Sprint to Have Larger LTE Footprint than CDMA in 2013

Their network setup had already sounded like such a mess and now it seems like its going to be a bigger mess. LOL

 

I am very skeptical about anything Sprint says right. I also read that they need to borrow 5 billion from someone because they spent so much on the iPhone. Then there is the fact that they are just now rolling out fiber and ethernet to their 3G sites, and they are spending money to take down iDen. They don't have the money or man power to make that happen.

 

Yeah, it kind of makes one wonder how Sprint is even still around. LOL

 

I'm not skeptical about them doing what they plan but whether or not they can do it by 2013 is another story. Decommissioning the old iden sites and many redundant towers is not going to be easy and will take a number of years to complete.

 

In my opinion, I think what they are attempting to do is very difficult, and their time table is insane. I would bet they are off by 2 years.

 

I also think the timetable is insane. I'm just wondering if they had been planning this for so long and preparing for it just as long which would allow them to get the necessary resources in line to do it all by 2013.

 

I wish them the best because they will be the only national competitor to the AT&T/Verizon duopoly after the disappearance of T-Mobile. Larry, what are they replacing their iDEN network with? I thought they were using it for the walkie-talkie service.

RadioRaiders, I think Sprint LTE will be at 700Mhz instead of 800Mhz.

 

I know it wasn't directed at me but, I didn't realize Sprint had 700MHz licenses. I thought they would be using their 800MHz spectrum.

 

They are running IDEN at 800Mhz so they would have to decomission iDEN before they install LTE on that spectrum. Another problem I see is that the IDEN spectrum is broken up in several pieces so it can't be used with LTE which requires continuous 5Mhz channels. Remember how years ago Nextel had interference problems with emergency responder radios? That will be a problem if LTE is installed there, unless things have changed. Sprint doesn't have 800Mhz spectrum that I know of other than the Nextel spectrum, so I don't know how they are doing LTE at 800Mhz. I thought RadioRaiders was referring to 700Mhz which I am not sure if Sprint has. Sorry for the confusion.

Anyway, this article answered some of my questions: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/10/10/sprints-4g-strategy-raises-more-questions-than-ans/

 

Sprint will use the 800 Mhz for voice and eventually CDMA will be phased out. LTE will be on 1900 Mhz G block. They have plans to use some of the 800 Mhz for LTE advanced.

Voice call continuity (VCC) technology will be used too. VCC will allow voice calls to move between CDMA, LTE and Wi-Fi networks without interruption.

The plan is to reduce the number of cell sites from 66,000 to 46,000 which will save a lot of money.