Currently, Sprint/Nextel/Clear has three different protocols on three different spectrum bands distibuted on 82,000 towers. By comparison, Verizon and AT&T have about 40,000 towers each. Network Vision will reduce the number of towers to around 45,000 to 50,000 towers, while setting up the remaining towers to handle all three spectrum bands (800 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 2.5 GHz) and any protocol (CDMA, Wimax, LTE, etc). This will provide Sprint with substantial savings in maintenance costs.
Customers will have much better coverage and building penetration whether they are on CDMA, Wimax, LTE, or whatever the future holds.
In addition, instead of running a hardware-based network, Network Vision is a software-based network, allowing centralized deployment of technology updates instead of a technician having to visit each tower to update the hardware.
Beginning September 2011, all new Sprint phones will will contain a multimode chip so that they can connect to all supported frequencies bands and protocols of the future multimode cell sites.
Beginning October 2011, Sprint is introducing CDMA Push-To-Talk. If you were around a few years ago, you might remember what a mess Sprint's fist attempt was. Sprint has since spent considerable resources to make sure that this time CDMA PTT works as well as iDEN PTT, the gold standard of Push-To-Talk technology. This is critical as Sprint plans to completely remove the iDEN protocol by the end of 2013.
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