Sprint Crows about its Backhaul, made possible in part by the efforts of L&W's Steve Hill and Shane Dickson

Because of the efforts of L&W's Steve Hill and Shane Dickson, Sprint is telling the world about its backhaul network.  Steve and Shane are of course part of Alcatel Lucent's design team that is planning and helping deliver this network for Sprint.  

L&W has been a part of the Alcatel Lucent team for a couple years now and we are very proud of our team members and their contributions to both Alcatel's and Sprint's success.  Nice work guys!

Marc

Sprint: Ethernet backhaul gives us 20 times more bandwidth

By Sue Marek

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Sprint Nextel's (NYSE:S) upgrade of its backhaul network from T1s to Ethernet will create such better efficiency for the company that it will reduce the cost of delivering data, even as consumer demand for data skyrockets. In fact, making the switch to Ethernet backhaul will give Sprint 20 times the bandwidth capacity at a cell site location, said a Sprint executive. Speaking at the Pacific Crest Global Technology Leadership conference earlier this week in Vail, Colo., Sprint Nextel's Vice President of Strategic ProgramsMarty Nevshemal said that one of the goals of the company's Network Vision network modernization plan is to lower the cost of delivering data. As an example, Nevshemal  said that the company might pay $1,500 per month for T1 backhaul at a tower site. That T1 might deliver 4.5 MB of backhaul capacity. When Sprint switches to Ethernet, Nevshemal said that for the same price of $1,500 per month, Sprint will get almost 20 times the backhaul bandwidth at that location. "Your unit cost for that part of the network--the backhaul--is 95 percent cheaper to put a bit of data through that backhaul. That is Network Vision," he said.    When asked whether Sprint can continue to offer its $79 per month unlimited data package, Nevshemal said that it's hard for the company to predict whether it will be able to offer unlimited data to customers indefinitely because it depends on how much data consumers will use--U.S. operators have seen data usage skyrocket as consumers rapidly upgrade to smartphones and those smartphones become more sophisticated in their capabilities. Sprint made headlines last month when an executive said that the company expects to offer unlimited data service for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) LTE-compatible iPhone 5 when it comes out this fall--that is, if the rumored iPhone 5 actually launches and if Sprint gets it. Interestingly, Nevshemal also said that the company will likely accelerate its launch of LTE markets in the fourth quarter. He said the carrier will have around 25 markets equipped with LTE by year-end. In mid-July, Sprint launched LTE in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio. He said that Sprint will begin notifying customers of the impending LTE launch in a market about 30 days in advance of the service being commercially available.

You didn't build that!

Those of you know me, realize that I am never politically correct, nor reserved about my opinions.  Those of you who know me will also already know that I have ZERO respect for President Barack Hussein Obama.  And my lack of respect has nothing to do with his questionable citizenship, it has to do with his attitude that America is somehow the aggressor in the world and that we owe the world an apology for our success.

So it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am livid about the President’s statement at a campaign rally in Roanoke, Va. on July 13^th when he was off teleprompter and in his full class warfare mode and enthusiastically blurted out, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen!” 

Here is a man who appeared out of nowhere in 2004 when he made a speech at the Democratic Convention. The only job he has ever had other than that as a paid politico is that of a community organizer, aka an agitator.  He has lived his entire life off of other people’s money.  As best anyone can tell, he has been a ward of the State living off of your and my tax dollars for his entire adult life.  Yet he dares to tell businessmen that we have had nothing to do with building our business and that if it were not for government, American businesses could not survive!

So after he said that I went back and checked to be sure I had not missed something over the last 40 years!   I mean I even went back to my high school yearbook, The Chieftain, to see if it was really me in that SHS Class of 1968 picture.  It looked like me, it had my name under it, but now I question if I really did graduate. 

So I went on to my 1972 Texas A&M yearbook and looked myself up and by gosh, there I was and my degree says I have an Electrical Engineering degree.  But now I don’t know.  Maybe it was someone from the government that stayed up and studied all those nights to get through A&M. 

Then I went back and looked at the bank note’s I signed in 1979 pledging my personal assets and providing my personal guarantee for the money that I borrowed to start my business and provide the paychecks, and yep, that was my signature and I confirmed there were no government grants or government loans.  And I checked to see if the banks really did have a lien on my assets, and sure enough they do!

But I thought hey everyone tells me that Obama is so brilliant that we common folk just can’t understand him, so I decided to check further,  I went back and looked at all the tax returns both personally and for the business that I filed paying our personal and business taxes from the money we had left over from paying our bankers, our license fees, and our employees.  Yep seemed to be my signature on all those documents.

I looked for pictures and other evidence of government employees who were working with me day and night and while I found lots of pictures of my family and our employees who were working hard, I simply can’t find any evidence that my survivability, so far, can be attributed to anyone from the government.  Hell I can’t even find any evidence that anyone from the government was around when I wanted them to help. 

During the downturn of 2009 (that would be after Mr. Obama took office) I did experience new governmental regulations that made it even harder to survive.  Thanks to the Dodd Frank Act, passed by Mr. Obama and his buddies, the banking relationships most business owners had either vanished or changed significantly.   Government regulations have made it increasing hard to get anything done or finance any expansion. 

So Mr. Obama you are just WRONG, businesses do not exist because of government; businesses exist in SPITE of government!

However Mr. Obama did say something else that night in Roanoke, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.”   And he was right, in my case there were/are great teachers such as Mrs. Welch, Mrs. Brinkman,  Mr. Williford, Mr. Pinkerton, Dr. Linder; great family and friends, Sue Ann my lifelong friend, partner and wife; my parents who made my life easy and convinced me that I could do anything; Jimmy Schoppe who not only let me do everything, he challenged me to do more; Charlie White, a great mentor, friend and partner; Jim & Cindy  Jennings who have been part of my business so long they are now considered family; Walter Hinkle, who came into our business in 2002 when things were really tough and helped me dig my way out; my kids who were always my inspiration and best cheerleaders, and all the wonderful employees who work their butts off everyday to keep our business going.  

So yes Mr. Obama I will give you that, there are always people who have given and continue to give people help along the way, but none of them I know worked for the government!

Marc