Network Vision/LTE - East Iowa Market (Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Dubuque, Waterloo/Cedar Falls)

[Mr.Nuke]

And in a few months yall won't be seeing 2nd b25 carriers but one centered 26640 / 8040

Iowa City won't as of now...

[oneslimguy_83]

And in a few months yall won't be seeing 2nd b25 carriers but one centered 26640 / 8040

Can't wait to see this report that you guys speak of. I imagine it's gonna be some spectrum swapping going on, will this also apply the Quad City area as well?

[Mr.Nuke]

 will this also apply the Quad City area as well?

Yes it is really good news for the Quad Cities.

[oneslimguy_83]

Yes it is really good news for the Quad Cities.

You sir, just made my night! I should be back working by next week, donations to the site to follow son after. I miss having access to sponsor information, thanks for the info in the meantime!!!

Edited February 18, 2016 by oneslimguy_83

[Mr.Nuke]

The article is up on the wall.

[oneslimguy_83]

The article is up on the wall.

So if I'm reading this right and remember correctly, the Quad Cities has 30 Mhz of spectrum in the B block. After the swap with AT&T, assuming AT&T has the whole C block, Sprint will have a contiguous block of C and G blocks totaling 40 MHz to play with?

[Mr.Nuke]

So if I'm reading this right and remember correctly, the Quad Cities has 30 Mhz of spectrum in the B block. After the swap with AT&T, assuming AT&T has the whole C block, Sprint will have a contiguous block of C and G blocks totaling 40 MHz to play with?

Yes they are doing a entire B for C swap so Sprint will have 40 MHz (20 MHz FDD) of contiguous spectrum. That is enough for a 15x15 LTE carrier with room to spare for 4-5 CDMA/EVDO carriers.

[oneslimguy_83]

Yes they are doing a entire B for C swap so Sprint will have 40 MHz (20 MHz FDD) of contiguous spectrum. That is enough for a 15x15 LTE carrier with room to spare for 4-5 CDMA/EVDO carriers.

That's great news, thank you! Now all we need is to get Lighsquared on board for a swap of BRS and EBS spectrum so we can get at least a 20 MHz of band 41 and life would be peachy in these parts I recon...

[sgarringer]

Thanks. I should've been more specific in the initial request. What I'm after is the EARFCN of the 2nd carrier.

 

It was bouncing between carriers so I took a ss of both.  http://imgur.com/a/Q5H4p

[sgarringer]

The article is up on the wall.

 

Will they be acquiring C band spectrum in Cedar Rapids?

[Mr.Nuke]

That's great news, thank you! Now all we need is to get Lighsquared on board for a swap of BRS and EBS spectrum so we can get at least a 20 MHz of band 41 and life would be peachy in these parts I recon...

SpeedConnect is the one that holds the majority of BRS/EBS. If they are game, a BRS2 for BRS H3 swap would help Sprint immensely.

[Mr.Nuke]

Will they be acquiring C band spectrum in Cedar Rapids?

No. The spectrum situation in Cedar Rapids is different. In Des Moines and the Quad Cities AT&T has either PCS Block D (Quad Cities) or E (Des Moines). Sprint's PCS B block spectrum sits in the middle of D and E. So a B/C swap gives Sprint 40 MHz of contiguous spectrum in C+G and AT&T the same in B+D/E.

 

In Cedar Rapids, for starters Sprint doesn't have the entire PCS B block to trade, they split it with AT&T. Furthermore, US Cellular holds the PCS C block and no additional PCS spectrum. There isn't a trade to be made there. The trades involved in this AT&T/Sprint transaction were rather obvious.

[bretton88]

No. The spectrum situation in Cedar Rapids is different. In Des Moines and the Quad Cities AT&T has either PCS Block D (Quad Cities) or E (Des Moines). Sprint's PCS B block spectrum sits in the middle of D and E. So a B/C swap gives Sprint 40 MHz of contiguous spectrum in C+G and AT&T the same in B+D/E.

 

In Cedar Rapids, for starters Sprint doesn't have the entire PCS B block to trade, they split it with AT&T. Furthermore, US Cellular holds the PCS C block and no additional PCS spectrum. There isn't a trade to be made there. The trades involved in this AT&T/Sprint transaction were rather obvious.

So it's basically the worst spectrum city in Sprint's network. Despite that, they still do a decent job here. Just a couple small cells would do the trick nicely.

[SkyGuy98]

Iowa City won't as of now...

 

Of course it won't.       At least there is progress in other parts of Iowa and the country. I am excited to see how much better Des Moines and the Quad Cities are after the switch! I'm glad Sprint and AT&T were paying attention to the spectrum disparity and were willing to work together to improve service for both sets of customers. 

[Mr.Nuke]

So it's basically the worst spectrum city in Sprint's network. Despite that, they still do a decent job here. Just a couple small cells would do the trick nicely.

Which is what we've been saying for awhile. It is the worse spectrum market I know, but the fact it is usable is great. There are places right now see El Paso that are worse off from a network perspective.

 

Of course it won't.       At least there is progress in other parts of Iowa and the country. I am excited to see how much better Des Moines and the Quad Cities are after the switch! I'm glad Sprint and AT&T were paying attention to the spectrum disparity and were willing to work together to improve service for both sets of customers. 

Verizon having a sliver of the PCS B block prevents a complete B for C swap like the Quad Cities or Des Moines. They still may be able to work out a C4/C5 swap for their 20 MHz of PCS B.

[sgarringer]

Which is what we've been saying for awhile. It is the worse spectrum market I know, but the fact it is usable is great. There are places right now see El Paso that are worse off from a network perspective.

 

Verizon having a sliver of the PCS B block prevents a complete B for C swap like the Quad Cities or Des Moines. They still may be able to work out a C4/C5 swap for their 20 MHz of PCS B.

 

It's usable, except for the south end of Cedar Rapids by the airport... where they still haven't added LTE on the Swisher exit site. My friend who works for Sprint confirmed for me that site is ethernet fed so no one really knows why they haven't done any sort of GMO LTE upgrade at the least for that site.  

[bmoses]

It's usable, except for the south end of Cedar Rapids by the airport... where they still haven't added LTE on the Swisher exit site. My friend who works for Sprint confirmed for me that site is ethernet fed so no one really knows why they haven't done any sort of GMO LTE upgrade at the least for that site.  

 

^^^^^^^ apply that last statement to most of iowa too.... i've confirmed on several GMOs around me that they are on ethernet and its being used yet no full build upgrades/LTE from them.

[oneslimguy_83]

SpeedConnect is the one that holds the majority of BRS/EBS. If they are game, a BRS2 for BRS H3 swap would help Sprint immensely.

Yeah I knew it was SpeedConnect, I just got done reading an article about Lightsquared and had a blond moment...anyhow, with a 15x15 block of band 25, would that boost speeds as well as capacity or just add capacity?

Edited February 19, 2016 by oneslimguy_83

[bmoses]

Yeah I knew it was SpeedConnect, I just got done reading an article about Lightsquared and had a blond moment...anyhow, with a 15x15 block of band 25, would that boost speeds as well as capacity or just add capacity?

 

it would increase max speed as well as capacity. you can think about it like this. if those were 3 separate 5x5 carriers they would each run about 35mbps for a max speed, but you would have 3 of them to spread people out over, so speeds would be good but you would never go over 35. if you combine them all together into a 15x15 you have the same amount of capacity but the max speed is now ~105mbps because you are connecting to 15 Mhz at a time instead of just 5 (on the downlink)

[sgarringer]

^^^^^^^ apply that last statement to most of iowa too.... i've confirmed on several GMOs around me that they are on ethernet and its being used yet no full build upgrades/LTE from them.

No kidding very frustrating to spend most my day on EVDO when all the sites have upgraded to Ethernet backhaul. I am testing iwireless lte and can say they have eclipsed Sprints LTE buildout in eastern Iowa, I rarely drop LTE now.

[bmoses]

No kidding very frustrating to spend most my day on EVDO when all the sites have upgraded to Ethernet backhaul. I am testing iwireless lte and can say they have eclipsed Sprints LTE buildout in eastern Iowa, I rarely drop LTE now.

 

i've been tempted to try out iWireless as they just launched LTE in des moines in december. but i really need their future LTE coverage between des moines and ames to be done in order for my whole family to switch. now with this news of the spectrum swap i'm torn on what to do....... this will help sprint out a lot in the metros but their stupid GMO towers still affect the rest of my family, plus i'm on my own 7 line framily plan and i would lose that if we switched and decided iWireless wasn't very good

[bretton88]

It's usable, except for the south end of Cedar Rapids by the airport... where they still haven't added LTE on the Swisher exit site. My friend who works for Sprint confirmed for me that site is ethernet fed so no one really knows why they haven't done any sort of GMO LTE upgrade at the least for that site.

They don't need to do much. Add LTE to the downtown site and the airport site. Maybe add a couple small cells (not many would be needed, so not capital intensive). Then there would be no drops and usable LTE everywhere. Having a new regional VP might help things as he'll have a better sense of things on the local level.

[sgarringer]

i've been tempted to try out iWireless as they just launched LTE in des moines in december. but i really need their future LTE coverage between des moines and ames to be done in order for my whole family to switch. now with this news of the spectrum swap i'm torn on what to do....... this will help sprint out a lot in the metros but their stupid GMO towers still affect the rest of my family, plus i'm on my own 7 line framily plan and i would lose that if we switched and decided iWireless wasn't very good

Yeah I am on framily too (line 8 and 9) which makes it hard to switch. 14 days of iwireless for free though to test made it noce. For me coverage on 380 is near critical since I am often stuck on long Google hangouts while driving home. iwireless is solid the whole way where as Sprint switches to EVDO for half the drive

[oneslimguy_83]

Iwireless here in the QC is a mixed bag...I know a lot of people who has or had them and most of those people have switched to Boost Mobile. I know things got real rough when they were upgrading their network to LTE. As of now I'm not sure of their service here now that their upgrades should be complete in the area

[bmoses]

Yeah I am on framily too (line 8 and 9) which makes it hard to switch. 14 days of iwireless for free though to test made it noce. For me coverage on 380 is near critical since I am often stuck on long Google hangouts while driving home. iwireless is solid the whole way where as Sprint switches to EVDO for half the drive

 

 

Iwireless here in the QC is a mixed bag...I know a lot of people who has or had them and most of those people have switched to Boost Mobile. I know things got real rough when they were upgrading their network to LTE. As of now I'm not sure of their service here now that their upgrades should be complete in the area

 

thanks for the iWireless info/opinions my 3 main concerns with iWireless were 1) they only have AWS for LTE, which means poor in building coverage - UNLESS they densify their network properly and 2) i've not experienced it myself but i've heard GSM voice quality is not very good - coming from sprint who really does have awesome voice quality this could be a negative too. 3) back to only having AWS for LTE, it sounds like they are stuck with a 10x10 (maybe a 15x15 down the road) so it could become strained and lead to poor speeds - counters to this would be since they are a local carrier their user base should be lower so not as many users and if they have enough tower density they could overcome this.