Too bad, I thought Sprint would take advantage to have its 1st gen LTE phones future proofed for the network.

they cant do that as they may loose money in the long run. they need the customers to be theirs for 2 years before upgrading again to a phone that includes the 800lte support so they make more money

Im very happy it supports 5 GHz WIFI. My airport supports it and its fast as shit.

Technology can't support putting 800 LTE in it right now. Too bad. It would be nice to have support for 2500 and 800.

Doesn't matter to me since I have to lines (EVO 4G Sprint) and Motorola Razr Maxx Verizon LTE here in NYC). the truth is Verizon LTE network in the 700mhz is already slowing down fast. I guess living in a city with a dense population can destroy any bandwidth regardless of its frequency.

I wish it would have supported 2500 LTE too, Scott, but my question is, would 2500 LTE require a different antenna than the 1900 LTE, or can they use the same antenna?

Honestly I don't see the lack of 800 mhz LTE support as a deterrent for those that EVO or 3G customers from grabbing the Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper phones. Most customers don't even know about the 800 Mhz factor and lets be honest, a 4G LTE phone with 1900 Mhz is going to have faster speeds than any 4G Wimax phone or any 3G phone. They are just going to see LTE and going to relate that to AT&T and Verizon like speeds.

I am kinda curious why the LTE band was only tested from 1852.5 - 1912.5 Mhz from the FCC? The PCS G block runs from 1910-1915 Mhz and 1990-1995 Mhz. I would have thought they would have to run testing from 1852.5 - 1915 Mhz to cover the entire PCS G block frequencies? Any insight on this?

they cant do that as they may loose money in the long run. they need the customers to be theirs for 2 years before upgrading again to a phone that includes the 800lte support so they make more money

If that was the case then the EVO3D wouldn't of gotten 800MHz approval when it went through FCC before it was released...

Theres some other reason here as to why 800LTE/2500LTE are not included....

If that was the case then the EVO3D wouldn't of gotten 800MHz approval when it went through FCC before it was released...Theres some other reason here as to why 800LTE/2500LTE are not included....

The reason is simple. 800 LTE and 2500 LTE is not included because its not ready yet. 2500 LTE is not even ready since there are no chipsets out there that can support it hence the China Mobile agreement with Clearwire to establish standards. I don't think any customer really expected phones would support 2500 Mhz in 2012 though. Most expected 800/1900 Mhz support.

As for 800 LTE, it was probably tested in the labs and maybe some FIT testing but since the 800 Mhz band isn't completely cleared yet to deploy LTE, why would Sprint include 800 Mhz LTE support. I am totally fine with the 2012 phones not including the 800 Mhz and 2500 Mhz LTE bands.

Think of it this way, why hasn't AT&T and Verizon added LTE support in the AWS frequency bands when its obvious that is where they plan to deploy additional LTE carriers. Its simple...its not ready yet.

It's definitely not to make money. Sprint makes money on selling service, not devices. Devices are subsidized and cost Sprint a lot of cash flow up front.

Crap...

Well let's hope the phones that use the Snapdragon S4 will be able to support LTE in both 800mhz and 1900mhz (LTE is built-in to the chip, so much more efficient than other LTE and Wimax devices that have separate chips for 4G). Hopefully the WP7 released in August/September can have LTE support for both

It's definitely not to make money. Sprint makes money on selling service, not devices. Devices are subsidized and cost Sprint a lot of cash flow up front.

Good reason to get rid of annual upgrades before the iPhone came out.

Technology can't support putting 800 LTE in it right now. Too bad. It would be nice to have support for 2500 and 800.

Probably next year I'd imagine and they'll have all the bugs worked out by 2014 when you're ready to upgrade from the GN, GS3, EVO LTE, etc.

The reason is simple. 800 LTE and 2500 LTE is not included because its not ready yet. 2500 LTE is not even ready since there are no chipsets out there that can support it hence the China Mobile agreement with Clearwire to establish standards. I don't think any customer really expected phones would support 2500 Mhz in 2012 though. Most expected 800/1900 Mhz support.As for 800 LTE, it was probably tested in the labs and maybe some FIT testing but since the 800 Mhz band isn't completely cleared yet to deploy LTE, why would Sprint include 800 Mhz LTE support. I am totally fine with the 2012 phones not including the 800 Mhz and 2500 Mhz LTE bands.

chips already support 2500/800LTE, that is NOT the reason. this has been discussed in great detail multiple times on here. Qualcomms chips support the frequencies so its NOT a chip issue in the slightest....Its more of a hardware limitation space issue as they run out of space for needed antennae in the device with each band they want to support...

It also has NOTHING to do with it "not being ready yet." If that were the case then like I mentioned above the EVO3D would NOT of been certified to use the 800MHz in the future b/c when the device was released at that point in time they were not set to open 800MHz up to it until end of 2013-2014 if I recall correctly...So why would they include this on the EVO3D even though they knew it would of been over 2-3yr away from being able to be used?

2500LTE will be up and running by next June already in over 5K locations...That puts 2500LTE on a shorter time frame than the EVO3D being able to use 800MHz band...

Seeing 800MHz LTE will NOT happen till iDEN is shut off or moved over to make room, and that puts that time table past when we will see 2500LTE according to Clearwire....

Honestly I don't see the lack of 800 mhz LTE support as a deterrent for those that EVO or 3G customers from grabbing the Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper phones. Most customers don't even know about the 800 Mhz factor and lets be honest, a 4G LTE phone with 1900 Mhz is going to have faster speeds than any 4G Wimax phone or any 3G phone. They are just going to see LTE and going to relate that to AT&T and Verizon like speeds.I am kinda curious why the LTE band was only tested from 1852.5 - 1912.5 Mhz from the FCC? The PCS G block runs from 1910-1915 Mhz and 1990-1995 Mhz. I would have thought they would have to run testing from 1852.5 - 1915 Mhz to cover the entire PCS G block frequencies? Any insight on this?

If you get into the full details, they did test out to 1915. https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=1651779

LTE was tested in 5MHz channels. 1912.5 is likely the center point of that channel.

chips already support 2500/800LTE, that is NOT the reason. this has been discussed in great detail multiple times on here. Qualcomms chips support the frequencies so its NOT a chip issue in the slightest....Its more of a hardware limitation space issue as they run out of space for needed antennae in the device with each band they want to support...It also has NOTHING to do with it "not being ready yet." If that were the case then like I mentioned above the EVO3D would NOT of been certified to use the 800MHz in the future b/c when the device was released at that point in time they were not set to open 800MHz up to it until end of 2013-2014 if I recall correctly...So why would they include this on the EVO3D even though they knew it would of been over 2-3yr away from being able to be used? 2500LTE will be up and running by next June already in over 5K locations...That puts 2500LTE on a shorter time frame than the EVO3D being able to use 800MHz band...Seeing 800MHz LTE will NOT happen till iDEN is shut off or moved over to make room, and that puts that time table past when we will see 2500LTE according to Clearwire....

so you answered your own question... Yes I have heard about the lack of space in the phone for additional antennae.

Think of it this way, why hasn't AT&T and Verizon added LTE support in the AWS frequency bands when its obvious that is where they plan to deploy additional LTE carriers. Its simple...its not ready yet.

Eric, AT&T LTE devices actually do include band class 4 (AWS 2100+1700 MHz), even though AT&T has not to date verifiably launched any LTE outside of band class 17 (Lower 700 MHz B/C blocks).

AJ

so you answered your own question... Yes I have heard about the lack of space in the phone for additional antennae.

Ummm read again, b/c i clearly didn't less your taking my post wrong...Your saying before it was b/c chips dont support it and its not ready, which is not the case at all in any way. One, Chips already support the freq no problem. Two, if its b/c "its not ready yet" then they wouldn't of gotten the 3D certified for 800MHz use at the time of its release last year knowing that the possibility of that even being used was over 2 years out(least that was the original time table back then)...

I for one and very excited about this news!

My question is it has two LTE radios in it yes? One left one right. So how does that work if LTE is only for 1900Mhz?

MIMO...LTE 1900 can receive transmissions from either of those antennas. But only transmit back to the tower by one.

I gotta say, I still am amazed at how every FCC doc writeup for each Cellphone device that Ive EVER are completely different to some extent. Some include a page called RF summary, some dont, some use different format inside each doc too no matter if they are testing the same stuff...

Some include photos of device antennae location on doc X some do it on doc Y...funny overall its not more formatted in a more strict order...

Honestly I don't see the lack of 800 mhz LTE support as a deterrent for those that EVO or 3G customers from grabbing the Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper phones. Most customers don't even know about the 800 Mhz factor and lets be honest, a 4G LTE phone with 1900 Mhz is going to have faster speeds than any 4G Wimax phone or any 3G phone. They are just going to see LTE and going to relate that to AT&T and Verizon like speeds.I am kinda curious why the LTE band was only tested from 1852.5 - 1912.5 Mhz from the FCC? The PCS G block runs from 1910-1915 Mhz and 1990-1995 Mhz. I would have thought they would have to run testing from 1852.5 - 1915 Mhz to cover the entire PCS G block frequencies? Any insight on this?

They only test to the center of the chosen channel... in other words, for a 5x5 carrier, the center uplink will be 1912.5. Likewise, they only tested down to 1852.5 where the center channel would be of a 5x5 at the very bottom of PCS. This phone's testing is identical to the previously tested LG Viper (LS-840), except that the Viper had to lose its EVDO ESMR ability due to the limited space. I don't see any LTE 800 devices (or dual band LTE devices) until Sprint can give up one of its CDMA bands. Supporting 3 CDMA bands is what is holding this back at this point.

The reason is simple. 800 LTE and 2500 LTE is not included because its not ready yet. 2500 LTE is not even ready since there are no chipsets out there that can support it hence the China Mobile agreement with Clearwire to establish standards. I don't think any customer really expected phones would support 2500 Mhz in 2012 though. Most expected 800/1900 Mhz support.As for 800 LTE, it was probably tested in the labs and maybe some FIT testing but since the 800 Mhz band isn't completely cleared yet to deploy LTE, why would Sprint include 800 Mhz LTE support. I am totally fine with the 2012 phones not including the 800 Mhz and 2500 Mhz LTE bands.Think of it this way, why hasn't AT&T and Verizon added LTE support in the AWS frequency bands when its obvious that is where they plan to deploy additional LTE carriers. Its simple...its not ready yet.

All the new AT&T LTE phones approved over the past 2 months do support LTE in 700 and AWS-- they're the only phones that support more than one LTE band. They can do this because they only have 2 GSM/GPRS bands to support... Verizon phones in the future will likely be able to do this too, since Verizon only has 2 CDMA bands to carry; however, Sprint has 3 CDMA bands-- so this will be a handset design issue.

There cannot be any 800 LTE FIT testing since LTE is not approved to run in ESMR. FCC has granted a waiver for CDMA and EVDO (up to 1.27 MHz carriers) in ESMR only at this point.

MIMO...LTE 1900 can receive transmissions from either of those antennas. But only transmit back to the tower by one.

Not either, BOTH! MIMO on EVDO and LTE uses BOTH antennas for receive diversity to improve the bitrate. 1xAdvanced requires Rx diversity to reach 4x 1xRTT capacity as well; without Rx diversity, 1xA has only 3x capacity of 1xRTT.

The lack of SVDO support is due to using the TI OMAP processor (SoC). The radio baseband used is likely a Qualcomm MDM9600 (like the Rezound, Thunderbolt, iPad3, etc.), which will do CDMA/EVDO/LTE of just about any form. The problem is there is only a single CDMA baseband (and a single LTE baseband). The antenna and "antenna paths" can be shared with no issue. The previously approved LG Viper DOES do SVDO because it undoubtedly uses a Qualcomm SoC processor (Snapdragon S3) with a built-in CDMA baseband along with the MDM9600's. The TWO basebands share the antenna arrays to allow for SVDO usage.

The lack of SVDO support is due to using the TI OMAP processor (SoC). The radio baseband used is likely a Qualcomm MDM9600 (like the Rezound, Thunderbolt, iPad3, etc.), which will do CDMA/EVDO/LTE of just about any form. The problem is there is only a single CDMA baseband (and a single LTE baseband). The antenna and "antenna paths" can be shared with no issue. The previously approved LG Viper DOES do SVDO because it undoubtedly uses a Qualcomm SoC processor (Snapdragon S3) with a built-in CDMA baseband along with the MDM9600's. The TWO basebands share the antenna arrays to allow for SVDO usage.

According to anandtech, the Verizon Galaxy nexus uses the Samsung CMC221 with FCI FC7851. I doubt Sprint would get a different version (but maybe they will).