That's what I was thinking and what had me confused. Why not just keep rolling out wimax in addition to lte instead of adding another separate technology?
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Sprint is not rolling out HSPA+. Sprint never rolled out Wimax either, Clear did. Let me explain the Sprint Network Vision project:
Sprint is replacing almost every single piece of the network...every single tower. Sprint places the new multimode panels on the tower. They can even independently control the downtilt(coverage area) of the three antennas inside each panel from thousands of miles away. The RRU (Remote Radio Units) are placed right behind the panels instead of the radios being on the ground and incurring coax cable signal losses. Some documents/tests are saying this has a 15%-20% gain on signal. Depending on the age of the tower the panels are higher gain panels as well, further increasing coverage. All new cabinets are placed on the ground for the new routing equipment and backhaul. Once the new equipment has been tested and accepted by Sprint, the crew comes back and takes down the old legacy panels, cables, and removes the old cabinets. It's an ENTIRE swap out of the equipment at the tower. Brand new everything for the 2G, 3G and 4G LTE network on the tower. It's not just a bolt-on LTE panel and radio on an existing tower like Verizon is doing.
So what does the equipment consist of? 4G LTE by Sprint for Sprint (not leased Wimax from Clear) in the PCS G block 1900mhz. 1xAdvanced over the previous 1x for voice and text (increased capacity and also allows for HD voice calls), this is in their previous PCS license. 3G EVDO for existing handsets in their PCS license. 1xAdvanced carrier in the 800SMR frequency along-side the Nextel iDen network traffic. The 800 SMR frequency is not the 850mhz band as Apple incorrectly calls. Many phones on the Sprint network from the past year or so support this 800SMR CDMA 1XA, the iPhone does not though. The 800SMR air interface allows for increased coverage and increase building penetration. Since the 800mhz interface is being deployed on the original 1900mhz tower spacing plan it offers even greater building penetration.
Every tower(a few exceptions where redundant capacity is not needed yet) on the network is receiving the LTE "radios". The coverage should be very similar to the 3G coverage they have today. Users performing streaming video or other data transfers will have a seamless hand-off from 4G to 3G if the next cell has not been upgraded yet.
In 2013, the iDen network will be shutdown further freeing up the rest of the 800SMR band. Sprint will then deploy LTE in the 800SMR band on the same towers spaced for 1900mhz offering great indoor coverage and also extended the coverage. As needed Sprint will have room to add additional LTE channels to their PCS band, or even remove no-longer needed EVDO channels and swap them for LTE ones as users swap out their handsets.
Since Sprint is using brand new software based radios that can be upgraded/changed remotely to the various air interfaces, they can also upgrade their network to LTE Advanced remotely unlike some other carriers.
Also in the cards since Clear is upgrading the Wimax network to LTE, Sprint will have handsets that will also use the Clear 2600mhz LTE network in areas where capacity is needed. It will be seamless to the user.
It's a big job to rebuild the network from the ground-up but Sprint is doing it at a very fast pace.
