ericdabbs

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.

Robert, just curious if you plan to do market updates for all the first round markets in the upcoming weeks? I would be curious about LA and SF Bay articles.

I am sure Yeah it seems like Sprint is a bit behind schedule due to the learning curve needed for each of the crews and is also probably due to certain things like backhaul not being readily available at the time of NV tower completion, equipment etc. I am hoping that Sprint is able to catch up as more and more crews come up to speed and can deploy towers faster.

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.

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.

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?

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".

So about them Verizon wireless plans!!!! Who hates them?????? I would if I were an out of contract 3G Verizon customer.

Yes I understand that the purpose is to "thin" out unnecessary iDEN towers. The 9600 sites will be done by the end of 3rd quarter so that means Sprint has all of the 4th quarter to continue thinning out towers as necessary. Lets not kid ourselves here, eventually all 30,000 iDEN towers need to be decommissioned anyways. As more and more iDEN customers leave Sprint or switch to Sprint CDMA, I am sure in some regions they could just decommission all the iDEN sites in that area.

I was just talking to one of my friends who has Verizon service and he was bummed out about the new shared data plans because he wanted to get the GS3 and lock it in before the phone plans changed. However my friend thought about a way to get the GS3 and lock in his unlimited data. It seems like Verizon didn't think the release dates of the shared plans (June 28th) and the GS3 (July 9th) all the way through because Verizon has a 14 day return window for service. I am not sure if Verizon offers the same benefit as Sprint but I know on Sprint you are allowed to switch your initial device for a new device once within your first 30 days (now 14 days). If Verizon does offer this benefit, my friend is thinking about extending his 2 year contract and pick up a RAZR MAXX on June 27th and on July 9th swap it for a GS3 and paying any difference in phone prices and restocking fees. July 9th would only be the 12th day of his first 14 days. This way he can get the GS3 and still have his unlimited data. Anyone with Verizon service can verify if you can swap out your initial device within your first 14 days for another device? If so this could be the loophole that I can see people doing to get the GS3.

I wonder how many iDEN sites Sprint can get rid of by the end of 2012. I am hoping for at least 13000 iDEN sites.

All I can say is ouch!!!! Now I am really glad I did not go to Verizon. The shared everything plans do not benefit anyone except those who are on unlimited voice plans. Looks like those folks who were waiting to grab the GS3 and lock into the unlimited data are screwed now since the GS3 on Verizon doesn't launch until July 9th. Verizon's pricing is getting very close to Canadian carriers pricing for data.

Definitely not until mid to late 2013. Its most likely a 3rd round market which hasn't been announced yet.

Why would Why would a Dish deal hurt Clearwire? I don't think Dish is trying to be a wholesale provider of LTE but rather be able to offer LTE service for its customers. It would simply be a network sharing deal where Sprint will help Dish build out their LTE network using their 2 GHz spectrum and Sprint gets a cut of the revenue to fund operational costs and cash for Sprint. I am sure Sprint will try to have terms like Lightsquared where they will say that they can have some access to the 2 GHz spectrum but I am not sure if Dish will bite. Either way, Sprint is dependent on Clearwire for LTE capacity since they can deploy 20 and 40 MHz carriers which is way more impressive than what Dish can do for long term. At most Dish can deploy a single 20x20 LTE carrier or two 10x10 LTE carriers.

Agree with that. Best time to strike is after the next model is released.

Not until mid to late 2013 at the earliest.

What does Clearwire currently do? If beamforming does increase coverage then they need to do it since they must take advantage of any techniques that can increase the poor 2.5 GHz propagation. I am sure the RRU's on the top of Clearwire towers must have helped with coverage. I can't imagine what the 2.5 GHz Wimax coverage would be like if it didn't adopt RRU's up high on the towers. I wonder if Sprint is planning to implement beamforming for its microwave backhaul and for its antennas.

I look at it just to see if the same breed of bashers are still there but I don't comment on there anymore. I love discussions in this community a lot more than there and not to mention the Network Vision information that Robert provides us.

Where did you hear this rumor? I don't think that is true. Last time I heard Phoenix is scheduled for late 2nd round and probably won't start breaking ground until early 2013.

Great article again. Can't wait to hear about Houston and Dallas

Yes I am worried about cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Seattle, etc that won't be able to get 800 MHz LTE. Seattle might just be limited to 3x3 MHz LTE but who knows.

I hope this is true. I would love to see 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE in San Diego. Now all that needs to happen is for the FCC to sign the same sharing agreement with Canada so that those cities near the Canadian border can get in on this action.

Its best not to think about it. Lets the ignorant stay ignorant I guess. iOS is suppose to have a "LTE" icon like it does on the iPad 3 in the screenshots above and the Google Nexus phones just say "4G" if they are connected to LTE. There is never going to be one uniform icon to let you know you are connected over LTE so its no point in thinking about it anymore.

Please refer to this thread for information. Baltimore is scheduled to be one of the first markets to get LTE. Read the article for more information. There have been too many threads about people asking about LTE live status and most of the questions could be answered in the articles from the thread below. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/212-network-visionlte-deployment-running-list/