ericdabbs

I personally would rather have Sprint use sim cards for LTE like the rest of the competition. I am tired of seeing Sprint be the black sheep that is always different than the others. I am sure there has got to be a way to get LTE to work with sim cards and we don't know for sure the real causes for these outages. I am sure it is related with the 3G/4G handoff between EVDO and LTE but Verizon will come up with a solution for this to make it work. Also Verizon and Sprint's tower infrastructure is not the same so maybe Sprint's network vision towers is able to handle the 3G/4G handoff much better than Verizon given it has a smaller amount of customers and newer tower infrastructure.

Great find!!!! Its nice to hear another major wholesale customer in Cricket to sign up for LTE service. If MetroPCS can just sign up for a wholesale LTE deal, that would be great as well as the former Lightsquared customers. I just hope that Clearwire is making good progress with China Mobile to develop the TD-LTE standard.

I think for the most part Hesse has done a good job given the horrible situation he was put into in 2008. I think people give Hesse a bad rap because they think its so simple to turnaround the company a complete 180 degrees in very short time period of 1-2 years. Starting with the customer service, I noticed it has improved dramatically since Hesse has taken over. I used to dread calling Sprint CSR in 2007 just because they were so bad at resolving issues. The whole Network Vision project and the switch to LTE are both great strategic moves that needed to occur no matter what the cost. The tower infrastructure before was from the 20th century but now the Network Vision towers are for the 21st century especially since it gives Sprint ways to remotely change configurations to adjust demand and also allow for network hosting of other networks. The only thing I would say Hesse took some missteps were more related with 3G/4G data speed issues. Hesse should have added more T1 backhaul lines earlier or heck even switch to fiber/microwave backhaul back in 2008/2009 to relieve capacity concerns when the smartphone market really took off. I can't say that back then Network Vision should have started back in 2009/2010 because the financials were not strong enough to take on a new project. Also I think Hesse should have more control of Clearwire back then to basically stop Clearwire from entering the retail business which was a huge cash drain. If that had not occurred, maybe Clearwire would have had more cash to build a bigger footprint but nowhere near a nationwide network. Also by not working with Clearwire on building the Wimax on Sprint tower infrastructure it made Clearwire spend more money on renting towers and equipment and having inconsistent 4G coverage areas. I am glad that the missteps I mentioned above are going to be addressed with Network vision and working more closely with Clearwire to build TD-LTE on Sprint tower infrastructure.

You and I are on the same page. While I want Sprint to eventually acquire Clearwire for its spectrum assets, acquiring Clearwire now would mean that Sprint can not participate in future spectrum auctions for more favorable spectrum since they would have even more than Verizon or AT&T. I feel that currently Verizon and AT&T should not be able to participate in future spectrum auctions since they have double of what Sprint and Tmobile have so I am not going to be a hypocrite and say that if Sprint acquired Clearwire that Sprint should still be allowed to participate in spectrum auctions as well. Until Sprint can acquire more favorable lower frequency spectrum (ideally the remaining lower 800 Mhz currently used for public safety for contiguous purposes with ESMR band) for coverage, I want Sprint and Clearwire to be remain separate. By keeping Sprint and Clearwire separate, it puts the pressure on Clearwire to deploy its 2.5 Ghz spectrum instead of Sprint had they acquired them. I just hope that spectrum auctions are not available until 2014 or 2015 where Sprint can repair themselves financially to be able to participate in these auctions.

Clearwire cannot afford to wait for China Mobile and its delays for TD-LTE. Clearwire is already in bad financial shape. With the upcoming Sprint LTE network in June, you can expect to see all the original EVO customers jump on LTE devices thus lowering Clearwire's wholesale Wimax customer base and lower revenue. From June 2012 to June 2013 will be a very tough time period for Clearwire since they have to deal with the loss of Sprint customers as well as the lack of new wholesale partnerships. If Clearwire can manage to steal the Lightsquared wholesale LTE customers to make up for the loss of Sprint's Wimax wholesale customers they should keep them afloat until 2013. Clearwire cannot afford to delay the June 2013 TD-LTE launch as well as the additional 3,000 towers that should be going up shortly afterwards. Clearwire needs to have the TD-LTE network up and running ASAP so that they can start collecting revenue instead of begging Sprint for more.

I just hope that Sprint is picking at big markets that AT&T has not covered and trying to captures those markets for those that are frustrated with not having service before they head to Verizon. Unfortunately Verizon has such a huge lead over AT&T and Sprint that any customer looking for LTE service will defer to Verizon before Sprint has a chance to get them.

Always good news to see non-Wimax cities getting LTE love. If only Phoenix/Tucson could get some LTE love that would be awesome.

It appears that AT&T is not letting off the gas pedal in expanding their LTE footprint with 11 more markets in an attempt to catch up with Verizon. It is surprising that AT&T is focusing on mostly smaller markets with the exception of Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Saint Louis. I like Sprint's approach of focusing on larger markets first to get those customers happy and then refocus on more smaller markets. It will be curious to see if Sprint can catch up to AT&T in terms of LTE footprint but I can't see this happening until 2013 if they ever do. Is AT&T making a mistake here by focusing on more smaller markets when places like Seattle, Portland, Philladelphia, Denver, etc have not yet been covered by LTE? Discuss. http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/12/atandt-continues-4g-lte-expansion-plans-to-light-up-eleven-market/

Its nice to see Sprint increase their ARPU but they still need to get everyone paying the $10 premium data fee especially those SERO-P customers who have 3G phones. I still think its dumb that SERO-P customers are exempt from paying the premium data fee when an Everything Data customer has to a pay the premium data fee for the exact phone and this is coming from myself who is a SERO-P customer. By making the premium data fee applicable to all 3G and 4G phones for all customers even on SERO-P customers, this will encourage new and renewing customers to purchase 4G phones thus migrating them to the 4G world so that Sprint can quickly ease the 3G network hopefully refarm that spectrum for LTE use.

I don't think so at this point. Sprint and the FCC are in the process of rebanding the 800 Mhz spectrum so I don't see that happening for a while or if ever. I would love for public safety to move to another band and free up the remaining lower 800 Mhz for wireless use. Sprint owns 817-824 Mhz and 862-869 Mhz. The remaining lower 800 Mhz runs from 806-816 Mhz and 851-861 Mhz owned by public safety/non cell SMR and if there was an opportunity to snatch up that spectrum, I would want Sprint to do whatever it takes to get it so that they could have an 18 Mhz contiguous band for both downlink and uplink for a total of 36 Mhz of 800 Mhz spectrum. That would be so awesome and would really help with better coverage all around and be on par with Verizon and AT&T.

Completely agree. Sprint should on all future devices do FCC testing for both CDMA/EVDO and LTE on all bands and frequencies available. By testing on all bands and frequencies this provides Sprint more flexibility in terms of where they can reallocate CDMA/EVDO and LTE carriers to different frequencies and bands if need be without having to be locked down to operating on only certain frequencies. You never know when Sprint will need to reallocate spectrum to support additional carriers for both voice and data. The best time to do all this FCC testing is before the initial launch of a device instead of trying to do post launch FCC testing to add more frequency band capability. I am not sure how many times Sprint or other wireless carriers have done that though. In my case, the Photon 4G chip has the capability to support 800 Mhz CDMA but it was not FCC tested for whatever reason so therefore it can't operate at 800 Mhz. I don't expect Sprint to go back and do FCC retesting to allow 800 Mhz CDMA on the Photon 4G.

Sprint is not going to run EVDO at 800 Mhz. The most we will see is a single 1xA carrier and a 5x5 LTE block deployed in 2013 once reconfiguration is done. Sprint is not going to waste deploying EVDO at 800 Mhz and then real quickly turn around again and deploy LTE at 800 Mhz.

Well I am kinda for this if this will help Sprint with gaining some additional revenue. Keep in mind that Sprints capacity at 1900 Mhz with a 5x5 is not exactly half the capacity of Verizon's LTE 700 Mhz network with 10x10 because since Sprint is deploying LTE at a higher frequency which has more capacity to support a lot more customers even though its got half the bandwidth. I am sure the 5x5 carrier is sufficient for now even if they added some wholesale customers. Remember that Sprint only has about 33 mil postpaid customers unlike Verizon who has about 100+ mil customers and they seem to be ok with a 10x10 configuration so far. Obviously Sprint needs to get at least another 5x5 carrier to support additional capacity and next year the 800 Mhz will be freed up to provide another 5x5 carrier. I am curious where Sprint is getting these wholesale customers though. I hope between Sprint and Clearwire that they steal all of Lightsquareds wholesale customers. Lightsquared is toast.

RRU = Remote Radio Unit.

I am guessing a Sprint iPad LTE could come around the same time as the new iPhone 5 which is around October and not any sooner. Hopefully Sprint will be done with all or if not the majority of the first round markets by that time and some second round markets would be starting up. It sucks that the timing of the iPad is so early in the year before the first markets of Network Vision are up.

I don't think moving iDEN folks to 900 Mhz would make a difference anyways. Sprint hasn't even requested FCC approval to run LTE at 800 Mhz yet. I am sure that has got to be some areas in the US where the entire 800 Mhz is not being used so that Sprint can run some tests with LTE at 800 Mhz and begin the filing process to get approval by the FCC. I would love to see 800 Mhz LTE in 2012 but I just can't see that happening.

The only problem is that Sprint does not have enough spectrum in 900 Mhz to support LTE to begin with. Even if Sprint could deploy LTE at 900 Mhz, the problem is that it is yet another band for the chip makers to incorporate and not to mention additional antennas in the phones to support 900 Mhz which they are not going to do. Until the entire 900 Mhz is repurposed for wireless communication if ever and Sprint, Tmobile, Metro, Leap, etc buy up the 900 Mhz spectrum and deploy LTE on it, I can't see LTE on 900 Mhz any time soon.

Do you guys think there will be a time where the 900 Mhz band will be refarmed for wireless communication use? I know there are some iDEN channels that are being used in the 900 Mhz but what else uses the 900 Mhz band? I am hoping iDEN fades away within the next 2-3 years and hopefully the FCC can look at refarming this nice spectrum for wireless use.

The $10 goes to Sprint but then $7 goes to Clear if you use the 4G service. So in essence Sprint is getting an extra $3 from you if you have a 4G smartphone and live in an area that has Wimax. Obviously Clear can't be charging Sprint the $7 if Wimax is not in that area. However for iPhone users and smartphone non-SERO customers, Sprint is getting an extra $10 from you which I am hoping is funneled back into the Network Vision project. I think the $10 premium data charge is high enough. The last thing I want to see is Sprint tacking on another ridiculous fee after LTE is deployed which would get customers very mad including myself.

I think prepaid LTE can work in the future but not now. The focus for Sprint should be to retain and gain new customers for postpaid. Sprint currently does not have enough capacity with just a 5x5 block to support both prepaid and postpaid customers. Heck I think it might even work out for Sprint to starve the prepaid market without LTE so that they might even convert to postpaid just so they can get the speed. Once Sprint has enough capacity then they can start to talk about prepaid LTE which hopefully is not until 2016.

I think Philly is coming up soon. I can't see Sprint skipping on Philly when it is one of the biggest cities in the east coast let alone in the US. It is the 5th largest city in the US by population.

Bay leaf

Its about time that AT&T do the smart thing a boot all 2G customers to free up additional spectrum for LTE instead of trying to hoard spectrum. There is absolutely no reason to have customers still on 2G customers. I am so glad that Sprint is finally giving the boot to all iDEN customers. There is absolutely no reason to have iDEN anymore.

Guilty as charge. I thought about leaving Sprint last year when I heard the Droid Bionic was coming out around May 2011. Since it got delayed until Sept 2011 and unlimited data ended in July 2011, I ended up sticking with Sprint. Since I was on the SERO plan, I had to research a lot on why I should stay with Sprint with their horrendous 3G speeds and as a result I learned a lot about Network Vision and about the trends in wireless technology. If Network Vision pans out like Sprint is hyping it up to be, then I don't regret my decision at all since I wouldn't be here with this community and not to mention all the spectrum jargon that I have picked up from reading forums. From time to time, I'll look at Verizon plans still because I never want to say I wouldn't consider moving onto another provider so I want to see what it would cost me if I did.

It always made sense to me that Sprint should deploy DO-Advanced when upgrading NV because unlike Rev A or B which are focused on multi-carrier and speed, the DO-Advanced software is more of an network efficiency and maintenance upgrade to allow congested EVDO sites to offload traffic to nearby EVDO sites to create a balanced traffic load on towers. I really hope this is true and if so, I believe that Sprint will be the only carrier to implement DO-Advanced in the US.