S4GRU

by Robert Herron Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - 7:30 AM MDT The next market in our Network Vision/LTE deployment schedule update series is...Minnesota. The Minnesota market has yet to be announced by Sprint, and may not be announced until as late as this Fall. The Sprint Minnesota market encompasses most of Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. This includes the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul and suburbs), Duluth/Superior, Rochester, St. Cloud, Mankato, Brainerd, Bemidji, Winona, Eau Claire and La Crosse. Sprint's Network Vision OEM Samsung is scheduled to begin mobilizing their subcontractors around the market in late August. The first completed Network Vision sites are scheduled to start coming online in September. Anticipated Sites Complete at Market Launch. According to the Network Vision schedules that S4GRU has reviewed, if Sprint launched the market in April, these are the anticipated sites that would likely have LTE complete at that time. This would provide fairly good LTE coverage over many parts of the market. Schedule details and the bottom line Sprint has not yet selected a date to formally "launch" LTE service in Minnesota. It is difficult to try to pick a date now this far out, but we have attempted to do that. In looking at the schedule as of today, it would indicate a April market launch (going on a 40% - 50% completion for launch). But there is no way to know if Samsung and their subcontractors will actually hit their schedule dates before deployment in this market begins. We will be able to gauge better after a few months of production is achieved. Samsung needs to hit a production rate of approximately 65 sites per month to stay on schedule. This is a big chunk to complete monthly, but is doable with the appropriate amount of resources allocated. S4GRU has examined the schedule in great detail in this market and sees that most of the sites will be complete by September 2013. However, there may be a few sporadic sites that will linger past the completion. Photo of Downtown Minneapolis provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. NOTE: S4GRU Sponsor Members can track regular updates of Network Vision sites completed nationwide. Completed sites are shown in an interactive Google Maps interface. Information about sponsorship can be found here: S4GRU Sponsorship

The 4G Cores (DDC's) are scattered all around the country. 30 to serve 97 markets. Each site will have a preferred core, but the system is designed for redundancy and each site will be capable of running through backhaul to other cores, depending on dynamic loads of the network. The only exceptions being Puerto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands. They would only go to a stateside core if their local cores were to be down. Sprint 4G Core Locations: Alcatel/Lucent: Phoenix, Arizona Pearl City, Hawaii Burbank, California Anaheim, California Rialto, California Washington, D.C. Elkridge, Maryland (2) New York, New York Harrison, New Jersey Springfield, Massachusetts Fairfax, South Carolina Ericsson: Miami, Florida Atlanta, Georgia Ft. Worth, Texas Nashville, Tennessee Kansas City, Kansas Houston, Texas Orlando, Florida Samsung: Chicago, Illinois Buffalo, New York Akron, Ohio Bayamon, Puerto Rico Cheyenne, Wyoming Omaha, Nebraska Stockton, California St. Paul, Minnesota Tacoma, Washington Seattle, Washington Englewood, Colorado San Jose, California

trouble maker

Thank you for supporting S4GRU. We use donations to pay our expenses to keep us online. I like to think we are a good cause! Robert

Cincinnati market deployment will not begin until 2013. The 2013 schedule won't be finalized until Fall. Robert

School you? I think not. But I like to think I may be able to keep up! Robert

The Veterans/I-75 site is scheduled to start in August. So this one appears to be ahead of schedule too. Good news. Robert

Is this Site #TA70XC049 off Toledo Blade, south of the Publix? If so, this site is not scheduled to start work until October. However, there have been many sites that start work early if the backhaul gets completed sooner than expected. Also, one of those trucks looks like it has GOFF written on the side. Goff is one of the subcontractors seen at sites underway in the Miami market too. This is a good sign. Keep us posted. Thanks for the heads up. Robert

South Carolina market deployment will not begin until 2013. The 2013 schedule won't be finalized until Fall. Robert

Check out the maps in the Sponsor section now that you are a Sponsor member. Robert

fan housing

We have a thread in our General Topics section about Sponsorship: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/ Thank you for considering to become a sponsor. Robert

And that is just the first 40%. At 100%, it will look like this: Robert

It's highly variable depending on downtilt, terrain and your device and where it's at. It's possible to get a Sprint LTE signal 6 to 7 miles away, if there isn't much downtilit if any. However, I think in most instances, it will be 2 to 4 miles. There is so much variability in RF design and deployment, that it's really hard to guesstimate coverage this far out. Robert

My Viper and my GS-III both see 22-24. Robert

life lessons

by Robert Herron Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Monday, July 9, 2012 - 12:01 PM MDT The next market in our Network Vision/LTE deployment schedule update series is...East Michigan. The East Michigan market has yet to be announced by Sprint, and may not be announced until as late as this Fall. The Sprint East Michigan market encompasses the Eastern Half of the Michigan Lower Peninsula. This includes the cities of Detroit, Warren, Sterling Heights, Ann Arbor, Flint, Dearborn, Livonia, Canton, Troy, Southfield, Rochester Hills, St. Clair Shores, Pontiac, Tri-Cities (Saginaw, Midland and Bay City), Jackson, Port Huron and Alpena. Sprint's Network Vision OEM Samsung is scheduled to begin mobilizing their subcontractors around the market in September. The first completed Network Vision sites are scheduled to start coming online in October. Anticipated Sites Complete at Market Launch. According to the Network Vision schedules that S4GRU has reviewed, if Sprint launched the market in April, these are the anticipated sites that would likely have LTE complete at that time. This would provide fairly good LTE coverage over many parts of the market. Schedule details and the bottom line Sprint has not yet selected a date to formally "launch" LTE service in East Michigan. It is difficult to try to pick a date now this far out, but we have attempted to do that. In looking at the schedule as of today, it would indicate a April market launch (going on a 40% - 50% completion for launch). But there is no way to know if Samsung and their subcontractors will actually hit their schedule dates before deployment in this market begins. We will be able to gauge better after a few months of production is achieved. Samsung needs to hit a production rate of approximately 60 sites per month to stay on schedule. This is a big chunk to complete monthly, but is doable with the appropriate amount of resources allocated. S4GRU has examined the schedule in great detail in this market and sees that most of the sites will be complete by September 2013. However, there may be a few sporadic sites that will linger past the completion. Photo of Detroit Skyline provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. NOTE: S4GRU Sponsor Members can track regular updates of Network Vision sites completed nationwide. Completed sites are shown in an interactive Google Maps interface. Information about sponsorship can be found here: S4GRU Sponsorship

Understood. There is a third option. You can go ahead and move up to a LTE device and get a WiMax MiFi. You keep it with you and use it during those times when the 3G is unusable. There are a few people doing this now. Robert