Sprint Plans Aggressive LTE Rollout, Network Upgrade
Sprint will begin a rapid national rollout of LTE on its 1900 MHz spectrum and launch its LTE markets by mid-2012, executives said during an investor briefing Friday. The company expects to complete its Network Vision, the carrier’s plan to consolidate multiple networks into one, by the end of 2013, two years sooner than originally scheduled, they said.
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Sprint will aggressively roll out LTE and expects to complete the buildout by 2013, said Steve Elfman, Sprint’s president of network operations and wholesale. The company will cover 176 million POPs with 4G, including 123 million LTE POPs, 120 million WiMAX POPs and 67 million POPs that will overlap, said Bob Azzi, Sprint’s senior vice president of networks. Initial deployment will be in the G-Block of the 1900 MHz band, which will be combined with other 1900 MHz spectrum for further deployment, according to Azzi. Sprint plans to deploy CDMA voice service in its 800 MHz spectrum and move CDMA traffic off its 1900 MHz spectrum. As planned, the carrier has been migrating customers off the iDEN network in the expectation that it will turn off iDEN service in mid-2013, executives said.
Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer said the company plans to spend around $10 billion total in 2012 and 2013 on deploying Network Vision and LTE, as well as maintaining its legacy wireline and wireless operations. Sprint could save $10 billion to $11 billion in operating expenses and capital expenditures from 2011 to 2017, including $4 billion from shutting down iDEN service, he said.
Sprint will partner with Qualcomm on multi-mode chipsets for its new LTE devices, expected to be launched mid-2012, executives said. The devices include smartphones, tablets and data cards, said Fared Adib, vice president of product development. The company will continue to sell WiMAX devices throughout 2012, he said. Motorola will also make LTE devices for Sprint, according to a video message by Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha delivered to the conference. Regarding iPhone, which Sprint is carrying for the first time, CEO Dan Hesse said the device would be one of the company’s most profitable devices, despite iPhone’s higher subsidies per handset. The carrier will launch iPhone devices, including the latest model iPhone 4S on October 14 with pre-orders started Friday.
Sprint might seek to get access to LightSquared’s 1.6 GHz L-Band spectrum, Elfman said. The companies recently signed a nine-year $15 billion network hosting agreement. But Elfman noted the FCC’s still reviewing LightSquared’s network plan. Regarding Clearwire, of which Sprint is a majority shareholder, Euteneuer said Clearwire remains a strategic partner. Regarding the potential Clearwire bankruptcy, Hesse expects Sprint to be involved. But he was quick to note that Sprint doesn’t have insight into Clearwire’s finances and that no wireless bankruptcy has ever resulted in customers losing service. Sprint executives noted the Sprint/Clearwire wholesale relationship runs through the end of 2012.
Clearwire, which reportedly is having financial difficulties, said Sprint remains dependent on Clearwire for 4G and nothing about Sprint’s Friday announcement changes that, said a spokesman. Even with Sprint’s reallocation of existing spectrum, “it’s obvious that their spectrum resources are insufficient to meet the long term demands of mobile data,” the spokesman said. But spectrum shortage is not unique to Sprint, he said. Data capacity would stress the capabilities of the low capacity 4G deployments of other carriers due to spectrum constraints, he said. Clearwire is working globally with other carriers like China Mobile to develop LTE technology, he said.