Sprint TD-LTE 2500/2600mhz Discussion

[bucdenny]

I'm sure excited about all this. I can't wait to have a triband phone, but Sprint tells me I will have to wait till June of next year.

 

Maybe a Sprint version of JUMP can get you one!  

[dstar2002]

Hopefully they can get all sites ready to go, so backhaul is the only issue. Things up my way have been real slow. I can go 20 miles north or south to a new market and get LTE, it nothing in northern ct at all. All this news is exciting, but I thought by now every market would have some blips of LTE 1900, 800 and 2500 LTE seem like fantasy in my home area at this point.

 

Going to be exciting. Just wish I could enjoy the fun more with all of you guys.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[ericdabbs]

Yea i always give extra time. I am a mechanic and I have learned to give yourself the extra time so your not finishing up when the customer needs their equipment. Also helps when you run into issues not seen. Instead of having a customer looking at you asking why isn't my truck ready.

 

I agree.  I don't think the nationwide TD-LTE overlay will finish any earlier than end of 2015. Keep in mind that this is for all 38K Sprint sites plus Clearwire's 8,000 sites (not counting the 5,600 colocated Sprint sites) which is not an easy feat.  Even if all Sprint sites have Network Vision cabinets and backhaul ready right now and they began deploying their TD-LTE overlay, there could potentially be other delays such as equipment availability (radios, panels), manpower (installation crews and inspection teams), permitting that are out of Sprint's control which throwing money does not solve.

[ab30494]

I'm sure excited about all this. I can't wait to have a triband phone, but Sprint tells me I will have to wait till June of next year.

its a good think im eliglible for an upgrade in may

[dmaxx67]

I'm gonna have to get my wife to let go of her iPhone 4. It pains me to know she can't utilize the network im paying for.

[Rasta Cheesehead]

This is just my opinion but I really don't believe that every device that Sprint has will eventually be tri band. I expect to see it on the high level and perhaps some of the mid level devices. Additionally, you don't have to have a triband device to passivley benefit from 800 and 2500(offloading).

 

carriers are pushing customers to smart phones. so even the lowest devices i would think would have their primary LTE connection. it would be like leaving out 1900 support on Sprint phones since we know 16 billion will go into 2500 development .. i could see some 1900/2500 devices with no 800 LTE to make them cheaper. but no 2500 i don't see that as i think they will try to push the majority of traffic to that network

[S4GRU]

Samsung TD-LTE RRUs are virtually indistinguishable from their PCS RRUs but pretty sure that pic is of a TD-LTE setup.

 

 

 

 

The biggest thing to distinguish them is that they are connected to Clearwire WiMax panels at the present.  

 

Robert

[koiulpoi]

What "bars"?  SignalCheck Pro provides signal strength figures in dBm units.  No one is disputing the value of that.  But the hoi polloi, who could barely pass high school chemistry, would see those negative sign metrics and emit a collective, "HUH?!"

 

AJ

Now now, AJ, just because upwards of 50% of the human population is of below average intelligence... (or would that be median intelligence? I forget my statistics)

 

Also, you do realize that SignalCheck has an option for "Signal Bars" in its consistent notifications, right?

[WiWavelength]

Now now, AJ, just because upwards of 50% of the human population is of below average intelligence... (or would that be median intelligence? I forget my statistics)

 

If the intelligence "bell curve" is a Gaussian function, then the mean and median should be equivalent.

 

 

AJ

[koiulpoi]

If the intelligence "bell curve" is a Gaussian function, then the mean and median should be equivalent.

 

 

AJ

'struth, but I do not know enough about the actual distribution of intelligence, as to whether or not it actually does follow a bell curve. I would not be surprised if there were odd "pockets" about one standard deviation out. But, we've traveled quite far offtopic, all for the cause of a joke (the joke being, if you're surprised by that fact, you're probably in the bottom half)...

 

So, anyways, we've determined that the WiMAX 2.5 GHz antennas/panels are being used for the TD-LTE rollout, yes? Does the work require entirely new "cabinets", or is it just RRUs and carrier cards? Or something else entirely? Basically, I'm attempting to ask "how difficult will it be to add TD-LTE to WiMAX sites?"

[gnoj]

They said today that all devices in 2014 will be triband and that a few smartphones in Fall 2013 will have it.

 

Robert

 

Really, all devices? Even flip/feature phones? I'd love for that to be true, so that Ev-DO can be shut down that much more quickly and entirely refarmed to LTE, but I don't see that happening until they make a complete switch to VoLTE several years from now.

 

Once I start receiving official LTE 800 or LTE 2500 site acceptances, I will definitely add them to our maps.

 

Wonderful! I guess you'll have to pick out new colors for those pins quicker than I thought you would have to.

 

I agree.  I don't think the nationwide TD-LTE overlay will finish any earlier than end of 2015. Keep in mind that this is for all 38K Sprint sites plus Clearwire's 8,000 sites (not counting the 5,600 colocated Sprint sites) which is not an easy feat.  Even if all Sprint sites have Network Vision cabinets and backhaul ready right now and they began deploying their TD-LTE overlay, there could potentially be other delays such as equipment availability (radios, panels), manpower (installation crews and inspection teams), permitting that are out of Sprint's control which throwing money does not solve.

 

Hold on. A little while back I asked how many of those 8,000 non-colocated Clearwire sites would be receiving TDD LTE (as full builds or small cells) and/or 800/1900 and the short answer is that it seems likely that most will get 2600 in some form, and a few on the edge of coverage or in protection sites will get the full tri-band treatment. However that is still conjecture (albeit a good guess and one I hope is true). All we know for sure until some more documentation comes in is that all 39k original NV sites (including those colocated with Clearwire) will get 2600, with some unknown quantity of small cells in between, probably in WiMax areas or the top 100 markets- so that all those travelling Japanese businessmen are covered .

 

I don't think the earnings call mentioned the rest of the Clearwire network, and my guess would be between now and when WiMax is shut down Q1 2015, Sprint will look to see if there are any Clearwire sites that prove to be redundant, so it can reduce operating expenses much like when the number of Nextel sites was trimmed.

 

So with adequate backhaul already in place everywhere from NV 1.0 I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the TD-LTE overlay to be completed by the time Wi-Max is shut down (especially if they can find another contractor like Nokia Siemens to help out), but the number and location of the urban small cells will continue to be tweaked for quite a while in response to demand.

[S4GRU]

Really, all devices? Even flip/feature phones? I'd love for that to be true, so that Ev-DO can be shut down that much more quickly and entirely refarmed to LTE, but I don't see that happening until they make a complete switch to VoLTE several years from now.

 

 

 

Obviously flip phones are excluded from the subject at hand.  That's not what we were talking about.  We were discussing mid priced and economy priced smartphones.  Of which Sprint will be putting tribands in all of them starting in 2014.  The models in the remainder of 2013 will likely be only on flagship devices  

 

There is no need to refarm PCS 1x and EVDO to LTE for a long time with a triband network with LTE 2600 deployed nationwide.  LTE 2600 will be carrying all the tonnage, with PCS/SMR LTE just providing LTE connectivity for those in places out of range from LTE 2600.  So Sprint will not be in a hurry for that.

 

Robert

[gnoj]

Obviously flip phones are excluded from the subject at hand.  That's not what we were talking about.  We were discussing mid priced and economy priced smartphones.  Of which Sprint will be putting tribands in all of them starting in 2014.  The models in the remainder of 2013 will likely be only on flagship devices  

 

There is no need to refarm PCS 1x and EVDO to LTE for a long time with a triband network with LTE 2600 deployed nationwide.  LTE 2600 will be carrying all the tonnage, with PCS/SMR LTE just providing LTE connectivity for those in places out of range from LTE 2600.  So Sprint will not be in a hurry for that.

 

Robert

 

Hmm, ok. Well for folks who don't need a smartphone but just need to occassionally pull up something it'd be nice for it to load a little quicker than at 1x speeds. I can't imagine it'd cost that much more to use a chipset that supports LTE, but I get that they'll do whatever they can to push folks to smartphones as that leads to higher ARPU.

 

I admit to being a bit biased towards trimming back the Ev-DO network more quickly since my S4 and all the other millions of single-band LTE devices out there only have access to the single 5x5 G block LTE at the moment, and I plan to have this phone for a while (with the bonus of SVLTE). I guess I'll just bank on the rest of you guys getting new phones passively helping me out by moving all the "tonnage" to 2600.

[S4GRU]

Hmm, ok. Well for folks who don't need a smartphone but just need to occassionally pull up something it'd be nice for it to load a little quicker than at 1x speeds. I can't imagine it'd cost that much more to use a chipset that supports LTE, but I get that they'll do whatever they can to push folks to smartphones as that leads to higher ARPU.

 

I admit to being a bit biased towards trimming back the Ev-DO network more quickly since my S4 and all the other millions of single-band LTE devices out there only have access to the single 5x5 G block LTE at the moment, and I plan to have this phone for a while. I guess I'll just bank on the rest of you guys getting new phones passively helping me out by moving all the "tonnage" to 2600.

 

I have no idea what Sprint plans to do about LTE and feature phones, if anything.  As for Single LTE Band device holders, it's not going to be a big deal.  The LTE 1900 network should improve as the build out continues and spreads out the LTE load, and as triband device holders start getting off the LTE 1900 network.  Should be a decent experience that may even get better.  

 

Sprint has the capacity to add additional LTE 1900 carriers in many markets if necessary too.  SoftBank is not going to allow the network to deteriorate.  I intentionally skipped the S4 and the HTC One because they were released so close to the tribands debut.

 

Robert

[oversight]

Obviously flip phones are excluded from the subject at hand.  That's not what we were talking about.  We were discussing mid priced and economy priced smartphones.  Of which Sprint will be putting tribands in all of them starting in 2014.  The models in the remainder of 2013 will likely be only on flagship devices  

 

There is no need to refarm PCS 1x and EVDO to LTE for a long time with a triband network with LTE 2600 deployed nationwide.  LTE 2600 will be carrying all the tonnage, with PCS/SMR LTE just providing LTE connectivity for those in places out of range from LTE 2600.  So Sprint will not be in a hurry for that.

 

Robert

 

With the second wave of devices arriving next Spring, just in time to upgrade my S3.

[ericdabbs]

I have no idea what Sprint plans to do about LTE and feature phones, if anything. As for Single LTE Band device holders, it's not going to be a big deal. The LTE 1900 network should improve as the build out continues and spreads out the LTE load, and as triband device holders start getting off the LTE 1900 network. Should be a decent experience that may even get better.

 

Sprint has the capacity to add additional LTE 1900 carriers in many markets if necessary too. SoftBank is not going to allow the network to deteriorate. I intentionally skipped the S4 and the HTC One because they were released so close to the tribands debut.

 

Robert

Any particular phone u are interested in getting?

Sent from my Motorola Photon 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[Ascertion]

Any particular phone u are interested in getting?

Sent from my Motorola Photon 4G using Tapatalk 2

I'd strongly read about the new LG G2 coming out.  I'm getting hyped for it.

 

It's confirmed to have Tri-Band connectivity and should be coming out within the next 2 months.

 

Here's the thread. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4099-lg-g2-the-first-sprint-tri-band-lte-handset-was-lg-optimus-g2/

 

Also - it should have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU which is supposed to be a power house.

[S4GRU]

Any particular phone u are interested in getting?

Sent from my Motorola Photon 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

I would probably get the LGOG2.  But I'm open to any other tribands that will be coming out around the same time.  I would really like a 5" display, though.

 

Robert

[sbolen]

They do, huh.  He is going to try to take some zoomed in photos for us when he gets a chance.

Robert

 

 

It looks like they didn't hook up two of the RF ports on the RRU.  They hooked them up to a smaller looking RRU that looks temporarily mounted.  Hard to tell for sure.  I also noticed one sector has yellow ribbon'd cables while the other has blue.  It's usually used to mark which cable is what for the installers.   Even though it will be a cold day in hell before my area gets any of these I will be eagerly awaiting the new pics tomorrow.  If you need a server to host a nice big full res picture let me know.

 

I know Macinjosh found some Samsung RRU's that did Wimax and LTE so these are probably it:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/3083-its-a-samsung-rrh-for-wimaxtd-lte-running-thru-the-fcc/

 

Here are the photos -- it's another foggy, rainy day in St. Louis, so apologies for the washed out backgrounds, etc. I'll try to get out and grab better shots if we ever see the sun again!

 

Link to Full Size photos here.

(Because these are 7MB+ photos (4752x3168), I'll leave the originals on Flickr rather than post them here.)

 

Here are some smaller images to preview:

 

 

 

[Deval]

Those look like the Samsung RRHs shown graphically a few pages back.

[mozamcrew]

800 will give Sprint better coverage in the major cities and the suburbs. In the more smaller cities and rural areas I'd expect Sprint to remain in 3rd place behind Verizon and AT&T. If Sprint wants to improve their rural coverage, in 5 years, I'd expect them to buyout T-Mobile.

 

Given T-Mobile's rural coverage, I fail to see how that would be any help. If the combined MPCS-TMUS can't make a go of it, I'd prefer they sell to a third party. I don't see much synergy with Sprint given their new NV plans and TMUS-MPCS's current strategy. Perhaps a shared 600Mhz network? But that would be many many years down the road.

[mozamcrew]

Yes, as long as they leave us all idle on 800, we all have a boatload of bars and great service. I question how long it will be until the 800 1X can handle the load and they have to do something.  Right now, only some of the customers are on the 800, As more are able to get 800, can it be overloaded??  If they force some of us to idle on 1900, the bars decrea

Frankly, I'd like to see 3x3LTE everywhere on 800, instead of 5x5. In the markets where you had enough spectrum for a 5x5 LTE on 800 add a second 1x carrier instead.

[lilotimz]

Frankly, I'd like to see 3x3LTE everywhere on 800, instead of 5x5. In the markets where you had enough spectrum for a 5x5 LTE on 800 add a second 1x carrier instead.

 

800 RRUs are only capable of 2 carriers. 

[S4GRU]

800 RRUs are only capable of 2 carriers.

I think 800 RRU's handle four carriers, any mix of LTE and CDMA. I think this is for all 3 OEM's.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

 

[lilotimz]

I think 800 RRU's handle four carriers, any mix of LTE and CDMA. I think this is for all 3 OEM's.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

Hmm.. you're right.