New York, Pennsylvania, Boston hit by Sprint network outage
Sprint customers in the Northeast on Monday reported a network outage impacting LTE services. Reports of network problems began Monday morning; Sprint says the problems were resolved by 2:20 p.m.
“Earlier today some Sprint customers in parts of New York City, Long Island, Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Connecticut and Providence experienced intermittent degradation in voice and data service,” the carrier noted in a statement. “Service was fully restored at 2:20 PM CT. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.”
The Twitter handles @sprintcare and @sprintnews updated the situation throughout the day.
On March 25, the carrier experienced a disruption in text messaging services.
In January, Re/Code published a report indicating Sprint plans to re-architect its network away from its current reliance on traditional cell tower companies and backhaul suppliers and instead focus on tapping “government-owned properties” and microwave backhaul solutions. The moves are expected to save the carrier up to $1 billion per year in operating expense, or less than half of the $2.5 billion in annual operating expense the carrier previously said it was looking to trim.
The report claims the service provider is expected to move on the network plan, known as the Next Generation Network initiative, by mid-year. Meanwhile, the carrier recently moved forward with its latest job cuts that are expected to cost the company $150 million in related expenses.
As part of the reported network program, Sprint will rely on equipment vendor Mobilitie, which focuses on small cell technologies. The move is said to come at the expense of traditional cell tower vendors American Tower and Crown Castle. Also said to be impacted is the current reliance on fiber-based backhaul, which will instead focus on using microwave technology similar to what was used by Clearwire.
