calebg

Yes, I'm aware that Sprint has to consider the network as a whole and I was not implying that my area is "representative of the national network"- quite the opposite. I just hope that Sprint is concerned about more than just cutting costs but ALSO increasing coverage whether that be through converting some Nextel towers in strategic iDen only areas to CDMA/LTE or through leasing new towers after they decommission iDen for good. Obviously cutting costs is a big deal for someone in Sprint's financial position but they also HAVE to be competitive to survive in the long-term and coverage could be a differentiator between them and T-Mobile and to a lesser degree AT&T.

Nope, not even close.

 

First, Nextel has relatively little rural coverage compared to all of the rural coverage that VZW has purchased. So, even if Sprint were to retain the entire Nextel national network, it would not even remotely meet or exceed VZW's footprint.

 

Second, the vast majority of the Nextel national network and the Sprint national network overlap. Only ~1000 sites still provide coverage that is decidedly unique to Nextel iDEN. Thus, even your proposed one third of sites would be tremendous overkill, would result in expensive redundancy.

 

Unfortunately, the Sprint web site is down right now, so I cannot post coverage maps.

 

AJ

Well I can only speak for myself and my area. Around here Nextel towers outnumber Sprint probably 5 to 1. But then again I live in the South and iDen is still used pretty extensively between Nextel and SouthernLINC. I'm sure things are different in other parts of the country.

Well, from what I can tell its more complicated than what everyone is looking at right now for why they are only slowly considering the iDEN towers to convert to CDMA/LTE. First the money issue, the success of the NV program depends on their ability to shed costs, bottom line: they haven't turned a profit in years and investors will not invest in a company with so much debt that is not strengthening financially. Once they have completed the NV, every current site will use less power and provide better coverage, this will save them money, and with the decommissioning of the iDen towers should decrease their bottom line enough to turn a operating profit. (they have been free cash flow positive the last year, but still posted a loss)

 

Don't forget their plans to also start offering their CDMA/LTE over their ESMR spectrum in the 800Mhz band. I am sure that they want to see what the potential gains from this additional spectrum are before they go and the additional costs of leasing more towers. Once they finally get everything running with the 800Mhz spectrum, they will have a handle on what their coverage situation is, and financially they will be able to make decisions that will benefit both consumers and investors.

 

I know that others in this section have been talking mainly about where there is iDen cell sites, and no CDMA coverage, and I understand that those should be top priority for sprint! But I do not think they are stupid (I know arguable), they have more information than us, and I believe they have planned for this.

In my opinion, they probably had the leases worked out under old terms with nextel when the company was planning expansion and thought the economic return on those sights would be much greater than what it ended up being. That being said, they probably are paying more than they want to for most of the sites. Allowing them to be shut down and removing the equipment from the site might actually give them more leverage over the site owner for leasing the site for CDMA/LTE operations. If the lease runs out, sprint would remove the equipment and leave the site (sprint would have to remove all the equipment anyway before upgrading for network vision), which if they were the only ones on the lease, leaves the tower operator with no income for the site. They would be in a better position to either re-negotiate new terms for the tower, or choose another location/company to save the company money, and be more competitive.

 

The 100 mentioned sites are most probably for spectrum protection (they must offer service in a certain % of an area to keep their license) and not really for adding service. I think they want to wait to start adding towers till after they are done with NV (5 Billion is a large cost, not wanting to add more) and they want to see what their footprint ends up being once the ESMR spectrum is added. From what a previous post was showing, the addition of 800Mhz spectrum on the current PCS towers will make what was barely passable areas/ fringe coverage areas: good coverage, and good coverage areas: GREAT!

 

I am excited to see what they can come up with at the end of it all, and I believe that eventually all areas that were once nextel-only (and hopefully some new sites), will eventually be added to NV... just at the right price.

All good points and make a lot of sense. But, for me I think a lot of it is just wishful thinking - I think about the potential. If only money weren't an issue- imagine converting let's say 1/3 of all Nextel towers to CDMA/LTE (completely unrealistic I know). You would have a network that would likely surpass VZ but with Sprint's pricing! The problem is the more rural parts of America are primarily controlled by the Big Two. Many Americans don't have access to Sprint coverage and even more don't have access to T-Mobile. So for those that don't live in a big city or the suburbs, they have to put up with AT&V (see what I did there?). And now that VZ has unveiled their new family data plans, I see that prices are only going in one direction But I guess I'm getting off topic. Hopefully Sprint will, through a combination of the ESMR and either utilizing existing Nextel towers or re-leasing the towers later, be able to create a more robust network with greater coverage. Hopefully it's not just wishful thinking..

Well as much as I would like to be excited by this, something tells me that these sites won't be used to increase coverage in rural areas but to add capacity to urban areas. That's if they choose to keep them online at all. Let's hope that I'm wrong- I do.

Wow, that would be awesome. There are so many markets with single CDMA tower, could really improve the footprint and keep the Nextel customers happy too

That would be awesome. I understand they are wanting to cut down on operating expenses and it makes perfect sense in areas where CDMA and iDEN overlap but it just seems like they could utilize some of the Nextel towers they ALREADY HAVE to give Big Red, also known as the Devil, some real competition in the coverage dept. PLUS, if they take them down now it will be significantly harder to add them back later.

So this may be a stupid question and may have been answered a thousand times over, but is Sprint planning on utilizing ANY of their Nextel towers? It seems to me like they would take down the Nextel hardware and install CDMA/LTE in areas where they have coverage gaps. Like in the town where I live, Sprint has 1 tower! And when you leave town you start roaming. It makes no sense either because just a couple of years ago there was NO sprint coverage but then they installed the one lone tower and stopped there