GoWireless

In my opinion, 3G in Jacksonville isn't too bad compared to other Sprint markets becuase there is reasonable 4G WiMax coverage so part of the network load is being offloaded to WiMax (for those users who have older Sprint 4G devices), thus freeing up 3G. In any case, speaking from a general prespective, compared to the other carriers' 3G, Sprint's 3G is atrociously slow. However, once they get 4G LTE going, that should improve the 3G coverage for two reasons: 1. like with the WiMax situation, they'll be offloading users' data onto LTE from 3G and 2. as part of the LTE deploymnet they are also improving their 3G service.

I see, thanks. BTW, as part of Network Vision, supposedly Sprint is also making improvements to the 3G network. Do you know what they are doing in that respect or point me to somewhere that describes that? On Sprint's website it just talks about "a new 3G network" but gives no specifics. I wonder what are they doing? Do they mean the 800Mhz overlay? Surely they're not putting in EVDO Rev.B, are they (that would be cool ?

Thanks for the clarification Robert. What you say makes sense. Question: Sprint has that network enhancement site that they maintain, network.sprint.com, is what shown here related to the expected work shown on Sprint's site? It's hard to tell. It almost seems like there are two network efforts going on - the NV and what's on the sprint site.

To be hoenst, this is not all that impressive. In what I would consider the true Jacksonville metro area there are only about 23 sites. Surely that can't be approximately half the market. From looking at the map it looks like there would be no towers touched in the Southside, Intercoastal, or the Beaches and only one site in Mandarin. If anything, one would think they would hit those areas first. I mean, no LTE in St. John's Town Center (aka the temple of shopping in N. Fla) or the acres of giant corporate office parks around it? Given this I would think most locals wouldn't consider this market "launched". Hopefully Sprint has an agressive rollout schedule to complete the rest of the market.

Congratulations! Makes sense for them to light up Kansas City first since that's their home market.

The thing is that like I mentioned before, from a technical perspective, adding the 800Mhz band to a phone that already supports the 850Mhz band is a relatively simple undertaking. That's compared to say adding the AWS/1700Mhz band to a phone that support the 850/900/1900/2100 bands which would be a more technically challenging undertaking. That's why I'm thinking there's a reasonably good chance they'll add it.

Well, in Apple's defense, when it comes to the iPhone 4S, Apple actually did a pretty admirable job of incorporating multiple radios and technologies onto one hardware platform that it distributes worldwide. Certainly more than what most other device makers have attempted to do with their devices. When it comes to tablets, becuase most folks don't buy them cell-enabled anyway, Apple took a different tack but when it comes to the 4S they are actually pretty well ahead with respcet to having one device support many different networks. Of course as time goes by, SoC makers make it easier on phone manufacturers. I believe the MSM8960 S4 snapdragon in the Samsung GSIII and a few other devices for example can support seven different bands and four different air interfaces. Amazing what they can pack into one piece of silicon nowadays.

Yeah, but that wasn't that much after the network vision announcement. Apple bagan designing and sourcing the iPhone 4S well before that so they have a reasonably good excuse I'd say. This time if they don't have it in the device that would be a different story.

I'd say there's a good chance the next iPhone would support CDMA 800. The SMR band butts right up against the regular 850Mhz wireless band (forming essentially one long single band composed of both bands) so I would think it wouldn't be to difficult, when designing a phone from scrach, to add CDMA850 support. Becuase of the relatively low frequency, the antenna spec. should be pretty simple to achieve too.

Yeah, well, granted though the Hampton Roads MSA has about twice the population of the Albuquerque MSA. Sprint's 3G network here in SE Va. is absolutely horrible (since data isn't being offloaded to 4G, except in those tiny spots where there's some 4G coverage now, limited as it may be). Yeah, like I said, right now this is Sprint's largest 4G "hole" on the East Coast so it makes sense for them to built it out sooner rather than later. BTW, do you know if the equipment Sprint is deploying will allow them to also one day light-up LTE in the SMR/iDEN band? And if so, do you know how much channel bandwidth they plan on deploying there? If I recall correctly, in the 1900Mhz band they're only planning on deploying 5x5Mhz.

Thanks for the update. Sprint really needs to get moving in the Norfolk/Va. Beach/Hampton Roads market! It's the largest metro area on the East Coast where they hadn't launched 4G. WiMax deployment in this market was halted about a year and a half ago when Sprint stopped paying attention to Clearwire's network.