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Sprint Nextel's methodical rollout of new cell sites with LTE maynot win the deployment race, but each market that gets the upgradewill see competitive speeds and more complete coverage than othercarriers may offer, executives said Wednesday. At a breakfast briefing for reporters near the CTIA Wirelessconference in New Orleans, Sprint executives voiced confidenceabout their Network Vision project , set to go live in the first half of this year, despite thealready wide reach of Verizon's LTE network and AT&T's ongoingrollout. "We'll start with incomplete coverage, I'll be upfront about that,"said Bob Azzi, Sprint's senior vice president, Network. But in theareas where it carries out Network Vision, Sprint will upgradeevery cell site with both LTE and improved 3G infrastructure, hesaid. Each market that's launched will get 100 percent LTE coveragewithin a matter of months. That's because Network Vision isn't an overlay of LTE on top of anexisting 3G network, but a whole new deployment in which Sprintwill replace existing cell-site equipment, Azzi said. As a result,the nation's third-largest carrier will be ready to deploy the newLTE-Advanced standard, roll out LTE in the far-reaching 800MHz bandpending regulatory approval, and add small cells and Wi-Fi to themix for more capacity, he said. Sprint has said it will launch LTE in six major cities in the firsthalf of this year. Though it won't have as much spectrum as Verizonin its initial rollout, Sprint will match the bigger carrier'ssubscriber experience through its dense deployment and otherefforts, such as steps to provide smooth handoffs between 4G and3G, Azzi said. "We're very confident that this dog will hunt," Azzi said. Sprint's LTE deployment will begin with a pair of 5MHz channels inthe 1.9GHz band, versus Verizon with a pair of 10MHz channels. ButSprint is looking at two other rich sources of spectrum for LTE. Ifit gets approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission,the carrier will be able to use frequencies in the 800MHz bandthrough a software upgrade. That spectrum is now being used for theiDEN service Sprint inherited from Nextel, which is now beingphased out. Later, Sprint will be able to tap into LTE capacity onpartner Clearwire's network, which is set to go commercial earlynext year and will be used to fill in urban areas with high demand. At each Network Vision site, the existing 2G/3G equipment is beingremoved and replaced with new gear that will offer significantlyfaster 3G performance as well as LTE. The project is on track, morethan 700 sites on the air, construction in progress on more than3,000 and zoning completed for about 9,500 sites, according toSprint. Starting fresh on the network, which Sprint is building withEricsson, allowed it to build in support for future technologies,Azzi said. For example, the network architecture is ready toaccommodate small cells that can help to make more efficient use ofspectrum. Sprint already has more than 600,000 femtocells in usenow. It plans to start installing picocells in large indoor venuessuch as stadiums and airports late this year and in early 2013,with picocells to cover outdoor public areas possible later nextyear. The core of the network can also accommodate Wi-Fi, Sprint said.The company has no current plans to deploy Wi-Fi itself, butthird-party public hotspots can help give subscribers capacity. The Network Vision technology is fully tested and ready to gowithout surprises, said Iyad Tarazi, vice president of networkdevelopment and engineering. Sprint's thorough development processtook effort: Engineers had to do 75 releases of software and 23,000test cases, Tarazi said. All of Sprint's radios for its narrowband iDEN service are on trackto be shut down before the end of this year. Sprint is working atshifting over iDEN users to its 3G CDMA network and said it ishappy with progress on that score. The popular push-to-talk featureof iDEN is being replaced by Direct Connect, which runs on 3G andnow matches the original technology in call setup, latency and callsuccess, according to Sprint. The company is also making DirectConnect available as software for integration into third-partyapplications. Sprint's other legacy network, the WiMax service it wholesales fromClearwire, can remain part of its offerings through 2015 or later.WiMax became available on Sprint's prepaid Boost and Virgin Mobileservices this week. Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologiesfor The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia . Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com. I am an expert from ceramicdentallaboratory.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Dental Inlays And Onlays , Dental Zirconia Crowns Manufacturer, IPS e.max,and more.
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