What will this mean not enough spectrum

[bigzeto]

He has a spectrum analyzer, which is basically a device that can pull in radio signals and visually represent them in a way that conveys how the airwaves are being used.

 

I doubt he took his spectrum analyzer to every site in the LA Metro area.

[Conan Kudo]

I doubt he took his spectrum analyzer to every site in the LA Metro area.

 

I dunno... He does seem to use it everywhere he goes!

[bigzeto]

I dunno... He does seem to use it everywhere he goes!

 

Very true, although I'm just curious how up to date the spectrum utilization numbers are since Ericsson is constantly adding voice and EVDO carriers to beef up capacity.

[WiWavelength]

AJ, how are you able to tell how much spectrum each site is currently using?

He has a spectrum analyzer, which is basically a device that can pull in radio signals and visually represent them in a way that conveys how the airwaves are being used.

 

I do have a spectrum analyzer, using it for various tests and spot checks. But I could not possibly survey several hundred sites per market unless that was my full time job. So, let us just say that S4GRU has sources, the same sources that have enabled Robert to create the Network Vision site maps.

 

AJ

[bigzeto]

I do have a spectrum analyzer, using it for various tests and spot checks. But I could not possibly survey several hundred sites per market unless that was my full time job. So, let us just say that S4GRU has sources, the same sources that have enabled Robert to create the Network Vision site maps.

 

AJ

 

I was hoping for an answer like this.

 

Thanks

[WiWavelength]

Very true, although I'm just curious how up to date the spectrum utilization numbers are since Ericsson is constantly adding voice and EVDO carriers to beef up capacity.

 

Yes, some of the spectrum utilization data may be up to a year old. But the carrier upgrades affect primarily those sites that currently have (or previously had) only two, three, four total CDMA1X/EV-DO carriers. So, an additional carrier or two on those sites will push up the market average but will not likely push those sites over the top. In other words, most/all of those sites in 30 MHz markets will still have ≧10 MHz of fallow spectrum for potentially a second LTE 1900 carrier.

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

I was hoping for an answer like this.

 

Were you imagining me running around like a madman, running RF sweeps at every site in LA, KC, etc.?

 

No way, I attract enough police attention as it is.

 

 

AJ

[bigzeto]

Were you imagining me running around like a madman, running RF sweeps at every site in LA, KC, etc.?

 

No way, I attract enough police attention as it is.

 

 

AJ

 

I was 99.9% positive you did not drive to every site with your analyzer.

 

I was just glad to see that the data is very credible being that it came from one of Robert's sources. I have a pretty good idea how much spectrum is being utilized in my market just by looking at DEBUG screens so much.

[bigsnake49]

Consider this a substantive, data focused counterpoint to the WSJ article and Sanford Bernstein claims of insufficient spectrum.

 

I laid out some spreadsheets and ran some numbers today. I focused, admittedly, on only one market, Los Angeles. But it is a PCS A-F block 30 MHz market, and it is a big one. So, what Sprint can pull off in LA, Sprint should be able to pull off in many smaller markets.

 

In the LA Metro market (i.e. Los Angeles County), Sprint holds the PCS A block 30 MHz license and has just under 1000 sites. Of those sites, average CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum deployment is only 11.65 MHz per site. In other words, Sprint has an average of 18.35 MHz unused and available PCS spectrum per site, and that is comfortably greater than the minimum 10 MHz of spare spectrum that Sprint needs to slide in a second 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE 1900 carrier.

 

Now, averages can be misleading, so I counted up the outliers. Of all the Sprint sites in the market, only five sites out of nearly 1000 have deployed greater than 20 MHz of spectrum. Those five (i.e. ~0.5 percent) are the only sites in the market that could not presently accommodate a second LTE 1900 carrier. But, as data traffic shifts from EV-DO to LTE, not to mention voice traffic declines, Sprint could relatively easily refarm CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum in order to deploy a second LTE 1900 carrier on those five sites, too.

 

In conclusion, the naysayers may know how to crunch the financial numbers, but they do not seem to know how to crunch the spectrum numbers. In actuality, Sprint already has ample spare PCS spectrum for LTE in Los Angeles plus a great many other major markets. And S4GRU has been saying this from a position of knowledge for months now.

 

http://s4gru.com/ind...l-lte-carriers/

 

AJ

 

AJ, just to supplement what you said. 1X Advanced can be used to further reduce the amount of spectrum devoted to voice.

[WiWavelength]

AJ, just to supplement what you said. 1X Advanced can be used to further reduce the amount of spectrum devoted to voice.

 

I honestly do not expect much capacity increase from CDMA1X Advanced. Current Sprint LTE handsets do not appear to support CDMA1X antenna diversity, so that eliminates one of Advanced's capacity multipliers. However, I am not the least bit worried. Voice traffic congestion seems to be largely a thing of the past. The primary concern now is data.

 

AJ

[iansltx]

Never mind the fact that an additional 1x voice carrier will be added nationwide on SMR. This won't decrease PCS load much...that carrier will be for coverage more than capacity...but every little bit helps.

 

The nice thing about a market like LA is that, as Sprint gets smartphone users pushed to LTE, they'll likely be able to refarm enough PCS to launch a third PCS LTE 5x5 carrier...or widen carrier two to 10x10. That's a bit more of a stretch, sure, but it's not nearly as aggressive as what T-Mobile will end up doing on PCS in many places to get H+ up and running.

 

Kinda curious myself about Austin, where Sprint's spectrum holdings are more fragmented. I would love to run the same spreadsheet analysis that AJ has done, but I guess I need Top Secret clearance for that : p

 

Sent from my Galaxy SIII-32GB using Forum Runner

[iansltx]

EDIT: Double post. Silly spotty 3G.

[Guest dennisdh]

Hi all I'm not sure where exactly to post because I'm fairly new here but I just read a rather disturbing article regarding sprints 4g late roll out that I for the 1st time really caught my attention and has me concerned whether sprint will be able to compete in the long term. If anyone can shed some light I'd appreciate it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444097904577539313305919578.html

[boomerbubba]

Hi all I'm not sure where exactly to post because I'm fairly new here but I just read a rather disturbing article regarding sprints 4g late roll out that I for the 1st time really caught my attention and has me concerned whether sprint will be able to compete in the long term. If anyone can shed some light I'd appreciate it. http://online.wsj.co...3305919578.html

 

You might just start reading at the top of this thread. That article as linked in the third comment.

[Josh]

Today, I pulled out the spreadsheets and ran the numbers for fallow and available PCS A-F block spectrum in the Kansas City market.

 

In the KC CMA (Johnson and Wyandotte Counties, KS; Cass, Clay, Jackson, Platte, and Ray Counties, MO), Sprint has the PCS A block 30 MHz license and has deployed just shy of 300 sites. Those sites average CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum deployment of 12.18 MHz per site. Vice versa, those sites average 17.82 MHz of spectrum unused and available per site. As in Los Angeles, that is well above the 10 MHz minimum of available spectrum required to deploy a second LTE 1900 carrier.

 

As for the outliers -- those sites that greatly exceed the average -- seven sites (i.e. ~2.3 percent) in the market have deployed greater than 20 MHz of spectrum, hence have less than 10 MHz of remaining spectrum available. However, two of those sites are specifically intended as CDMA1X DAS at the Kansas Speedway. And four of the other five outliers have 7.5 MHz of spectrum available, so they need only one CDMA1X/EV-DO carrier to be refarmed in order to have sufficient spectrum available for a second LTE 1900 carrier.

 

AJ

 

I would assume that they will have no problem re-farming these last few sites once NV is done in that area. There are 3 reasons, first all 3G performance will be much better than it is right now, and actually hit their theoretical speed and capacity targets with the new backhaul and equipment. This will relieve stress of the system because people will be able to use the network and get off the airwaves because they are done, instead of waiting forever for something to download. Secondly, they will be adding an additional CDMA1X Advanced voice carrier in the 800MHz SMR band, which will alleviate some stress from the current sites... and they will eventually re-farm other CDMA voice carriers to Advanced as well which has better capacity and ability for HD voice. Thirdly, as 4G LTE becomes more popular, most data traffic will eventually be transmitted over LTE, and with the 5x5 carrier on the PCS-G block and the 5x5 carrier in the 800MHz SMR band, as well as Clearwire's TDD-LTE for high traffic areas... There should be no problem removing a 1.25x1.25MHz EVDO carrier at that time!

 

At the end of the day, as long as sprint has 30+ MHz of spectrum in the PCS band currently (before counting PCS-G block), they should have no problem adding another 5x5 carrier in the PCS band. Even some places where they have only 20-25MHz of spectrum, they might be able to add another 5x5MHz carrier. This will give sprint 30MHz of total LTE spectrum on their network in the future, not counting the Clearwire available spectrum (which should be 20+20MHz TDD-LTE when deployed).

 

The bottom line is that as long as sprint is able to complete their Network Vision Program, they should be in a good position to not only be a healthy company, but give serious competition to the big 2.

 

Very true, although I'm just curious how up to date the spectrum utilization numbers are since Ericsson is constantly adding voice and EVDO carriers to beef up capacity.

 

Those band-aid fixes are usually just one voice/EVDO carrier or backhaul related. And once NV is complete, there is no telling if they will still need those additional carriers, as the network will be performing at peak performance and LTE will take some of the power users off of 3G.

[caleuche]

This will give sprint 30MHz of total LTE spectrum on their network in the future, not counting the Clearwire available spectrum (which should be 20+20MHz TDD-LTE when deployed).

.

 

Forgive the potentially naive question, but when discussing using TDD is the terminology 20+20 correct? I thought that was specific to FDD systems and TDD would just be 20 or 40 MHz (which I thought was wider than LTE r8 allowed) which is dynamically allocated on a time division basis between forward and reverse channel.

 

Or did you mean LTE Advanced with two 20 MHz bidirectional bonded channels?

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[S4GRU]

 

Forgive the potentially naive question' date=' but when discussing using TDD is the terminology 20+20 correct? I thought that was specific to FDD systems and TDD would just be 20 or 40 MHz (which I thought was wider than LTE r8 allowed) which is dynamically allocated on a time division basis between forward and reverse channel.

 

Or did you mean LTE Advanced with two 20 MHz bidirectional bonded channels?

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2[/quote']

 

Since he said 20+20, I believe he is talking about two separate TDD-LTE carriers. If he said 20x20, then I know he was confused between TDD and FDD. Maybe Josh can elaborate a little more what he was referring to?

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[WiWavelength]

Forgive the potentially naive question, but when discussing using TDD is the terminology 20+20 correct?

Since he said 20+20, I believe he is talking about two separate TDD-LTE carriers. If he said 20x20, then I know he was confused between TDD and FDD.

 

Honestly, there is no set standard nomenclature. Unless stated otherwise, I always assume FDD paired spectrum for mobile operations. And for FDD paired spectrum, I always use the "uplink MHz x downlink MHz" format. But judging from what I have seen in FCC filings, industry professionals also refer to "uplink MHz + downlink MHz" and "uplink MHz/downlink MHz" formats. For TDD unpaired spectrum, I always try to make that distinction clear by mentioning "TDD," "unpaired," or in the case of LTE, "TD-LTE" or "LTE TDD."

 

AJ

[Josh]

Since he said 20+20, I believe he is talking about two separate TDD-LTE carriers. If he said 20x20, then I know he was confused between TDD and FDD. Maybe Josh can elaborate a little more what he was referring to?

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

From the Clearwire videos and articles that I have seen, they are going to be deploying in 20MHz channels for their TDD-LTE. I do not know if it is possible to deploy wider channels, but it seems that no one is deploying wider bands, so possibly its because of the chip makers & economies of scale. The 20MHz channel will be used for uplink and downlink data transmission, but they can actually change the ratio of uplink to downlink by using different patterns within the transmission. This is great to be able to serve more downlink in an area that is being stressed without adding carriers, but to allow handoff's between the towers, all surrounding towers must use the same mode. (this is where they can claim the 168Mb/s max download speed, but the upload drops to something like 5Mb/s, most of the configurations are around 60-90Mb/s download speed... which is still awesome!)

Anyway, the reason that I had put 20+20MHz is because they say that they will be initially deploying 2 20MHz carriers, and I had read someone else using this to depict multiple unpaired carriers. If anyone knows the correct way of stating this, I will make sure that I use it in any future quotes.

 

I hope that helped.

[WiWavelength]

If anyone knows the correct way of stating this, I will make sure that I use it in any future quotes.

 

There really is no single correct way. But for clarity, I would say that Clearwire will be deploying two 20 MHz TD-LTE carriers.

 

AJ