Sprint's Spectrum for LTE in the PCS Band December 13, 2016 20:46

In this blog post I am going to explore how Sprint can configure their PCS spectrum for LTE using Allnet Insights' Mobile Carrier Spectrum Ownership Analysis Tool.  As a review Sprint's initial LTE deployment utilized a 5 MHz PCS G Block channel.  In the map below I have determined the maximum channel size for spectrum that is contiguous with Sprint's initial LTE channel.  In Seattle, Sprint can expand their initial channel to a 10MHz LTE channel while in Las Vegas Sprint can expand their initial channel to a 20MHz channel.

Looking at the Las Vegas market area with Allnet Insights' Spectrum Grid Module, you can see the specific channels Sprint controls in each county.  For Clark County, Sprint controls all of the C block channels along with the G block.  Unfortunately for Sprint, they can't use the entire 20MHz for LTE since they still need PCS spectrum for their CDMA voice service.  In Esmeralda County Sprint has 15MHz of spectrum including the G block that should be configured for LTE with 10MHz of the A block channels available for CDMA voice.

The map below details the largest channel size of PCS spectrum that Sprint controls aside from the spectrum contiguous with the G block.  This is the spectrum that can be shared with CDMA voice and could also be deployed in Sprint's FDD-LTE carrier aggregation scheme.