ericdabbs

I want Sprint to wait until the guinea pigs in Verizon and AT&T to test out VoLTE first to iron out the kinks before Sprint makes that leap. CDMA 1xAdvanced should last for a while because of all the efficiencies that have been made from CDMA 1x2000. What I am curious about is the amount of data traffic that it will take for both voice, text, and data all on LTE. I think Sprint can take some lessons learned when Verizon and AT&T deploy it.

OMG when is Detroit getting Network Vision????!?!?! =) Can't wait to see tonight's bonus market.

Totally agree with you. I stopped posting on SU on a regular basis because I was tired of arguing with kids and the endless threads about "slow data speeds", "ive lost my ridiculous cheap discount 24/20 and threatening to leave", "Ive been a customer for 15 years and they took away my precious $20/mo plan" (even though there is no way to prove that) and the list goes on and on. It just seems like SU has turned into an anti-sprint site and I can tell even the moderators over there are joining in on the complaining which is pretty annoying. I feel that over here in S4GRU, the community is a lot friendlier and the posters here are very intelligent are very open minded. I like having the debates and discussions.

Well unfortunately I think its too late for Sprint to change up their equipment for Network Vision. I think a few reasons for this. 1) We don't know the availability of this product. Is it currently being massed produced or is it still in testing phase? 2) Sprint can't just throw in new equipment up on its NV towers without during thorough testing within the labs. I am sure it took months and months of internal testing in different scenarios to get it to where they want it to be with each vendor. 3) The product sounds good in theory (lower power consumption, less space needed to install equipment) but we don't know if the product performance is more optimal than having antennas and RUUs separate. Its very new technology and I am sure it will improve over time. I think its great that Tmobile is being the test dummy for this equipment and hope their "Network Vision" project goes well.

Any news on what was talked about at MWC?

Clearwire will not convert each tower to LTE initially. They said in their Q4 CC that they plan to launch 5000 towers with LTE by June 2013 and if all goes well, then another 3000 towers will be added with LTE shortly for a total of 8000 towers Clearwire has about 16000 towers throughout the country so even by end of 2013, only half of the towers will have the LTE overlay. Of course this is their current plan based on the finances that they have. If Clearwire can get some major customer and minor customers from Lightsquared then things may change and they can cover all 16000 towers with LTE. 16000 towers is obviously not enough especially with 2.5 Ghz to deploy enough coverage nationwide and that is a problem Clearwire will have to deal with for future growth.

Interesting. Im glad Im wrong btw =). I was just under the assumption that all the vendors including A/L have west coast crews and east coast crews. So I assumed all of the west coast crews are working on LA to get that up ASAP and then move onto the other west coast markets but if that is not true I am more relieved. I figured that the east coast crews would stay in the east coast and start on the remaining east coast markets since there are still a ton of them. I really hope that A/L deploys more crews in the west coast to get started in San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

I would much rather use the 2 billion to help accelerate NV and hire more crews for each of the vendors particularly A/L and Samsung. NV appears to be slow right now because Sprint is focusing on all the large markets first. Once these are done It will be interesting to see how quickly NV progresses once they move onto the secondary markets.

A/L should move onto San Diego and Phoenix after LA is done. However I don't think that San Diego will be started by September though. I see them starting San Diego at the beginning of 2013.

What time is the chat tonight?

Rey. Stay tuned!!! The first market of the second round of NV deployments will be announced tomorrow. Check every Mon, Wed, and Fri to see if Detroit is on the list.

Would it help if Sprint kept some of the Nextel towers and converted them to NV to fill in those gaps? I am not familiar with the Sprint tower layout in BR.

I hope Hesse gives an update on Network Vision progress along with releasing the last 4 markets slated for a June kick off. In addition, I would like to hear more about the iDEN thinning tower strategy and whether any of those towers will be preserved. I doubt we will hear anything on the LTE device front since the 2 phones and hotspot are enough to salivate over for the time being. I see new LTE devices being announced either at CTIA or sometime in May or June right when the LTE markets go live.

I think we won't be seeing WP7 phones until we see how WP7 fares with LTE and the demand on other carriers. AT&T seems to be the leader in ushering in new WP7 LTE phones and it will be interesting to see the demand and performance of these phones. Based on the reaction from tech analysts and enthusiasts from the Nokia WP7 phones from CES it looks to be promising. I am sure Sprint will be monitoring AT&T to see the market for WP7 phones. If the demand is there, I can see Sprint launching a WP7 phone either late this year or early next year. For now Sprint is focusing on the iPhone and Android phones with LTE.

I wouldn't buy Clearwire at this point. Their balance sheet is a mess and if Sprint bought Clearwire then their spectrum portfolio would be more than Verizon and AT&T. You can say goodbye to participating in any future FCC spectrum auctions and not to mention that they'll probably need to divest some of that spectrum anyway. Besides Sprint has no money to acquire new companies. Sprint needs to still acquire some more favorable spectrum which better building penetration. 2.5 Ghz is nice for capacity but since they don't have a full LTE network up yet, capacity is a not a problem. Down the road when both Clearwire and Sprint improve their balance sheets, they can both come back to the table and negotiate a potential buyout of Clearwire.

I am so happy that the LA market is getting NV. I was worried that my area was not getting covered by the LA Metro market but I live near Rowland Heights which turns out to be at the edge of the LA Metro market on the map.

The timing of the attempted MetroPCS purchase was just not right. I am not sure if Sprint has the luxury of exploring possible acquisitions at this point and diverting focus from Network Vision and possible additional funding of Clearwire. Either way I think a purchase of Leap Wireless would make more sense than MetroPCS.

I would think that Sprint will switch to a combination of fiber/microwave backhaul after NV is complete. There is no purpose of keeping T1 lines when fiber/microwave backhaul is present.

If they have exactly 40 Mhz, how can they deploy two 10x10 LTE configurations? Don't they need some guard band on both sides for the adjacent PCS and AWS spectrum blocks? The most I can see them do is a 10x10, 5x5 and a 3x3 if they wanted to max out their spectrum or just a 10x10 and 5x5. I really hope that Dish can get approval by the FCC to build out LTE without GPS interference because if it gets denied, it becomes another 40 Mhz of wasted spectrum. I really hope that if Dish gets FCC approval that they work with Sprint on a network hosting deal to bring Sprint more revenue. It just makes too much sense not to go that route.

Interesting article that provides more details of Tmobile's LTE plans with some nice pictures of their antennas with integrated radios. http://www.extremete...market-by-storm

Definitely times have changed in the wireless world where data demand has surged tremendously because of the smartphone and carriers are in huge need for spectrum. I am not sure which year Sprint cashed out of SpectrumCo but at the time I am sure Sprint was thinking that they didn't anticipate that they would ever have a need for AWS spectrum since their operations are in the PCS band and their cell towers at the time were ancient that they knew it could not handle it. Heck I don't even think that the current Sprint towers before NV would be able to handle CDMA at 800 Mhz. However I believe that once NV was announced and the fact that one of the key benefits of its multimodal towers is the ability to host different spectrum bands which includes hosting AWS spectrum. Of course Sprint has been in dire straits financially for the last couple years and couldn't afford to buy out the AWS spectrum from Spectrum Co. I would have to think that looking back in hindsight that Sprint regrets selling its partnership stake in Spectrum Co knowing now that having additional spectrum is so key for the wireless industry and the fact that they will need to hunt for additional spectrum in 2014. It would have been nice to have AWS spectrum as the ace in the sleeve. This is just my opinion. I didn't know that MetroPCS had 700 Mhz spectrum but from looking at the chart its pretty useless since its only in 4 markets and don't really care for 700 Mhz that much. It wouldn't have been worth the time for Sprint to try to integrate 700 Mhz if the merger went through. I really like the spectrum chart that you have put up comparing MetroPCS and Leap. After looking at the chart, I think I am glad the MetroPCS deal did not go through. Leap Wireless seems to have better spectrum holdings in both the PCS and AWS spectrum than MetroPCS. I think Sprint should try to go for a Leap Wireless merger sometime in the future.

That kinda sucks. I was hoping it could do at least a 15 Mhz x 15 Mhz configuration. Could they do a 10 Mhz x 10 Mhz carrier and a 5 Mhz x 5 Mhz secondary carrier?

Deal is reportedly dead. I am not so sure this was in the best interest of Sprint shareholders. The only thing I care about is what spectrum holdings does MetroPCS have? I believe they have some AWS spectrum which would have been a nice introduction for Sprint to get into that spectrum band. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/sprint-deal-for-metropcs-said-to-have-collapsed/

Looking at the map, I was very surprised that NV was not stretched out farther on Long Island. I am looking at the Oct 7th presentation slides and for New York they showed most if not all of Long Island would get NV. Any insight on that? Does Sprint plan to come back to these huge markets and expand their NV in this example farther out on Long Island?

This is getting scary. If there is likely only 1 A/L market that has yet to begin construction in 2012, I would have to think its Los Angeles since its the only remaining big market that hasn't been announced yet. Los Angeles is going to take a long time to build out even if it isn't completed by end of 2012. I guess we will see on Monday.