leozno1

I'm suspecting these Nexus devices will be a big letdown this year. I got the impression from reading certain articles about the HTC Nexus models that perhaps Google made some concessions to get HTC to manufacture these this year.Google should never have to do this when choosing a manufacturer for the Nexus line.

 

For that matter, Google really should have chosen Sony, or even Blackberry. I know that could really help Blackberry's business, who would do anything to make the perfect Nexus, if given the opportunity to do so.

HTC is as good a phone manufacturer as anybody. The only concession I see Google having to make is the desire to sell the devices for Sub-$500 prices, not in terms of quality or features of the devices themselves.

Thanks for that. I was unable to listen to the call this morning.

 

That 125 number for the legacy network is likely a result of current market penetration and data demand. As those metrics increase I would be unsurprised to see that number of sites increase as well. Central PA is a very under penetrated market for Shentel, compared to their penetration in the Shenandoah Valley (something like 4x less penetrated in CPA). Also I expect them to equip almost all new sites built for capacity with B41.

 

Another thing to remember is there are a lot of cows and corn in areas Shentel covers, so picking and choosing which sites get B41 instead of carte blanche deploying TDD makes a lot of sense.

 

I am just excited to see 50 sites. It will make a huge difference in network performance. You can do a lot with three well balanced 5MHz carriers, but it is still only 15 MHz. I almost can't fathom what 40 or 60 additional MHz will be like on top of what Shentel already has.

 

It is an exciting time to live in Shentel land.

I agree with you 100%. I currently work in New Oxford, PA and Sprint LTE  on band 25 here is pulling 24 mbps DL and almost 7 mbps UL (outside the building of course). Meanwhile at home in York, PA, I'm hard pressed trying to pull anything over 1.5 mbps at home so I'm hoping at least 7 those 125 B41 Sites are in York. 

The areas in between York and New Oxford/Hanover are very lightly populated and I'm sure capacity in those areas are far from being strained. Two B25 carriers and a B26 carrier should more than sufficient in supplying enough demand for those areas for a while.

Although I am on the side that is wondering if Shentel having to expand their focus, would now slow down upgrades in their existing coverage areas. Especially since they focus their efforts on places with the biggest needs first and nTelos territory is far worse than Shentel areas. 

Whenever I go to Smith Mountain Lake, I basically just put my phone away for a few days, as me trying to use my phone on nTelos is an exercise in frustration, so I'm glad to see that will improve in the future!

Give a woman any iPhone.  She will not know the difference and will be happy, right?

 

 

AJ

lol negative. My girlfriend has been conditioned to not want an iPhone even if I suggest it to her.

Actually, the S4 Mini is smaller than this phone.

The S4 Mini hasn't even been announced yet.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini?

Curious which site this is? Could you share the site id?

In the Shentel thread Robert mentions that the entire Central PA market will initially be GMO sites.

Great news! Thanks for the update Robert!

Do you think that on either on Black Friday or soon afterwards Sprint will release a statement where they add all these cities to their official LTE Market count list?

In our NV Sites Complete Map, you will see dozens upon dozens of sites marked 3G complete. At these sites, most of the 4G LTE improvements have been completed as well. You will start to see a lot of these switch over from just being 3G complete to 4G complete as well pretty rapidly in the coming weeks. And then the signals will be going live at the time too. This is pretty much what has happened in all AlcaLu markets, like Baltimore, Boston and LA as well.Robert

Ahh okay, I thought I saw someone mention in one of the forums that in new york there are hundreds of completed sites so I thought it was more like there are a bunch of sites that are complete as well but haven't been inspected by Sprint so they aren't on the maps yet.

Work is under way, hundreds of sites have been upgraded and some are already live. You can see some of the live sites here at Sensorly: http://sensorly.com/...k_city,new_yorkDeployment will continue, with more sites going week after week. Launch is not likely to happen in November since the Hurricane. But it still may happen in December. Launch will probably occur with 60% - 70% coverage. But work will still continue even after the launch until every site is converted.Robert

Hey Robert,

Does that mean that there are upgraded towers all over new york city but users aren't allowed to connect to them? If so that is definitely great news because all they need to do is flip the switch. For some reason I felt like only the ones that appear on your Sites Complete maps are the ones that are done. And everything else is still under construction.

Nice post AJ. I definitely wanted to know what some possibilities were for Sprint with the increase in spectrum. I don't live in any of those markets but I'm still bummed that its gonna take upwards of 2 years for them to take advantage of that additional spectrum.

Is this in effect because of the deal that was worked out with SoftBank?

I doubt it, I think it takes longer than a couple days to get from starting a tower to having 3G inspected and approved by Sprint. These towers have probably been worked on for quite some time.

If SoftBank requires unlimited to be dropped, it will be because it is seen as a necessity. SoftBank offers unlimited in Japan, so they are obviously not adverse to it.Raising prices is also not an option anytime soon. Sprint, or even the New Sprint, is not in the position to charge as much or more than VZW and AT&T. In fact, SoftBank wants to significantly increase their market share in the U.S. They are not going to be increasing market share by raising prices.SoftBank is not stupid. They want to come in and attempt to dominate the market. They will not be careless and will make very intelligent and shrewd decisions. Any moves that they make will be very calculated and not rash. None of us are going to get whiplash from the changes.If anything, I think there is more chance of lower prices, than raising them. SoftBank wants to increase market share, not profits. I hate to use a stereotype, but Japanese investors are much long term focused than their American counterparts. They will not make rash decisions for short term gains.Robert

I totally agree Robert, I think that one of the biggest thing that people don't take into account are the cost savings that the Network Vision project entails. People keep saying that not long after its done that Sprint will remove unlimited data, but if Sprint can keep unlimited data while they are losing money quarterly for several years, why would they remove unlimited data when they will actually be saving over $1 billion per year?

Finally Robert is back!

So if this is the last market for the deployment update schedule, what do you have on deck for us next?

Yea I know exactly what you mean Robert. Its gotten to the point where I wish S4GRU had not gotten so much word of mouth around mainstream tech sites just so we wouldn't get an influx of ignorant, ungrateful trolls flooding the site.

You sure do have a way of getting my hopes up =) I'll try to get my hands on an LTE device and see if I start picking up some LTE here in York. Thanks Robert!

Hey I forgot to ask, even if York is covered by Shentel, would you still happen to know where the Sprint Towers in York are located? That would be awesome. Thanks!

So Sprint is blocking LTE connectivity until they say so but are users still able to connect to the upgraded 3G and voice network as sites come online?

Harder? Perhaps. However, it is likely that Shentel will bring NV/LTE to its coverage area faster than if Sprint were bringing it.Robert

You sure do have a way of getting my hopes up =) I'll try to get my hands on an LTE device and see if I start picking up some LTE here in York. Thanks Robert!

Lancaster is in the Central PA market and will not begin until 2013. However, York is a Sprint affiliate market controlled by Shentel. We don't have any detailed info about Shentel deployment. But we have heard reports from other members that Shentel is already working in the Harrisburg area. They may already be in the York area too. Let us know if you see anything on Sprint towers in the area.Robert

Woah I had no idea. Its no wonder that on network.sprint.com there are no upgrades listed for York or Harrisburg areas. Man that just makes it that much harder to know if or when my area will be getting any upgrades.

Wow I didn't know that the Philadelphia Market covered Reading and Allentown as well. Darn If only it would have extended a little further west towards York and Lancaster

Doesn't SVDO connectivity mean that the device is capable of using Data and voice simultaneously over 3G?

I wonder if the newly gained areas would be considered roaming or not? Although I never go over 2GB per month on my data card I do have problems with the 300MB cap on roaming and with LTE you could blow through that quickly.

I don't think it would be considered roaming. If Sprint can form an agreement similar with what is happening with WiMax that is. 4G WiMax is not considered roaming but it is Clearwire's network. It would be wise for them to do it that way.

I don't believe that Qualcomm is set to launch any quad core chips this year since I haven't read any news nor has Qualcomm made any announcements at the big conventions like CES and MWC. I looked on wikipedia and I see a quad core S5 chip set for launch sometime for Q1 2013 but this date is obviously preliminary.

Something I would definitely enjoy and can probably be done before this device launches is put in the MSM8960 Pro with the next gen Adreno 320.

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.

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?

Thanks a lot runagun, has anyone been able to run a speedtest in any of the markets that are already underway?

Yeah, Justin. I know when Sprint wants the NV OEM's to get to the Second Round, but in reality we don't know how fast they are going to get there. Preliminary anecdotal evidence is that Ericsson is slightly ahead of schedule. Samsung is bogged down in SFO and ORD with their starts. Although, they may hire up and start new crews and start second round markets before they are complete in SFO/ORD. However, I don't think that Sprint is big on accelerating even faster, because of the cash burn that will occur.A/L is the vendor I'm most concerned about. We will be watching them closely!

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