No SVDO nor SVLTE!!

[nobius]

What the Deathstar DOESN'T tell you is that 3G errr I mean "4G" speeds are throttled during calls! (at least they were on iPhone 4) down to 300 kbps. It was practically useless anyway... Much happier with my Sprint GS3 and full speed surfing on LTE during calls and even full speed SVDO.

 

I found this amusing as well.

[WiWavelength]

What the Deathstar DOESN'T tell you is that 3G errr I mean "4G" speeds are throttled during calls! (at least they were on iPhone 4) down to 300 kbps.

 

The W-CDMA standard consists of many different Releases (the equivalent of Revisions within the CDMA2000 standard). For example, T-Mobile DC-HSPA+ is really just W-CDMA Release 8. What gets lost in all of this is that voice operates on the original W-CDMA Release 99, which supports a maximum packet data rate of 384 kbps.

 

Now, I am honestly not sure if this varies from device to device or is baked into the W-CDMA standard, but at least some devices will fall back to W-CDMA Release 99 for simultaneous voice and data. And that caps data at the aforementioned 384 kbps rate.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

AT&T has the least standard UMTS and HSPA+ implementation on planet Earth. I wouldn't judge UMTS or HSPA+ on anything AT&T does. A better reference point would be T-Mobile US or almost any other GSM/UMTS/HSPA+ provider on the planet.

[Fraydog]

 

And the sooner the carriers switch over to VoLTE, the better for them. But are you rooting for the carriers? Or are you pulling for your own self interest in maintaining reliable, high quality cellular voice?

 

I'd say Sprint and their big brother Verizon has plenty of incentive to drag their feet on VoLTE. The main incentive is that the world has moved more and more away from CDMA2000 and they can still lock-in customers. Verizon doesn't really have to comply with the Open Access rules they agreed to to win 700 Upper C spectrum. That is the big reason that CDMA is the ultimate "hold me back" on consumers. Verizon has at least started unlocking GSM/UMTS on their phones, no doubt due to the prompting of the FCC.

[gusherb]

AT&T has the least standard UMTS and HSPA+ implementation on planet Earth. I wouldn't judge UMTS or HSPA+ on anything AT&T does. A better reference point would be T-Mobile US or almost any other GSM/UMTS/HSPA+ provider on the planet.

 

For as long as I was on the AT&T HSPA network (February 2010 - 9-21-12) there was always some kind of inconsistency almost anywhere I went around my area. From dropped calls, to inconsistent 3G speeds to poor signal. They could have had a really good HSPA network around here if they actually spent more then the bare minimum on building it out, engineering etc.

I didn't get to see what good 2G GSM was like until last year when I tried T-Mobile for the first time, that was quite a bit nicer then what I had been used to for several years that's for sure. I've yet to try their FauxG network.

 

Back to AT&T, they do seem to have hit the nail on the head in the Alltel area's they took over, at least southwest Colorado, I never had a better network experience on them then out there on their new HSPA network. They even put Verizon to shame over there.

[xenadu]

I'd say Sprint and their big brother Verizon has plenty of incentive to drag their feet on VoLTE. The main incentive is that the world has moved more and more away from CDMA2000 and they can still lock-in customers. Verizon doesn't really have to comply with the Open Access rules they agreed to to win 700 Upper C spectrum. That is the big reason that CDMA is the ultimate "hold me back" on consumers. Verizon has at least started unlocking GSM/UMTS on their phones, no doubt due to the prompting of the FCC.

 

I think technology has finally caught up with them and both Sprint and Verizon have accepted that future devices will use SIM cards with no more ESN/ESID lockouts. There's just no hurry to make it happen as it has costs with zero benefit to them.

 

VoLTE will be necessary for Sprint as it allows them to eek a bit more out of their spectrum and the equipment is the global standard (and thus will be cheaper), and it turns out the carriers largely lost the handset control battle thanks to Apple (the reason Android has a standard Google Play store without any carrier approvals required - the carriers were desperate to compete with Apple and so was Google). I wonder if some of the data capping policies are a result of trying to make their money that way instead **.

 

 

** Standard IP network management is more than sufficient to solve the supposed "data hog" problem by fairly slicing up the available bandwidth during peak usage times.

If someone is using 50GB of data a month, then you move their traffic to the bottom of the priority queue... At noon, they get 200Kbps speeds. At 3AM? They get 30Mbps of LTE. The equipment is on and the big three cell providers are all Tier-1 backbones so they don't pay for upstream bandwidth or peering at all... It literally costs them nothing for you to download a terabyte over the cell network, as long as it happens when the network is lightly loaded.

There are a thousand different priority/scheduling/traffic management systems that have been widely deployed for years, none of which require data caps or overage fees. Caps are a pure money play, nothing else. A way to "tax" Google, Netflix, etc.

[Fraydog]

I think technology has finally caught up with them and both Sprint and Verizon have accepted that future devices will use SIM cards with no more ESN/ESID lockouts. There's just no hurry to make it happen as it has costs with zero benefit to them.

 

VoLTE will be necessary for Sprint as it allows them to eek a bit more out of their spectrum and the equipment is the global standard (and thus will be cheaper), and it turns out the carriers largely lost the handset control battle thanks to Apple (the reason Android has a standard Google Play store without any carrier approvals required - the carriers were desperate to compete with Apple and so was Google). I wonder if some of the data capping policies are a result of trying to make their money that way instead **.

 

 

** Standard IP network management is more than sufficient to solve the supposed "data hog" problem by fairly slicing up the available bandwidth during peak usage times.

If someone is using 50GB of data a month, then you move their traffic to the bottom of the priority queue... At noon, they get 200Kbps speeds. At 3AM? They get 30Mbps of LTE. The equipment is on and the big three cell providers are all Tier-1 backbones so they don't pay for upstream bandwidth or peering at all... It literally costs them nothing for you to download a terabyte over the cell network, as long as it happens when the network is lightly loaded.

There are a thousand different priority/scheduling/traffic management systems that have been widely deployed for years, none of which require data caps or overage fees. Caps are a pure money play, nothing else. A way to "tax" Google, Netflix, etc.

 

I wrote a good reply to a Verizon fanboy on HoFo, you can read it here:

 

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1783060-AT-amp-T-future-and-their-network/

[Fraydog]

Also, I can't post this on HoFo because Tapatalk is weird right now, but there are LTE RRU's on an AT&T panel near New Athens, IL, a place where AT&T was EDGE five months ago. They're hauling ass with these updates. If you would told me New Athens would be in line for LTE five months ago, I would have told you you're nuts.

[WiWavelength]

Also, I can't post this on HoFo because Tapatalk is weird right now, but there are LTE RRU's on an AT&T panel near New Athens, IL, a place where AT&T was EDGE five months ago. They're hauling ass with these updates. If you would told me New Athens would be in line for LTE five months ago, I would have told you you're nuts.

 

The Lower 700 MHz A/B/C block license five year buildout deadlines are June 2013. That is the reason for "hauling ass."

 

AT&T has lots of Lower 700 MHz B/C block licenses. VZW has many Lower 700 MHz A/B block licenses, maybe even some C block licenses, though I know that VZW sold some of those. Regardless, both AT&T and VZW are on the clock.

 

I have no idea how VZW expects to sell off its Lower 700 MHz holdings with the deadlines looming -- unless VZW constructs license protection sites between now and then. And that would be quite the miscarriage of FCC rules and regulations.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

 

And that would be quite the miscarriage of FCC rules and regulations.

 

AJ

 

It is the FCC you speak of. Of course Verizon will find a loophole of some sort. As far as New Athens goes, I don't think that's in an area for mandatory buildout. It is in an area where Verizon has LTE though.

 

AT&T is showing pretty good improvement on their network side. The Root Metrics stats are way better for dropped calls than they were a year ago.

[aliensporebomb]

So this explains why I can do voice/data simultaneously when I'm on my iPhone5 - I was on the wifi at work and it's definetely using both the cellular data and the wifi connection to do it. Weird.