ericdabbs

There is going to be a part 3????? Wow!!! I'll be looking forward to your article. How many parts do you anticipate this topic will have?

Great article!!! I guessed it right in the last article that Tmobile would be the network partner of choice. I like your idea of a potential Sprint/Tmobile network sharing deal where Tmobile would lend Sprint its excess PCS spectrum in exchange for future LTE service for their customers since it gives Sprint more spectrum to deploy additional LTE channels and in some cases wider channels. Sprint has been on a partnership frenzy lately and it wouldn't surprise me that this is something that they may consider but of course it will take tons of planning before it comes to fruition. If Sprint were to do a deal like this, I couldn't see this being announced until at least mid 2013 since Sprint wants to make sure that 60-70% of the nation is covered with Network Vision towers so that the project doesn't seem so far fetched for Tmobile. If a deal were to be announced now, it will be useless since Tmobile will still have to wait until Sprint blankets the nation with Network Vision towers. Sprint doesn't need this distraction when their main focus should be to improve the tower infrastructure and user experience first.

Yeah I hope so. I know a lot of Phoenix and San Diego folks have been clamoring about the lack of 4G support even though they are one of the bigger markets in the US. I am hoping that there are truly 22 markets by mid year and that only the Ericsson cities have been announced. Both A/L and Samsung have been quiet on their NV markets. The only Samsung city that is being worked on that I have heard is Chicago.

Can't wait for part 2 of this article...T-Mobile? Great analysis on the spectrum holdings on the major markets. I still believe that Sprint needs to look for more spectrum some time in 2013 whether that is through a spectrum auction OR through a spectrum hosting deal where Sprint has the benefit to use some of that spectrum to bolster its LTE network. One question about your CDMA1x/EVDO analysis about how three 1x carriers and three EVDO carriers take up 17.5 Mhz. How much spectrum do guard bands take? If I do the math (1.25 x 6 = 7.5 Mhz) that would mean that guard bands take up 10 Mhz and this was done on CDMA2000 1x? Also we have to keep in mind that 1x Advanced for voice will be more spectral efficient and support a larger capacity. This would definitely mean that the same number of 1xAdvanced carriers would take up less spectrum and support more customers. Once 1x Advanced can be put on 800 Mhz that would free up more 1900 Mhz spectrum since Sprint can put 2 1xAdvanced voice carriers on 800 Mhz. EDIT: One last observation is that I noticed your spreadsheet has nothing filled out for the F block. Does this mean that Sprint doesn't have any F block spectrum in any markets or are the smaller markets using the F block?

I was a bit disappointed in the lack of Network Vision questions during the Q&A session in this conference call. I know the conference call is geared towards the analysts who only care about the financials but it would have been nice if some of them would ask some Network Vision questions. Hopefully the 2012 Q1 conference call would share more color on how Network Vision is doing. I am very curious to find out what these last 4 LTE markets are. It seems like all the initial LTE markets are in the midwest to east coast markets. I hope the west coast gets some loving with the last 4 LTE markets.

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 30 January 2012 I hope this does not happen. I would love to have Sprint have some sort of network hosting revenue deal to take advantage of its new towers now that LS2 is most likely out of the picture. I would hate to have ATT benefit from getting additional spectrum. Their actions with the proposed Tmobile merger have rubbed me the wrong way and the fact that ATT was the first carrier to go to tiered data plans and eliminate all texting options except for $20 unlimited texting for single lines.