150+ attend Network Vision celebration
Posted 19 November 2013 12:00 AM by Shentel
EDINBURG - More than 150 people attended a celebration at the Shentel Center in Edinburg Nov. 13 in honor of the completion of the two-year, $110 million Network Vision upgrade by Shentel.
Shentel, an affiliate of Sprint, invited partners Alcatel-Lucent and NB+C to the event which was held in the auditorium in the Shentel headquarters. The room featured a display highlighting the technology, the marketing and the handsets, products and services so those in attendance could see how their part contributed to the big picture.
“This is the largest capital project ever undertaken by Shentel in its 111-year history,” said Willy Pirtle, VP Wireless, as he greeted the guests. “This project consisted of replacing all of our 514 base stations with new ALU multimodal base stations, and replacing all of the cable, antenna and adding voice and data capacity. We installed about 145 microwave links and built fiber to about 135 tower sites. We have an entirely new 4G network.”
Customers now have access to 4G LTE data speeds up to 10Mbps to the handset, tablet, PC or wireless hotspot. “In addition, they will see more coverage because we are utilizing the former Nextel spectrum at 800 MHz. So this means more coverage in more places, stronger coverage inside buildings and fewer blocked and dropped calls,” Pirtle said.
Also in attendance were Traci Jovanovic, Sprint VP of National Sales Channels, Raj Surti, VP of LTE Program Management from Alcatel-Lucent and Tom Kane, President of NB+C.
The display was open the previous night for a Chamber of Commerce Business after Hours and employees came to an open house during lunch on Nov. 13.
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