Sprint’s network has been touted, by the company itself, as ‘America’s Newest Network’, and that shows in today’s remarks by Sprint’s new-to-the-quick Marcelo Claure. At a Goldman Sachs Communicopia Conference, Claure was quoted describing the plans of Sprint and its rolling out of their 2.5 Ghz frequency spectrum. He described the company’s plan to unleash the spectrum and towers, but also the fact that it’s different entirely.
Claure has been doing some very new and un-Sprint-like things with Sprint, from testing family plans with twice as much data while not requiring the four devices at initial signing of a contract to setting free some of the people on other carriers with their T-Mobile-esque buying-out of early termination fees. Today, though, the old plan was revealed, and the new one was actually detailed and explained. Let’s get to it.
Previously, the plan for Sprint’s rollout of their 2.5 Ghz spectrum and towers was to turn it on, everywhere, all at once, as always. But Claure clarified that a new plan was in place and to be acted on. The plan now sits at a “more surgical” approach of targeting locations and markets where the Sprint network is highly-congested and clogged with loyal users. The big yellow carrier will be activating and lighting up towers in highly-populated and network-congested areas, such as target and high-usage cities and markets, across the United States. Claure said that the company has 33,000 2.5 Ghz cell towers/sites, and they will use them to enhance and strengthen Sprint’s signature Spark tri-band LTE network in main cities of interest.
What does this mean for us consumers, us Sprint subscribers though? It means that we will have more network to use and take advantage of. The big deal really is that when we are out on the mean streets of some unknown city, we will have more speed on our side when navigating accidentally into the surprisingly delicious Italian restaurant at the back of that very ominous alley with the faulty streetlight at the entrance.
So what else will Marcelo Claure and Sprint accomplish that Sprint might not ever have? Only time will tell that accurately. But the big question is can the big yellow carrier, led by Marcelo Claure, make this new spectrum and tower move work as seamlessly as Claure and the company likely believe it will?