, and Reno are honorable mentions. Lets see tomorrow if I'm anywhere close. lol

     

    Intelligent guesses. We will see in about 36 hours how you fared. BTW, Reno is in California's Upper Central Valley Market. So it will be deployed with Sacramento.

    S4GRU

    Posted

    A/L should move onto San Diego and Phoenix after LA is done. However I don't think that San Diego will be started by September though. I see them starting San Diego at the beginning of 2013.

     

    If A/L starts that late in SAN, then they are behind schedule. ;)

     

    After the first rounders get done, N/V should be going full throttle. The learning curve is over and the markets just get smaller and smaller all the way to the end, which will make for much faster deployment.

    • Like 1
    S4GRU

    Posted

    I am excited about the sprint moves but, how long must all of us in San Diego wait for some 4G. Even the 3G is dreadfully slow.While at Disneyland I expected to get 4G since the map shows it's covered. I had little or no service of any kind in the park. My battery was dead in 5 hours because of the weak signal. While standing in line for the many rides I noticed all of the sprint users frustrated. All of the other carriers work just fine. I go to Disneyland every other month or so with no service. I ask myself over and over, Why have I been on Sprint since the year 2000. By September 2012 I will be making a switch if Sprint can't get things rolling.Sorry about the frustration. I do know that you are not affiliated with Sprint.Sean

    BigSean, I hear you 100%, I've been with Sprint since 1999/2000 and completely understand the frustration. For the most part Sprint has been fine for me, but in some rare instances it does happen where you are left without a decent signal for calls or data. Only because I've been such a long time customer am I going to hold out for the deployment of NV. If it proves to be as good as a lot of people are saying, it'll be worth the wait. If it isn't, I'll be the first to pay an ETF to move on to Verizon or one of the others.

     

    I definitely can appreciate your frustrations. But I can tell you that the way WiMax was deployed victimized Sprint too. Are they blameless? No. But the decisions they made were reasonable, but didn't pan out with Clearwire. Phoenix, San Diego and Detroit (among many others) definitely got shafted. But they were next before Clearwire ran out of money and had to focus on Protection Sites.

     

    Fortunately, Sprint has moved on from WiMax and making very good decisions with their LTE deployment. I believe they are doing the best they can, given their circumstances and resources at this time. San Diego and East Michigan markets will fare much better this time around. Both are steadily moving up our announcement list. Stay tuned.

     

    This continues to follow my theory of rolling out markets geographically close to markets already announced by Sprint/S4GRU. Boston-NYC, Baltimore-DC, and now SFO-Palo Alto.Do you think there is any credence in that theory? Makes sense to me.

     

    Based on that Chappo...we will be announcing two Samsung markets at the same time tomorrow night. Want to venture a guess which ones they are? You can put your theory to the the test.

    S4GRU

    Posted

    I am still waiting for some 4G love in the San Diego (apparently separate) market. Considering we do not even have WiMax (except a few sporadic towers where initial work was done on but never quite made it out of the gates)

     

    I agree. But stay tuned. We will be talking about San Diego in the coming weeks. We are releasing info about a Network Vision/LTE market every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And we have a live chat the night before where members get to hear a few hours in advance. Including one tonight. Stay tuned.

    S4GRU

    Posted

    Yeah I can say that the big cities will present multiple issues as many towers are not directly accessible by the companies as they are up on top of building towers. This could slow the process down in large cities. I expect NYC will be very hard because of the density.

     

    Agreed Justin. Although I haven't seen a cluster deployment schedule for NYC yet, I would guess they would start in the Hudson Valley/Westchester and move their way inward to the outer Boroughs and then into Manhattan. That's what I'd do.

    S4GRU

    Posted

    Just so that I am clear on what is slowing down Samsung. What does "SFO" and "ORD" mean?

    SFO= San Francisco. ORD=Chicago.

     

    Thanks Chappo, for answering Leozno1's question. These are airport codes.

     

    It's not so much that Samsung is being slowed down, it's just that they jumped in with two very large markets first. It will take them approx. 6 more months to complete them both before they move on to Round Two markets. Unless they hire up more crews and start up a Round Two market early. Which I don't think Sprint would endorse.

     

    Samsung has two Round 1 markets, Ericsson has five Round 1 markets and A/L has another 5 Round 1 markets. 12 Round One markets in total.

    • Like 1
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