S4GRU

by Robert Herron Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Friday, March 23, 2012 - 4:00 AM MDT Another double Sunshine State announcement! We are now prepared to tell you about two more Round Two markets in Sprint's Network Vision/LTE deployment plans for 2012... Tampa and Jacksonville! Sprint's Network Vision vendor Ericsson is scheduled to begin these markets in the early Second Round. Ericsson and their subcontractors are scheduled to begin mobilization into these markets in July with the first sites starting to come live in August. This is an exciting development because this is the first time we have been able to announce start dates for a newly announced second round market. Sprint's Tampa market Sprint's Tampa market covers the whole Tampa Bay and Pinellas Peninsula region. Including the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, New Port Richey, St. Pete Beach, Dunedin, Brandon, Plant City, Apollo Beach, Tarpon Springs, Spring Hill, Brooksville and Zephyrhills. It is bordered by the Jacksonville market to the north, the Orlando market to the east and the Southwest Florida market to the south. The Tampa market will have 302 sites in total after Network Vision is complete. Sprint's Tampa Market. All 300+ Network Vision sites are shown for the Tampa market in this map. Click on image to enlarge. Sprint's Jacksonville market Sprint's Jacksonville market includes most of North Florida and the First Coast. It includes Jacksonville, Gainesville, Ocala, St. Augustine, Palatka, Orange Park, Ponte Vedra Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Amelia Island, Fernandina Beach, Green Cove Springs, Starke, Inverness, Wildwood, Crystal River and Homosassa Springs. It is bordered by the Tampa and Orlando markets to the south and The Panhandle market to the west and the GA/SC Coast market to the north. A total of 356 Network Vision sites. Sprint's Jacksonville Market. All of the approximately 350+ Network Vision sites are shown for the Jacksonville market in this map. Click on image to enlarge. Although we know the scheduled start date... It's exciting that we can tell you the start dates of the Tampa and Jacksonville markets. However, we cannot guarantee at this time that things will not change. Sprint has not officially announced these markets and for good reason. Sprint has three different OEM vendors, with several different crews in many markets at once. There could be final permitting and design delays, some vendors and/or crews will work at different speeds, weather issues and any number of unforeseen circumstances to complicate matters even further. The work hasn't started and they are keeping their options open. Sprint has said they may elect to slow down Network Vision in future quarters if cash flow becomes strained. And this could affect these markets. All of these reasons explain why Sprint likely elected not to announce these markets themselves at this time. But we know you don't want to wait for Sprint to tell you! With these caveats understood, we are releasing the information about these markets as it exists to date. Photo of Tampa skyline courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. We won't stop digging for you! Sprint 4G Rollout Updates will continue to scour through the data and gather deployment information for your use. It is our intent to provide at a minimum, all the Sprint markets that will likely begin Network Vision/LTE upgrades in 2012. And we intend to release the remaining unnamed markets in the next week. We will not likely announce communities slated for 2013, because the dates we hold for 2013 markets appear very tentative and subject to change. With many variables to sort out between now and 2013. Sprint could make significant shifts in deployment plans based on dynamic need change, funding, market permitting difficulties, etc. With the release of Tampa and Jacksonville markets today, that brings the total of Network Vision markets announced to 37. We have have a thread in our forums where we are keeping track of all the markets announced by Sprint and S4GRU.com. Click on this link here to view the Network Vision Market Running List. Stay tuned to Sprint 4G Rollout Updates. On Monday we will be releasing the next two Round Two markets for Sprint Network Vision and LTE deployment. We will be talking about it in a few hours in advance in a S4GRU Live Chat at 9:30 PM Mountain Time on Sunday evening. Come join us! Photo of Downtown Jacksonville courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Information about the source: The information for all of our Network Vision information has been freely provided by several sources close to the Network Vision program who choose to remain anonymous. No source information will be released to protect anonymity. Special thanks to S4GRU Member digiblur for creating the Tampa and Jacksonville market maps! Thank you!

Kansas (Kansas City/Wichita/Topeka) Status: LTE Launched/NV Upgrades Complete/LTE Complete NV Sites Accepted = 100% LTE Sites Accepted = 100% LTE Launched = July 15, 2012 Original Scheduled Completion = December 2012 Substantial Completion = April 2014 NV Complete = Fall 2016 LTE Complete = Summer 2017

There is no real public source. But S4GRU has them. I will post the OK market for you in S4GRU Sponsors area of the forums tonight. Watch out for them! Robert

For me, the best feature of unlimited is peace of mind. I just use my device without fear of where I am at for usage this month. On Sprint's 3G, it doesn't matter if its unlimited or not, because it is so plagued with issues. But with LTE, unlimited is going to be a huge value. Robert

LTE signal at -107dBm and you are getting 4.03Mbps? You cannot complain about that. Sho 'nuff!!! I just cannot believe that Samsung has a -107dBm signal at 2 bars in the strength indicator. That is a little ridiculous. Robert

Although we cannot see the LTE dBm there, we are seeing an illustration how LTE is much more affected by a reduction in signal than EVDO is. Although the 700MHz signal is certainly penetrating your home, there is significant loss of signal that is occurring. And subsequently your speeds drop significantly. This is something that is also happening to Sprint LTE in FIT testing. I saw one map where they super imposed speed test results over a site map over a FIT area. It was done in a "heat map." Lighter colors were faster speeds and darker colors, slower speeds. You could easily pick out the towers because the area around them was an island of super fast LTE speeds. Around 20Mbps - 30Mbps. Then in between sites they changed to various shades of darker colors. At urban spacing, in between towers it would drop to 6Mbps. That's probably where Sprint will advertise LTE speeds, because of that. However, in rural areas that can be much farther from the site, given LTE steady drop in speed across signal degradation, the speeds can be much lower. So even though 700MHz gets a lot of praise for propagation characteristics, especially distance, there will be no substitute for being close to that tower for screaming LTE. Kind of like how you need to be near the tower for good 2500 service. Robert

It's possible that they may choose to deploy an additional 3x3 LTE carrier on 800 in these SouthernLINC areas to supplement the 5x5 LTE 1900 carrier. That's a distinct possibility. But not one that we can confirm definitively at this time. But if we do, you can guarantee you'll hear it here! Robert

Ouch!

Yeah, EVDO stays relatively steady into the nineties, then halves between -100dBm and -104dBm. Then -106dBm and beyond is no mans land. Sometimes it works OK, sometimes its worthless. Of course, these are in FITs, which have ideal backhaul, etc. Robert

There are some areas in the country where Sprint is downright poor. I think that they will have some problems keeping subscribers in those places. However, performance at Network Vision sites is sounding very good. I just got two reports from S4GRU readers that a site in New Bedford Mass that used to be poor is now humming above 1.6Mbps since NV completed on it a few weeks ago and sub 100ms pings. I do think Q1 subscriber numbers could be an issue, as not many people want WiMax units at this point and we are in the middle of device famine. But this ends on 4/15. 2Q will probably shift that. Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

financial drain Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

I swore by taskillers even through Gingerbread. However, I have been on ICS for three weeks now and it has been pointless on it. I just uninstalled yesterday. I'm now taskiller free! Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

Granted I'm a UF Engineering School dropout, but I'm having a tough time wrapping my mind around how remote charging 3 - 6 feet away from a device. My physics knowledge would say that is impossible. Sounds like a fantastical rumor. Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

I think that a larger display is a given. They will need to fit those larger 700 LTE antennas. Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

You probably have better spacing. LTE speeds are much more dependent on signal strength. Based on FIT testing reports I've been reading LTE top speeds halve between -80dBm and -90dBm. And they halve again between -90dBm and -100dBm. And then they fall off a cliff above -100dBm. And even though it sounds horrible, all this halving of speeds, the throughout is so greatly improved that the speeds are still really fantastic. For instance, in Sprint 5x5 LTE testing, signals better than -80dBm are between 12Mbps to 30Mbps in testing. But between -80dBm and -90dBm, speeds are between 6Mbps and 12Mbps, and between -90dBm and -100dBm speeds are between 3Mbps and 6Mbps. Once you get worse than -100dBm, results are highly variable to non existent. Depending on other factors, most specifically other users, the system may shed you completely to save performance for everyone else. You may get handed off to EVDO. But if the Mac Index is low, it may allow you to keep a paltry 1Mbps to 2Mbps speeds. After saying all that, Scott may not have the signal that you do where he is at. Scott, what is your LTE dBm? Robert Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

Every black circle represents a Network Vision site that will have LTE service when the market buildout is complete. Sprint LTE coverage will be much more substantial than the WiMax ever was. Robert

Wow! Even the Admin can learn something around here. Awesome! Robert

clothes washer Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

The grass is always greener I suppose. Robert, Roberto, Admin, Hey You! Its all good! But this was posted from my E4GT with ICS using Forum Runner

That answers that! Thanks! I like that better.

Unfortunately, the general reporting on the LightSquared/Sprint deal was flawed in expressing the true nature of the relationship. Also, many people jumped to conclusions that the deal with LightSquared was exactly the same as Clearwire, just with LTE. As was noted above, Sprint was not using LightSquared for LTE. Sprint was hosting LS's LTE, not the other way around. With losing LS, Sprint is losing revenue, not LTE. Sprint is still deploying its own LTE network and that plan is completely unaffected by LightSquared's failures to get FCC approval. It is true that Sprint did negotiate a deal to use LightSquared for additional LTE capacity when needed. However, Sprint said they would not likely use it before 2015. Sprint would only use LS when and where it was absolutely necessary, because it would have to pay per GB charges for it. And there wouldn't have been Sprint devices that supported LS frequencies for a long time. As I always say, stay tuned to S4GRU.com for all the latest on Sprint's LTE deployment. It is going to be two years of non-stop announcements! Robert

I'm just curious because on my ICS, the ICS 3G signal indicator doesn't change to 4G, it creates a new 4G triangle icon that is turned on it's side. So I just was wondering if CM9 keeps it on the same one. Robert