4G in crowded areas

[strung]

On 3g a lot of times in crowded areas like festivals, calls and texts don't go through or take a long time to go through. Can we expect 4G to work better in crowded places?

[WiWavelength]

Yes and no. For at least the first few months, LTE everywhere will be like a wide open highway with no posted speed limit because only a small minority of subs will have LTE capable devices. Seven years ago, EV-DO was the same way for a year or longer.

 

However, after LTE adoption becomes relatively commonplace, the sold out stadium paradigm will cause problems again, as it nearly aways does. One solution is aggressive use of DAS (Distributed Antenna System). But many venues limit DAS to one sponsor carrier, so that solution cannot be applied everywhere.

 

The other solution is to throw ungodly amounts of spectrum at the problem. This is the solution that the wireless carriers -- especially VZW and AT&T -- want to implement, as it would help them gain control over literally hundreds of megahertz of licensed bandwidth per carrier. But that would be a gross misuse of spectrum as a public resource. It would be somewhat akin to overbuilding 20 lane highways to accommodate hurricane evacuation that happens once every few years.

 

AJ

[pyroscott]

Yes and no. For at least the first few months, LTE everywhere will be like a wide open highway with no posted speed limit because only a small minority of subs will have LTE capable devices. Seven years ago, EV-DO was the same way for a year or longer.

 

However, after LTE adoption becomes relatively commonplace, the sold out stadium paradigm will cause problems again, as it nearly aways does. One solution is aggressive use of DAS (Distributed Antenna System). But many venues limit DAS to one sponsor carrier, so that solution cannot be applied everywhere.

 

The other solution is to throw ungodly amounts of spectrum at the problem. This is the solution that the wireless carriers -- especially VZW and AT&T -- want to implement, as it would help them gain control over literally hundreds of megahertz of licensed bandwidth per carrier. But that would be a gross misuse of spectrum as a public resource. It would be somewhat akin to overbuilding 20 lane highways to accommodate hurricane evacuation that happens once every few years.

 

AJ

 

I think there should be 20 lane highways in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. Also, there should be hundreds of thousands of fuel tanks along the highways in case the gas stations run out of fuel.

 

At Target Field, there is a WiFi network throughout the stadium to take the burden off of cell towers. Although, it is really slow because of the amount of users on it. It still does something similar to what Sprint plans to do with the 2600mhz cells from clearwire supplementing their overburdened cells.

[pyroscott]

I should add that Target Field is the new(ish) MN Twins stadium.

[WiWavelength]

I think there should be 20 lane highways in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. Also, there should be hundreds of thousands of fuel tanks along the highways in case the gas stations run out of fuel.

 

Texas?

 

AJ

[pyroscott]

Texas?

 

AJ

 

Way too far away for me. My truck only gets 600 miles on a full tank. Plus, I'm not sure what the engine would do on pure crude...

[lynyrd65]

Yes and no. For at least the first few months, LTE everywhere will be like a wide open highway with no posted speed limit because only a small minority of subs will have LTE capable devices. Seven years ago, EV-DO was the same way for a year or longer.

 

However, after LTE adoption becomes relatively commonplace, the sold out stadium paradigm will cause problems again, as it nearly aways does. One solution is aggressive use of DAS (Distributed Antenna System). But many venues limit DAS to one sponsor carrier, so that solution cannot be applied everywhere.

 

The other solution is to throw ungodly amounts of spectrum at the problem. This is the solution that the wireless carriers -- especially VZW and AT&T -- want to implement, as it would help them gain control over literally hundreds of megahertz of licensed bandwidth per carrier. But that would be a gross misuse of spectrum as a public resource. It would be somewhat akin to overbuilding 20 lane highways to accommodate hurricane evacuation that happens once every few years.

 

AJ

 

This is one area where I really think Clearwire could give Sprint a huge leg up on the competition.