With Sprint now being courted by both DISH and Softbank, and uncertainty over whether they will win Clearwire over, I'm just wondering what needs to be done to the Network to accommodate the various permutations of spectrum that Sprint might end up with? Sprint could be formidable with a huge amount of spectrum, but how long and how expensive to realize that dream?
What would need to be added to existing NV sites to be able to run Clearwire spectrum? Is it a new 2.5GHz antenna panel and a new RRU, new TD-LTE cards and a software upgrade? Presumably this would only be done to a relatively small proportion of macro cells, with more small cells being deployed inside buildings? Does anyone know what the coverage plan might end up like, if Sprint wins Clearwire?
Secondly on DISH, how much would need to be done to existing Network Vision sites to light the AWS-4 spectrum. Its relatively close in frequency to G-Block, but would it require new or wholesale swap outs of antennas or can existing 1.9GHz panels be used? What other upgrades would be needed in terms of hardware or software, and how quickly could this be got running? How can this be combined with the Clearwire upgrade to save money and speed things up?
Finally, what does Sprint need to do to light 800MHz LTE. They are talking about bringing that upgrade forward to start in Q4. But surely they have put up combined 800/1900 panels and all the hardware already, so what extra is it that they need to do to get 800MHz LTE up and running on NV sites?