ORLANDO, Fla. – Bob Azzi, SVP of Networks at Sprint Nextel, outlined the carrier’s network vision program today at the RCA Spring Expo. Azzi said the company is working with equipment vendors Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung to create a LTE network based on multimodal equipment with a significantly smaller footprint than that of the carrier’s current equipmnet. Azzi said that when the network upgrade is complete, Sprint Nextel will have approximately 38,000 cell sites, versus 68,000 today.
Sprint Nextel will be adding LTE service in the 800 MHz spectrum band, pending FCC approval, and it will rely on broadband wholesaler Clearwire to offload traffic. Azzi said that Clearwire, which is majority-owned by Sprint Nextel, does not have the best bandwidth for LTE but it does offer capacity. “Clearwire has 2.5 GHz spectrum and it has a lot bandwidth so we can offload at our most busy sites to the Clearwire network as we need it,” Azzi said.
Azzi also said that WiMAX had been a good way for Sprint Nextel to begin offering 4G service, because it was available first, but that going forward the carrier will not release any new WiMAX handsets.
Azzi said that the majority of Sprint Nextel’s network will be updated by 2013. He said that LTE is by no means the carrier’s only focus. “We did decide to reinvest in 3G,” he said. “We believe CDMA will be around for a while. The iconic device is still a 3G device. So we believed it was important to deliver 3G improvements as well while we’re doing the upgrade.”
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