Sprint migration to LTE

[bchildress]

As Sprint and Clearwire are starting to talk about LTE migration in tech circles and a broader announcement is expected soon. Anyone know if EVO 4G or EVO 3D could have a upgrade to allow them to switch from Wimax or is it going to be a limited ride here?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...E-Plans-114087

[svargas05]

Originally Posted by bchildress

As Sprint and Clearwire are starting to talk about LTE migration in tech circles and a broader announcement is expected soon. Anyone know if EVO 4G or EVO 3D could have a upgrade to allow them to switch from Wimax or is it going to be a limited ride here?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...E-Plans-114087

Considering the hardware/antenna upgrade that would need to take place to support LTE, I doubt that neither the Evo 3D/Evo 4G will support LTE.

It'd be nice if they could just make a minor adjustment to allow that, but I believe it would have to be resubmitted to FCC and all that type of stuff....

They may release devices that are both WiMax/LTE compatible but we're 1-2 years off from that.

[grizgza]

svargas05 is correct. We won't be able to connect to a future LTE network with our current EVO 4G's or EVO 3D's. I think it sounds like Wimax will be a limited time run, but I'm not too worried about it happening before my 2yr contract is up on the new EVO 3D after I buy it in few weeks. It's not factoring into my decision to buy at this point.

[cechoi]

From what I've read on another forum, the 2 technologies aren't all that different from one another and it could be possible to make the change by an over the air update.

THAT being said....
I'm no expert on this, so I (and the guy who's answer I originally saw) could be wrong.

[CCallahan]

There have been tons of discussions on other forums about this. Talk that Sprint is actually going to move to "Wimax 2" which is supposed to be a lot faster than LTE.

Seems to be a lot of rumors floating around at the moment. I think just having standard Wimax in most areas would be a good start for Sprint. The technology still has a long way to go.

[DrizzyGadget]

I wish I had WiMax 4G service at all. And I live in a 4G city. But I welcome any upgrades to improve speed and coverage. Hopefully it will be an easy transition.

The other point though is that Sprint's contract with Clearwire is supposedly almost up, and Sprint is in talks with LightSquared to launch an LTE network. So Im not sure if Sprint is planning on WiMax 2, or LightSquared LTE, but LS looks like the better option imo. $20 Billion is hard to turn down.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/02/l...lion-lte-agre/

[ckholladay21]

I agree with Ccallahan. Sprint's Wimax coverage needs to be brought up to snuff before they venture off on Wimax 2. Unless, it would be a large scale roll out dwarfing the original wimax and improving the service and overall coverage.

[dcfella]

I'm in an area where Wimax is almost everywhere. The problem with Wimax is that when you go inside a building, reception for 4g goes to hell. It either gets no signal, or the signal disconnects and reconnects constantly.

[mevensen]

Too many reports to know what's credible. I have heard that Sprint will run concurrent WiMax and LTE in transition. I doubt that Sprint will make quick transition, unless they work out a roaming agreement with Verizon (i.e. expand the current roaming to include LTE data as well). I don't know that that will happen without a price increase to our plans.

I've been a little concerned about the chance that this phone will not only be "right" for jsut one year, but also that its resale will be hampered by limited access to a waning WiMax technology market/coverage. That being said, there's no real other choice is you're upgrading this year...

[tinhoy]

The poor penetration has to do with the frequency the service is using....somewhere around the 2.5GHz range. Verizon's LTE runs on the 700MHz spectrum, so gets much better penetration.

Don't know if switching from WiMax to LTE while still using the same 2.5GHz spectrum would provide much improvement.

[svargas05]

Since we're talking rumors, the most solid one's I've heard that go in accordance to Sprint future multi-modal towers are LTE will be taking the bandwidth of Sprint's iDen network, which is perfect for building penetration and no interference.

WiMax2 is A LOT faster than WiMax or LTE, but dont forget LTE Advanced is faster than all of the above.

I have not heard of Sprint moving to WiMax2 at all; especially since I think it'd be a massive overhaul of their systems. LTE would be the smoothest, time effecttive resolution.

[RonD]

Would a SIM card be a requirement for LTE? Or in other words can a phone without a SIM card be used on LTE?

[killabee44]

Originally Posted by mevensen

Too many reports to know what's credible. I have heard that Sprint will run concurrent WiMax and LTE in transition. I doubt that Sprint will make quick transition, unless they work out a roaming agreement with Verizon (i.e. expand the current roaming to include LTE data as well). I don't know that that will happen without a price increase to our plans.

I've been a little concerned about the chance that this phone will not only be "right" for jsut one year, but also that its resale will be hampered by limited access to a waning WiMax technology market/coverage. That being said, there's no real other choice is you're upgrading this year...

That's what Im also hearing and makes the most sense. I figure they are gonna do what they did with the Nextel devices and run both networks at the same time until they can phase out all the Wimax devices.

Im sure both networks will run concurrently for maybe 2-3 years (maybe more). Not to worry. Otherwise, Sprint would have a whole lot of pissed customers. Also a phone swap would be too costly.

[tinhoy]

Originally Posted by killabee44

That's what Im also hearing and makes the most sense. I figure they are gonna do what they did with the Nextel devices and run both networks at the same time until they can phase out all the Wimax devices.

Im sure both networks will run concurrently for maybe 2-3 years (maybe more). Not to worry. Otherwise, Sprint would have a whole lot of pissed customers. Also a phone swap would be too costly.

Any guess on likelyhood that the phones during the transition would do both WiMax and LTE? Would doing so make handsets too expensive?

[mevensen]

Originally Posted by tinhoy

Any guess on likelyhood that the phones during the transition would do both WiMax and LTE? Would doing so make handsets too expensive?

Not necessarily too expensive. There already is the concept of the "world phone", which I believe has both radio types available. I remember seeing something a while back about the more recent iPhone 4s having a chip with the potential to access multiple radio protocols. Probably more expensive than a single radio setup, but I think probably feasible.