Sprint has been going through hard economic problems as of late. They decided in a surprising move to skip the 2016 low-frequency airwave auctions, citing reasons that the extra expenditure might not be beneficial for the company’s future. Moody’s rating has also dropped, indicating a lack of confidence in the company’s ability to make a comeback. But that has not deterred the company from taking on ambitious projects and seeing them through, with the significant progress that puts them in a better position than their immediate competitors.
The carrier has announced plans to enable 4G LTE service in 279 underground New York City subway stations and has set a deadline of 2017 for the completion of the project. For the record, there is a total of 468 stations in the systems, with some of them above the ground where cell service is available. The main problems faced by users are in the subway, and considering the time people spend in transit, this was a much-needed service. All four major carriers are participating in this project, namely Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Sprint is also one of the only two carriers to deploy 4G LTE connectivity in New York Subway System, one of the world’s oldest, and highest traffic, rapid transit metro systems. Sprint is projecting the service to allow six million riders across Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx to connect to the network.
Sprint has plans to deploy the 1.9 GHz and 800 MHz spectrum in each station, with the 2.5 GHz spectrum being used only in selected high-traffic locations in Midtown and Queens to allow even faster speeds in those areas. Sprint sounds proud to acknowledge that it is the leader in the mass network project, surpassing the big players in the field. According to Transit Wireless, the total station count connected by Sprint comes up to 83, more than what any other carrier has accomplished. Sprint boasts of a talented team on the ground which was the reason for this success. Transit Wireless’ CEO William Bayne Jr. also commented that he was proud of Sprint as they had started working on the project relatively late, and still managed a comeback to surpass all other carriers in terms of success.