FCC approves LTE deployment in 800MHz SMR band!

[bigzeto]

If I remember correctly, digiblur has stated that the tower spacing in New Orleans is not really ideal for 1900MHz PCS band. Maybe they are picking New Orleans since the spacing is more of a worst case scenario for an urban market?

 

The spacing is not that bad in the city of New Orleans as it was always a corporate owned market for Sprint. Baton Rouge, on the other hand, was built out by a network affiliate, and the tower spacing here is pretty terrible.

[irev210]

The spacing is not that bad in the city of New Orleans as it was always a corporate owned market for Sprint. Baton Rouge, on the other hand, was built out by a network affiliate, and the tower spacing here is pretty terrible.

 

gotcha... you figure they would hit a spot where tower spacing was less than ideal.

[S4GRU]

 

gotcha... you figure they would hit a spot where tower spacing was less than ideal.

 

We don't know if the FIT is in the City of New Orleans. We only know it's in the New Orleans market. It could very well be in Baton Rouge, for all I know at this point.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[WiWavelength]

However, the Montana 800 LTE FIT is a very interesting situation.

 

Take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my conjecture. Since a 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE 800 carrier will occupy nearly all of Sprint's rebanded SMR 800 MHz spectrum, Sprint needed to locate the LTE 800 FIT in an area well away from current Nextel iDEN 800 sites and other ESMR incumbent operations in order to avoid potential interference issues. Most of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana fit the bill (pardon the pun). But another ESMR incumbent across multiple markets in South Dakota and Wyoming limits Sprint to 3 MHz x 3 MHz LTE 800 in those areas and may have made Montana the choice by the process of elimination.

 

AJ

[digiblur]

 

If I remember correctly, digiblur has stated that the tower spacing in New Orleans is not really ideal for 1900MHz PCS band. Maybe they are picking New Orleans since the spacing is more of a worst case scenario for an urban market?

 

The New Orleans market is actually made up of two networks. An originaly Sprint corporate network that was built correctly for the most part in the New Orleans area. The 1900mhz network in the Baton Rouge metro area was built by an 800mhz engineer from the ex-Gulfcoast Wireless affiliate. Baton Rouge is now part of the the New Orleans market though. I do roam from time to time in different buildings in town, but most of my roaming is done on the outskirts where the city has grown out but the network has not been touched in 8+ years.

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

[digiblur]

 

Take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my conjecture. Since a 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE 800 carrier will occupy nearly all of Sprint's rebanded SMR 800 MHz spectrum, Sprint needed to locate the LTE 800 FIT in an area well away from current Nextel iDEN 800 sites and other ESMR incumbent operations in order to avoid potential interference issues. Most of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana fit the bill (pardon the pun). But another ESMR incumbent across multiple markets in South Dakota and Wyoming limits Sprint to 3 MHz x 3 MHz LTE 800 in those areas and may have made Montana the choice by the process of elimination.

 

AJ

 

That's exactly what I was thinking but I don't think I know of any areas around my market where CDMA covers but iden doesn't. Its usually the other way around. I will have to do some checking.

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

[strung]

Montana is out west, maybe 800 mHz penetrates mountains?

[stormchaser68]

Does anyone have a list or info on where and who the ESMR 800MHz covers in MT, WY, ND/SD, NE, Eastern OR, & Northern NV so the rest of us know where Sprint can use CDMA/LTE to expand native coverage?

 

Any info would be great so we all know where coverage can be for Sprint.

Thanks

[xcharles718]

Isn't it possible that Sprint will do expansion for the grant money the FCC is offering to cover rural areas?

Article:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226820/FCC_launches_new_mobile_broadband_subsidy?source=rss_mobilewireless&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fs%2Ffeed%2Ftopic%2F15+%28Computerworld+Mobile+and+Wireless+News%29

Map of eligible areas:

http://tiles.mapbox.com/fcc/map/Mobility-Fund-Phase-1-Eligible-Areas

[WiWavelength]

Montana is out west, maybe 800 mHz penetrates mountains?

 

Hey, this is an all ages forum. You keep it clean, mister.

 

AJ

[JeffDTD]

Isn't it possible that Sprint will do expansion for the grant money the FCC is offering to cover rural areas?

Article:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226820/FCC_launches_new_mobile_broadband_subsidy?source=rss_mobilewireless&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fs%2Ffeed%2Ftopic%2F15+%28Computerworld+Mobile+and+Wireless+News%29

Map of eligible areas:

http://tiles.mapbox.com/fcc/map/Mobility-Fund-Phase-1-Eligible-Areas

 

Probably makes the most sense to offer a rural affiliate use of sprint spectrum in return for native usage....the reverse auction description sounds like it favors regional and local carriers

[xcharles718]

Probably makes the most sense to offer a rural affiliate use of sprint spectrum in return for native usage....the reverse auction description sounds like it favors regional and local carriers

But who would they get to use that spectrum? If the area does have smaller carriers, they most likely are already with agreement with the other Tier 1 carriers. Sprint doesn't have any SRA's in Montana anymore(Western Wireless became a SRA member in Fall of 2004. They were bought 9 months later by Alltel, and they were bought by VZ in 2008).

[WiWavelength]

Isn't it possible that Sprint will do expansion for the grant money the FCC is offering to cover rural areas?

Article:

http://www.computerw...ireless+News%29

Map of eligible areas:

http://tiles.mapbox....-Eligible-Areas

 

I would expect that nearly all of the successful bidders in the FCC Mobility Fund's reverse auction will utilize Cellular 850 MHz spectrum.

 

The initial Cellular 850 MHz license term is divided into two phases. During Phase 1 (five years, if I recall correctly), a licensee has free rein to construct as much geographic coverage as possible within its respective licensed area. At the start of Phase 2, the extent of geographic coverage that the licensee has constructed becomes the new licensed area, which may be smaller than the originally licensed area.

 

In other words, if the licensee covers all of its originally licensed area within five years, then the licensed area remains the same. However, if the licensee covers only 75 percent of its originally licensed area, then the new licensed area is fixed at that 75 percent. Furthermore, in Phase 2, the uncovered 25 percent becomes Cellular Unserved area that is available (for free, if I recall this, too, correctly) to other applicants.

 

By this late date, essentially all Cellular 850 MHz licenses are in Phase 2. So, almost any Cellular Unserved area is up for grabs. As such, I would expect that -- in conjunction with Mobility Fund reverse auction bids -- some bidders will also put in applications to cover Cellular Unserved area, hence be awarded Cellular 850 MHz spectrum for that area. Likely bidders would be remaining rural Cellular 850 MHz licensees (e.g. Plateau Wireless in NM, Union Cellular in WY, etc.) and license "squatters" (of which ATN's Commnet Wireless is far and away the most notable). Maybe VZW and/or AT&T will use the reverse auction to help improve their rural coverage, but I think that $300 million may be too little funding to entice them.

 

As for Sprint, it could theoretically participate in the reverse auction and use any winnings to deploy LTE 800 in unserved area. That would probably be within the rules of the Mobility Fund, though I am not sure that it should be. Since LTE 800 is effectively proprietary to Sprint, it would not realistically present interconnection opportunities for other carriers and subs.

 

AJ

[xcharles718]

I would expect that nearly all of the successful bidders in the FCC Mobility Fund's reverse auction will utilize Cellular 850 MHz spectrum.

 

The initial Cellular 850 MHz license term is divided into two phases. During Phase 1 (five years, if I recall correctly), a licensee has free rein to construct as much geographic coverage as possible within its respective licensed area. At the start of Phase 2, the extent of geographic coverage that the licensee has constructed becomes the new licensed area, which may be smaller than the originally licensed area.

 

In other words, if the licensee covers all of its originally licensed area within five years, then the licensed area remains the same. However, if the licensee covers only 75 percent of its originally licensed area, then the new licensed area is fixed at that 75 percent. Furthermore, in Phase 2, the uncovered 25 percent becomes Cellular Unserved area that is available (for free, if I recall this, too, correctly) to other applicants.

 

By this late date, essentially all Cellular 850 MHz licenses are in Phase 2. So, almost any Cellular Unserved area is up for grabs. As such, I would expect that -- in conjunction with Mobility Fund reverse auction bids -- some bidders will also put in applications to cover Cellular Unserved area, hence be awarded Cellular 850 MHz spectrum for that area. Likely bidders would be remaining rural Cellular 850 MHz licensees (e.g. Plateau Wireless in NM, Union Cellular in WY, etc.) and license "squatters" (of which ATN's Commnet Wireless is far and away the most notable). Maybe VZW and/or AT&T will use the reverse auction to help improve their rural coverage, but I think that $300 million may be too little funding to entice them.

 

As for Sprint, it could theoretically participate in the reverse auction and use any winnings to deploy LTE 800 in unserved area. That would probably be within the rules of the Mobility Fund, though I am not sure that it should be. Since LTE 800 is effectively proprietary to Sprint, it would not realistically present interconnection opportunities for other carriers and subs.

 

AJ

If Sprint does decide to participate in the reverse auction, they don't have to solely do LTE 800. They can deploy a 1xAdvanced carrier with EVDO there as well. CDMA roaming can be offered to VZW in the area.Virtually all Sprint phones already support cellular(prior to the inclusion of ESMR band starting last summer), so no additional work would be needed there.

 

Also using 1xAdvanced in max-coverage configuration, along with minimum usable down-tilt should make covering large amounts of the licensed area possible without too much difficulty.

[JeffDTD]

AJ- makes sense.......sounds like " prob not"

[xcharles718]

This is very interesting indeed.

 

With 800MHz, the rural game can start to make financial sense. This is very very very interesting.

 

If I was a betting person, I would guess that they are trying to establish the economics of 800MHz @ rural - something they've never been able to test before. You can't plan if you don't know those answers.

Is the Montana 800 FIT in Kalispell? Nextel has a tower(1) set up there. It serviced a Nextel call center there.

[S4GRU]

Is the Montana 800 FIT in Kalispell? Nextel has a tower(1) set up there. It serviced a Nextel call center there.

 

It could be. All the docs I have seen say "Montana." They never reference a community name or region of the state.

 

Robert

[iansltx]

Is this the first mention on the board of the LTE 800 FITs? When I saw "FIT" I immediately thought, "Wait, Waco?"

 

In any case, in rural central TX the two providers with the most coverage are the CLR licensees, AT&T and Five Bar...er...Five Star Wireless. Sprint and Verizon are limited to 1900 there, though VZ has put up multiple towers in the area such that their coverage, depending on where you are, is better than Sprint's (sometimes it's the reverse however). Put another way, you *can* do 1900MHz as a rural solution if you're forced to, but it's far from ideal...but you may have to, if your roaming partner in the area decides to stop CDMA investment at 1x and switch to GSM/EDGE (and, recently, HSPA/+).

[WiWavelength]

Is the Montana 800 FIT in Kalispell? Nextel has a tower(1) set up there. It serviced a Nextel call center there.

It could be. All the docs I have seen say "Montana." They never reference a community name or region of the state.

 

I had considered the same possibility, as the only Nextel iDEN site(s) in the state of Montana is in the Flathead Valley. However, Kalispell is close enough to the border that it is in the SMR 800 MHz channel coordination zone with Canada. As such, Sprint is limited in its ability to employ broadband operations in its SMR 800 MHz spectrum. In a nutshell, Sprint likely cannot deploy 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE in Kalispell. So, unless Sprint plans to use the Montana FIT to practice cross border spectrum coordination, the FIT area will likely be located well away from the Canadian border.

 

AJ

[ericdabbs]

Does LTE band class 26 for the 800 MHz ESMR band approved include frequencies from 806-824 and 851-869 MHz OR is it just 817-824 and 862-869 MHz?

[WiWavelength]

Does LTE band class 26 for the 800 MHz ESMR band approved include frequencies from 806-824 and 851-869 MHz OR is it just 817-824 and 862-869 MHz?

 

Band 26 is 814-849 MHz x 859-894 MHz. In other words, it includes 10 MHz x 10 MHz from SMR 800 MHz contiguous with the 25 MHz x 25 MHz of Cellular 850 MHz for a total of 35 MHz x 35 MHz.

 

AJ

[ryry4ya]

 

Band 26 is 814-849 MHz x 859-894 MHz. In other words, it includes 10 MHz x 10 MHz from SMR 800 MHz contiguous with the 25 MHz x 25 MHz of Cellular 850 MHz for a total of 35 MHz x 35 MHz.

 

AJ

..... Because I'm in Toledo Ohio does that mean I am stuck with my Detroit code...4126 ?... Is I am more than 50 so miles from the Canadian border. Can I still get 800

 

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[keelerman8042]

..... Because I'm in Toledo Ohio does that mean I am stuck with my Detroit code...4126 ?... Is I am more than 50 so miles from the Canadian border. Can I still get 800

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

There was a map somewhere on one of the topics that had the border zones...if I remember right we are in the zone where we will not get it til they come up with an agreement with Canada...tho maybe western city's may be able to get it..ill let AJ explain more if there's something I missed but that's my understanding

[WiWavelength]

..... Because I'm in Toledo Ohio does that mean I am stuck with my Detroit code...4126 ?... Is I am more than 50 so miles from the Canadian border. Can I still get 800

 

But you are not more than 50 miles from the Canadian border. Remember, it runs through the middle of Lake Erie, and Toledo is, at best, 40 miles from the international boundary.

 

AJ

[ryry4ya]

 

But you are not more than 50 miles from the Canadian border. Remember, it runs through the middle of Lake Erie, and Toledo is, at best, 40 miles from the international boundary.

 

AJ

... Sometimes AJ, I just wanna hit yeah or hug ya....Ty ( missing the video)

 

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