ericdabbs

I agree, Sprint has exactly what they want from clearwire right now. If sprint were to buy clearwire, they would end up with less money to pay for network vision and more spectrum than any other wireless provider. If the FCC didn't make them divest spectrum at the time of the purchase, they would certainly start enforcing the build out requirements of the spectrum. Sprint would end up losing spectrum, missing the boat on auctions for lower mhz spectrum, and you can kiss any pipe dreams of vzw or att wholesaling data capacity from Sprint's 2600mhz hot spots goodbye. There is little to no chance of those sharks strengthening the competition like that.

 

Sent from my CM9 Toro using Forum Runner

+1 on this. Sprint should not be in any rush to buy out Clearwire. Let Clearwire do their thing and finalize the TDD-LTE standard with the Global TDD alliance and build out the LTE network while Sprint focuses on Network Vision and improving balance sheet. Until Sprint can acquire just a bit more PCS spectrum (ahem H block), I think they will be sitting pretty.

My concern right now is when Clearwire LTE is available, what would Sprint devices's priority be in terms of LTE discovery? Is it 2500 MHz -> 1900 MHz -> 800 MHz OR is it 1900 MHz -> 800 MHz -> 2500 MHz? After all Sprint doesn't own the Clearwire LTE so they will have to be paying by the GB which means if they put 2500 MHz as highest priority and with 20 MHz channels, GB's of data will add up quick and Sprint will shell out more money but will provide capacity relief.

What the FCC should really do is reduce the build out requirements dramatically to the point where basically once a wireless carrier obtains the spectrum licenses they have to deploy immediately or have to give it up. This will deter the amount of spectrum hoarding by wireless carriers.

Totally agree with everyone here. It would be great if Sprint was able to complete a few NV sites in Vegas along the strip for CES as an exception just to remind everyone in the tech industry that Sprint is dedicated to the Network Vision project in deploying LTE nationwide. I think it would be a great test to see how their Network Vision tower capacity will hold up at such a huge conference just like how Tmobile was deploying 1900 MHz HSPA+ for the Apple WWDC to see how that will hold up.

So I noticed that the Running List got updated again today and I noticed more Second Round market changes. I take it that the Second Round market list ordering is now updated with the latest information? I noticed San Diego, New Orleans and PR/VI markets got bumped up pretty high.

Where did AT&T say they were going to start using PCS to deploy LTE?

My fault...=( I was mistaking AT&T with Verizon. Verizon did say they plan to deploy LTE on its PCS spectrum some time in the future.

http://www.fiercewir...mand/2012-06-07

I did however remember that AT&T was beginning to refarm its 2G spectrum in the PCS band in NYC to bolster their HSPA+ network. Either way I don't think AT&T should get a pass to obtain more spectrum just because they use HSPA+ which is more bandwidth intensive. The truth is that the majority carriers worldwide are moving to some form of LTE whether its FDD or TDD. If AT&T decides that it is in their best interest to support a full HSPA+ and LTE network then they must deal with the consequences of not having enough spectrum to support both. I believe that is the major reason why Sprint decided to forgo EVDO Rev B since it was just too bandwidth intensive when the obvious trend is towards LTE. Either way AT&T needs to start pushing hard towards LTE phones only.

Good to know. I wonder who would be willing to buy those AWS licenses, if AT&T decides not to deploy anything on them. We certainly don't need another SpectrumCo...

 

Which brings up another potential issue. If AT&T decides not to use AWS...ever...it has less spectrum to work with overall, so that it might be less amenable to a PCS-for-WCS swap than otherwise, even if the MHz-pop count is in their favor. Of course, that somewhat assumes that AT&T will want to drop LTE onto PCS now that AWS doesn't look so hot for them, but then they have issues if they decide not to ink a PCS LTE roaming agreement with Sprint, since both carriers would be deploying in PCS A-F. Not that that's stopped AT&T before (see the AT&T-championed lower-LTE-minus-band-A class versus the smaller-carrier-championed band class that includes lower-A), but PCS could be even more sketchy since the G band doesn't interfere with anything (other than AT&T's unwillingness to support a band that they won't be deploying anything on).

Well to be fair, I believe that AT&T still has a ton of spectrum to work with. You are ignoring the fact that they still have the 850 MHz cellular band of 25 MHz AND also have PCS spectrum which AT&T already says that they plan on deploying LTE in the future. I understand that GSM/HSPA+ is currently deployed in these bands but lets be honest at some point AT&T and the rest of the carriers will have to go all in on LTE once VoLTE becomes standard.

Its not like AT&T needs to have 2-3 LTE carriers at this point to support the huge capacity when they are still trying to fill up one LTE carrier. Even Verizon which has had LTE deployed for about 1.5 years the 10x10 MHz LTE carrier is still not full. Not to mention that AT&T hasn't talked about using further techniques like wifi offloading, cell splitting, small cells (picocells and femtocells) to deal with extending capacity on a LTE carrier like all carriers should be thinking of doing. Sprint has made that known about deploying small cells and wifi offloading to deal with capacity.

Yes. The Chicago and LA articles are already written. So I went ahead and updated the NV Running List thread a little early.

 

You are very observant about some shifting in the 2nd Round order. But don't read too much into it. I did start moving around some markets that were toward the bottom which need to be toward the top. I was trying to do it from memory. So it is not a completed order. It will get better sorted in the coming days and weeks.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

Call me a geek but the reason why I knew about the change in the 2nd round market ordering is because I made a copy of the list of the 2nd round market ordering right after the last 2nd round market was announced back in March or so and I knew Miami was not on the top of the 2nd round list. Then I just analyzed the differences between the 2 lists and noticed all the Florida markets got bumped up to the top.

I'll be interested to see what the updated list order is for the 2nd round markets in the upcoming weeks.

Wow, looks like Robert updated the Running List thread to include estimation dates for Chicago and LA of September 2012 without the update articles yet. Appears that those 2 markets will be next for Network Vision update articles. Can't wait to read those.

Also noticed the Second Round markets order has been shifted around where the Florida markets are on the top of the list now and some other markets got pushed up and down. Detroit folks should be pretty happy since they got bumped up from the 19th to the 6th spot while San Diego folks will be sad that they got bumped down from the 11th spot to the 17th spot.

How much spectrum does / will Sprint have on the 800mhz block? Will they be stuck with 5x5 there too? While we are at it, how about the 2.5Ghz block too?

Sprint will have about 14 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum which is good for up to a 5x5 LTE carrier and a CDMA carrier. When Sprint pulls those 2 things off especially 800 MHz LTE for building penetration to compete with Verizon and AT&T.

Crap for Sprint to deploy but not for Sprint to sell to ATT ;-) .

Instead of selling the WCS spectrum to AT&T, how about Sprint and AT&T spectrum swap the WCS spectrum for PCS spectrum. I would rather have that then cash. Its not like the small amount of spectrum is going to yield much cash anyways.

Could be in part because 1x Advanced is more efficient than VoLTE.

Also the reason for deploying 1x Advanced for the time being is that VoLTE is still not ready for widespread deployment. Verizon has announced plans to do VoLTE trials later on this year and plans to start deploying areas with VoLTE in 2013. Either way there are probably going to be bugs and kinks that need to be worked out just like how Verizon was the main test subject for LTE deployment with all those outages. Iyad Tarazi from Sprint did mention that they would begin trial testing of VoLTE in 2013/2014 but no timeline of when VoLTE would be in full deployment.

The only reason for VoLTE deployment over 1x Advanced for voice in the future is to simplify the base station system to not have as much equipment to deployed to carry voice and data separately when LTE can easily account for both. For now Sprint needs to rely on 1x Advanced since it can dramatically reduce the number of 1x voice carriers it has today and save that spectrum to be used for LTE deployment since Sprint has so little spectrum.

Sprint's WCS spectrum is crap and they only have a small amount in the Texas, Louisiana area. Unless its nationwide coverage, there is no purpose of deploying LTE on that spectrum.

If Sprint had to enter into a new LTE band, I would rather see Sprint enter the AWS band since that band continues to grow and there are Band classes already available for LTE deployment. There are even talks right now of making some spectrum available in the 1700 MHz range to extend the AWS band range as part of the 300 MHz of spectrum that is suppose to be made available in the next few years.

Is Ericsson still the primary OEM for Clearwire even for Sprint Network Vision?

Not sure. I was always under the impression that Ericcson provided the hardware for Clearwire to deploy their Wimax network. I assume they would be contracted again to provide the LTE hardware for the TD-LTE network.

Hi all, especially Robert:

 

There has been a lot of talk here about NV 3G and LTE, but do we know anything about HD Voice deployments? Is Sprint rolling out their 1x-Advanced hardware along side these other NV upgrades, or has work on this not started yet?

Yes all NV towers will be upgraded with 1x Advanced hardware. Remember that for HD voice both sides needs to be using a handset that supports HD voice to truly experience the difference. So far only the HTC EVO 4G LTE phone supports HD voice.

Believe it or not, in some markets, Sprint has 30MHz without counting the PCS G block. With the PCS G block they have 40MHz. If they can swap spectrum in some of their markets where they have multiple non-contiguous 10Mhz blocks they can have 10x10MHz blocks or even 15x15

Forget the G block for a second. I know Sprint has 30 MHz without the G block in some markets like LA, San Diego, NYC, Washington DC, Dallas etc but those cities actually need the 30 MHz spectrum because they are high population areas. They are still a lot of major cities like Chicago, Bay Area (SF and SJ), Atlanta, Houston, etc that only have 20 MHz of PCS spectrum which is clearly not enough. The mentality for Sprint shouldn't be a zero sum game where Sprint should be trading 10 MHz of spectrum in its 30 MHz markets thereby depleting those markets to 20 MHz while the 20 MHz markets now gain 10 MHz through spectrum swap putting them at 30 MHz. This solution doesn't solve anything because it only fixes one problem but breaks another because now those former 30 MHz markets like LA, NYC, San Diego, etc are now stuck with 20 MHz which need more spectrum since they are high population cities.

The true fix is if Sprint can not get the nationwide licenses for the 'H' block then the priority should be that the major markets who currently have only 20 MHz of PCS spectrum that those 10 MHz H block licenses be bought up to now put those 20 MHz markets with 30 MHz of spectrum. Remember I am discounting the 10 MHz G block nationwide for now because we are talking about future expansion not what Sprint is already deploying for LTE.

Time for some spectrum swaps:).

They don't have any spectrum to swap. What spectrum could Sprint possibly trade? Sprint needs to acquire the 'H' block and just continue to build on the PCS band. That should be the path forward but we'll have to see what Sprint is going to do.

The problem right now is that in some Sprint markets they don't even have 20 MHz of PCS spectrum if you don't count the 'G' block. Acquiring more PCS spectrum should be their number one priority.

This may make me the killjoy, but I now do not think that Sprint will be overly aggressive in pursuing the PCS/AWS-2 H block. Among its PCS A-F, PCS G, ESMR, and Clearwire's BRS/EBS spectrum, Sprint has plenty of available bandwidth in most markets for the foreseeable future.

 

AJ

I hope that the FCC delays the PCS H block auction until 2015 so that by that time Sprint will be in better financial shape to make a decision on the PCS H Block auction. I really do hope that Sprint is aggressive in trying to obtain the H block because it fits so nicely next to the G block and deploy a 10x10 carrier which Sprint desperately needs. To be honest, I do NOT trust Clearwire in its TDD-LTE build out to supply all the necessary capacity it needs for years and years to come and would much rather have Sprint take control of its own future than relying on Clearwire. Sprint can show this by being aggressive with the H block spectrum.

Glad to see that Sprint is ramping up its coverage maps on its website to account for LTE. Also Sprint was smart to isolate coverage maps between 4G LTE and 4G WiMax instead of bundling them together as 4G.

No, propagation will be largely the same, as the spectrum is the same, the modulation is the same, etc. And, somewhat ironically, coverage footprint will likely be smaller for TD-LTE. But that is by design. WiMAX was intended to be a complete network overlay, though that was never fully realized. On the other hand, TD-LTE 2600 will be deployed selectively, creating islands of coverage or "hot spots" where additional LTE capacity is needed above and beyond that of the underlying Sprint LTE 800/1900 network. This type of heterogeneous network or "het net" design is the future of wireless.

 

AJ

But isn't what you are saying only 1 part of what Clearwire is planning to do with its TD-LTE network. I understand that Clearwire and Sprint are collaborating to select specific towers to add TD-LTE capacity but I thought that was a separate task that is asked specifically by Sprint. What about Clearwire's natural footprint? Isn't the second part of what Clearwire is doing is overlaying specific Wimax towers with TD-LTE on its natural footprint since Clearwire leased its own towers?

I am just curious because what about Clearwire's other LTE wholesale customers? If Clearwire built TD-LTE coverage on only co-located Sprint towers, I doubt Sprint is going to allow all the other Clearwire LTE wholesale customers to leech off of their colocated towers which should be reserved for Sprint customers.

By the time sprint needs more capacity, you will probably have an upgrade on your account. Clearwire's LTE speeds are going to be amazing, but I doubt it will affect the speeds of my phone much. I currently get 6-9 on my phone, and it is more than enough for Pandora or Netflix. Id rather have more solid coverage over the ability to get 30+ on my phone.

 

If I were going to wait, I would wait for a sprint phone that supports LTE on 800/1900. Id rather have access to faster speeds on sub 1Ghz spectrum.

The thing is that by the time Sprint has a LTE phone that supports LTE 800 and 1900, it will most likely have the Clearwire 2500 band in as well. Sprint plans to deploy 800 MHz LTE starting mid 2013 and Clearwire is suppose to have LTE by mid 2013 so the phones in 2013 must have support for BC 41. Luckily my upgrade isn't until June 2013 so its actually perfect timing to pick up a LTE phone with 800/1900/2500 LTE support.

This is good news. Now Sprint DC does not need to rely on 3G EVDO connection for access. With 800 MHz CDMA being deployed on the NV towers with RRU's at the top of the tower, it will perform even better than it did at 800 MHz iDEN.

The only problem right now is that there are not enough NV towers up with 800 Mhz CDMA to make this a reality and will have to settle for 1900 MHz CDMA coverage.

Muffinman talks about it in this thread: http://s4gru.com/ind...e/page__st__100

 

I'm taking this, and another comment I read in another forum as validation for the LTE Connectivity issues we reported here: http://s4gru.com/ind...on-as-may-15th/

 

I'm thinking of writing an article on it. Sprint/HTC needs to get an OTA out fixing the issue and allow us all to connect to LTE poste haste.

 

Robert

It makes sense. This is definitely a showstopper issue that needs to be resolved on the Evo LTE before LTE launch. I can't imagine the backlash it would have on HTC and Sprint if the Evo LTE had LTE connection issues when the market is live.

I think it is completely related to the EVO LTE connectivity issue, myself.

 

Robert

It would make sense. Could you briefly summarize the issue with the EVO LTE connectivity again. The EVO LTE phones currently cannot to any LTE towers?

um.........what is a text message gonna tell you that this site already hasn't?!!!?/1

well the text message would come straight from Sprint so I would assume it would tell you the exact launch date or hell it might say...LTE is live in your area right now. This site doesn't tell you the exact date of when LTE will be launched in the city but rather an estimation of when specific markets are targeted for deployment and when individual towers should be up and running.

I don't think LTE will launch until the end of June. I think Sprint wants the extra 2-3 weeks to try to get as many LTE towers up and running. Maybe Sprint didn't want to make a bad impression on its customers for waiting so long for LTE and have it flop. Maybe Sprint wants to send the text message to say the 4 markets are live for LTE instead of constraining itself with "LTE is coming on 6/XX".