Everything 800mhz (1xA, LTE, coverage, timeline, etc)

[DaQue]

so im in denver and been getting 800 connections alot in new areas which is really cool, it means its getting closer(well im hoping). Anyways my question is while i was driving away from my house tonight my phone was only connecting to 800 but the towers it kept bouncing off of were like many miles away especially since there is about five other towers next to me i always connect too. So why would my phone connect to them first? im excited that im going to be surrounded  by 800 but just wondering why tonight it was doing that in an area it has not. thanks

Could it be that the closer towers are  at capacity and they are moving some to 800 to load balance? Anyone know if they do that?

[WiWavelength]

so im in denver and been getting 800 connections alot in new areas which is really cool, it means its getting closer(well im hoping). Anyways my question is while i was driving away from my house tonight my phone was only connecting to 800 but the towers it kept bouncing off of were like many miles away especially since there is about five other towers next to me i always connect too. So why would my phone connect to them first? im excited that im going to be surrounded  by 800 but just wondering why tonight it was doing that in an area it has not. thanks

Could it be that the closer towers are  at capacity and they are moving some to 800 to load balance? Anyone know if they do that?

 

Nope.  If you are camped on CDMA1X 800, your handset will not switch back to CDMA1X 1900 until the networks moves it to do so or it loses CDMA1X 800 signal.  Your handset will not switch to CDMA1X 1900 just because there is a closer site available.  That is not how this kind of multi frequency network operates.

 

AJ

[jthawks]

ok i think i understand. But it was switching towers that are like ten plus miles away in opposite directions from each other. i was in the middle, So basically 800 is first priority? 

[shawn_kc]

Oh dear, my bad! Sorry for spreading misinformation. Whenever I have been on a call initiated on 800, it drops when I travel beyond 800 coverage. It always appears to switch to 1900 immediately after. I thought that was normal.. good to know it's not! So why does that happen on my EVO LTE?

 

-Mike

The same thing happened in the KC area.  Anytime you were on a call connected to 800, it would drop the call when moving out of the that coverage area.  So they blocked connections to 800 for the last several months.  I actually just connected to 800 tonight (I noticed thanks to your app) for the first time in along time.  

[blackwaterstout]

1x800 in Washington PA.

[bobo37]

Does anyone have any idea on a usable distance increase with 800? I work on a boat and go in the ocean sometimes 12 or so miles out. Att works pretty much as far as we go out voice and data but sprint will only go about 7 or 8 miles and that varies. Keep in mind that there are no obstructions to block the signal.

[jamisonshaw125]

Does anyone have any idea on a usable distance increase with 800? I work on a boat and go in the ocean sometimes 12 or so miles out. Att works pretty much as far as we go out voice and data but sprint will only go about 7 or 8 miles and that varies. Keep in mind that there are no obstructions to block the signal.

If you're getting a signal at 7 or 8 miles on 1900 MHz, I would expect to haves similar and or much better coverage with 800. Sometimes they actually aim the antennae out there. I used to live on the coast and had service several miles off.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bobo37]

I'm hoping to beat att distance so I can rub it in the face of the att lovers that go far on the water but not good on land

[jamisonshaw125]

I'm hoping to beat att distance so I can rub it in the face of the att lovers that go far on the water but not good on land

Well, assuming the propagation characteristics of 800, if you have little to no interference I could see you having similar and/or better coverage out there.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ejlwireless]

Has anyone seen any LTE Band 27 equipment in any markets yet or it remains to be upgraded and deployed from the NV equipment?

 

Or will all the effort focus on TDD LTE deployments for Project Spark given the limited BW available at 800MHz?

[S4GRU]

Does anyone have any idea on a usable distance increase with 800? I work on a boat and go in the ocean sometimes 12 or so miles out. Att works pretty much as far as we go out voice and data but sprint will only go about 7 or 8 miles and that varies. Keep in mind that there are no obstructions to block the signal.

CDMA 800 could be usable for 50 miles over open water. It depends on where the site is and how the panels are aimed. To get a distance like that, they would have to be aimed right at you with no downtilt. However, many sites near the water are not deployed with zero down tilt and straight out over the open sea.

 

There is no way to answer specifically what you can expect at all in your specific coverage areas. It could be an increase of as little as a half mile or even more than 20-30 additional miles than before. AT&T may have set up sectors specifically to cover the waterways in your area. Sprint may or may have not done the same.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

[bobo37]

CDMA 800 could be usable for 50 miles over open water. It depends on where the site is and how the panels are aimed. To get a distance like that, they would have to be aimed right at you with no downtilt. However, many sites near the water are not deployed with zero down tilt and straight out over the open sea. There is no way to answer specifically what you can expect at all in your specific coverage areas. It could be an increase of as little as a half mile or even more than 20-30 additional miles than before. AT&T may have set up sectors specifically to cover the waterways in your area. Sprint may or may have not done the same. Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

I can't wait to find out. We don't have any 800 yet in the Myrtle Beach area but hopefully soon. There are several towers near the coast so we will see what happens. I'll report back my results when we get some towers live.

[The Dave]

I'm hoping to beat att distance so I can rub it in the face of the att lovers that go far on the water but not good on land

If you are already getting PCS service upwards of 7-8 miles off the coast, it'd be a good bet that you would see a nice and sizeable increase. It sounds like Sprint purposely set the towers up to give service out there.

[Flompholph]

Has anyone seen any LTE Band 27 equipment in any markets yet or it remains to be upgraded and deployed from the NV equipment?

 

Or will all the effort focus on TDD LTE deployments for Project Spark given the limited BW available at 800MHz?

Is band 27 open for LTE usage yet? I know there are band 26 LTE towers live both iPhone5s and lg g2 have both connected to towers in different parts of the country. Shentel area hopefully will be live in the next month or so all the equipment is said to be in place. Is sprint going to use band 27 for lte or is it being used for just 1x? The answer might belong in one of premier map threads.

[The Dave]

What is band 27? Did I miss something? I knew I shouldn't have gone to bed last night..

[WiWavelength]

Has anyone seen any LTE Band 27 equipment in any markets yet or it remains to be upgraded and deployed from the NV equipment?

 

Sprint is deploying band 26, not band 27.

 

AJ

[JDD]

I see people here are not getting dropped if the phone switches between 800 and 1900. I have a problem of the calls dropping and thought the samething mikejeep did. Is this the phone or an issue I should call Sprint about.

 

Thanks

[S4GRU]

Is band 27 open for LTE usage yet? I know there are band 26 LTE towers live both iPhone5s and lg g2 have both connected to towers in different parts of the country. Shentel area hopefully will be live in the next month or so all the equipment is said to be in place. Is sprint going to use band 27 for lte or is it being used for just 1x? The answer might belong in one of premier map threads.

 

 

Has anyone seen any LTE Band 27 equipment in any markets yet or it remains to be upgraded and deployed from the NV equipment?

 

Or will all the effort focus on TDD LTE deployments for Project Spark given the limited BW available at 800MHz?

 

Band 27 is Public Safety portion of SMR band.  Sprint is only deploying on Band 26, in the public part of the SMR band.  Sprint devices are capable of using the entirety of Band 26, which includes the public portion of the SMR band and the Cellular band.  So Band 26 capable devices can also roam on Cellular Band LTE, or if Sprint ever picks up any Cellular band licenses, it can deploy LTE on it.

 

Robert

[ejlwireless]

Band 27 is Public Safety portion of SMR band.  Sprint is only deploying on Band 26, in the public part of the SMR band.  Sprint devices are capable of using the entirety of Band 26, which includes the public portion of the SMR band and the Cellular band.  So Band 26 capable devices can also roam on Cellular Band LTE, or if Sprint ever picks up any Cellular band licenses, it can deploy LTE on it.

 

Robert

Robert Thanks i rellized the mistake I made in looking at the 3GPP bands between 26 and 27. So from what was said earlier, it seems like a few towers are up and running in Band 26 but most of the focus has been on Band 25 1900MHz to roll out LTE for Sprint. Does anyone have specific markets? With these little 5MHz chunks here and there, Sprint will need LTE-A to bundle these small pipes to even compete against a 40MHz pipe from T-Mobile in its AWS markets. Thanks everyone for the great feedback!

 

Earl

[mozamcrew]

Robert Thanks i rellized the mistake I made in looking at the 3GPP bands between 26 and 27. So from what was said earlier, it seems like a few towers are up and running in Band 26 but most of the focus has been on Band 25 1900MHz to roll out LTE for Sprint. Does anyone have specific markets? With these little 5MHz chunks here and there, Sprint will need LTE-A to bundle these small pipes to even compete against a 40MHz pipe from T-Mobile in its AWS markets. Thanks everyone for the great feedback!

 

Earl

 

Band 41/TD-LTE is their plan for competing with other carriers AWS LTE networks in the long term. They will be more spectrum and denser deployments in urban areas leading to way more capacity. Band 25/26 is for urban fallback and rural coverage, much like Verizon and ATT have 700 Mhz, and eventually repurposed Cell spectrum.

[WiWavelength]

Band 27 is Public Safety portion of SMR band.

 

For clarification, band 27 includes the entire SMR 800 MHz band.  So, Sprint could have gone the band 27 route.  But I suspect Sprint saw the much greater economy of scale from band 26, since it also includes all of the Cellular 850 MHz band.  Possibly no operator in the world will use band 27.  But as VZW and AT&T eventually refarm their Cellular 850 MHz holdings, they will likely have to follow band 26.  Or even if they anti competitively drag their feet with band 5, they will likely be required to use MFBI.

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

Robert Thanks i rellized the mistake I made in looking at the 3GPP bands between 26 and 27. So from what was said earlier, it seems like a few towers are up and running in Band 26 but most of the focus has been on Band 25 1900MHz to roll out LTE for Sprint. Does anyone have specific markets? With these little 5MHz chunks here and there, Sprint will need LTE-A to bundle these small pipes to even compete against a 40MHz pipe from T-Mobile in its AWS markets. Thanks everyone for the great feedback!

 

Your discussion of LTE bandwidth is a bit off.  You are using "5 MHz chunks" to describe Sprint holdings but "40 MHz pipe" to describe T-Mobile holdings.  Your first follows the FDD convention, while your second references total paired spectrum.  That is inconsistent.

 

In band 25 and/or band 26, Sprint will have multiple 5 MHz FDD carriers in all markets; in band 41, it will have 20 MHz TDD carriers in top markets.

 

In band 4, T-Mobile will have one 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, or 20 MHz FDD carrier in some markets.  To be supremely clear, T-Mobile will not have 20 MHz FDD in that many markets, though T-Mobile would like to have you believe so.

 

Do you see how that fixes the comparison?

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

For clarification, band 27 includes the entire SMR 800 MHz band.  So, Sprint could have gone the band 27 route.  But I suspect Sprint saw the much greater economy of scale from band 26, since it also includes all of the Cellular 850 MHz band.  Possibly no operator in the world will use band 27.  But as VZW and AT&T eventually refarm their Cellular 850 MHz holdings, they will likely have to follow band 26.  Or even if they anti competitively drag their feet with band 5, they will likely be required to use MFBI.

 

AJ

 

Fortunately for Sprint, they will have a good reason to not support Band 27.  Unlike Verizon or AT&T.  They will not be able to shake the anti-competitive appearance of using Band 5 over Band 26 in the future.  Although, I guess the same exists between using Band 2 over Band 25.

 

I wonder if anyone will ever actually deploy LTE on the exclusive part of Band 27?  I imagine getting devices will be a bear without one of the major providers choosing to support Band 27.

 

Robert

[WiWavelength]

I wonder if anyone will ever actually deploy LTE on the exclusive part of Band 27?  I imagine getting devices will be a bear without one of the major providers choosing to support Band 27.

 

I think NII Holdings aka Nextel International might be the only hope.

 

AJ

[ejlwireless]

Your discussion of LTE bandwidth is a bit off.  You are using "5 MHz chunks" to describe Sprint holdings but "40 MHz pipe" to describe T-Mobile holdings.  Your first follows the FDD convention, while your second references total paired spectrum.  That is inconsistent.

 

In band 25 and/or band 26, Sprint will have multiple 5 MHz FDD carriers in all markets; in band 41, it will have 20 MHz TDD carriers in top markets.

 

In band 4, T-Mobile will have one 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, or 20 MHz FDD carrier in some markets.  To be supremely clear, T-Mobile will not have 20 MHz FDD in that many markets, though T-Mobile would like to have you believe so.

 

Do you see how that fixes the comparison?

 

AJ

AJ

 

Thank you for the clarification. Is there more than one 5MHz channel for 800MHz band and how many 5Mhz channels of 1900Mhz would Sprint have on average? The G block is 5MHz for FDD. I don't think they have talked about using the A-F blocks yet for 1900MHz for LTE or have they? A slide from T-Mobile regarding the 700Mhz purchase from Verizon Wireless says it has 40Mhz in top 25 markets for AWS. I tried to post image but got an error saying the image extension was not allowed. What types of images are allowed on this forum?  Is this pure marketing BS? I agree on TDD LTE spectrum of 20MHz carriers in top markets for Sprint.

 

Are there currently LTE 800MHz Band 25 compatible devices out on the market?

 

Thank you again for your comment. This forum is really fantastic and a great resource.