T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion

[maxsilver]

I presume additional towers are going to have to be built along with more sites on existing towers in rural areas, along with adding more sites in areas that are native where coverage is subpar.

 

Leasing new sites -- absolutely. They'll need lots of new sites.

 

Building new sites -- I'm not sure about that. There's a surprising amount of underused, PCS-spaced sites in "rural-ish / small town" areas, according to what their sales reps show me on the American Tower / Crown Castle location tools.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if T-Mobile builds zero new sites, and just leases all of the new sites they need. There's a lot of them already out there, and the rural / small town ones are surprisingly cheap.

[Fraydog]

Leasing new sites -- absolutely. They'll need lots of new sites.

 

Building new sites -- I'm not sure about that. There's a surprising amount of underused, PCS-spaced sites in "rural-ish / small town" areas, according to what their sales reps show me on the American Tower / Crown Castle location tools.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if T-Mobile builds zero new sites, and just leases all of the new sites they need. There's a lot of them already out there, and the rural / small town ones are surprisingly cheap.

 

When T-Mobile expanded along Route 3 from Red Bud to Evansville and Chester in 2008/2009, they built new sites, sites that were promptly sold to SBA Towers. So every area varies. Then again, there was no other site infrastructure in Chester that was not owned by Verizon. Even the single site AT&T had here in Chester pre-Alltel merger was owned by Verizon. 

 

To slightly change the subject, not by much, but just a bit, it seems like T-Mobile doesn't have the site density in the college towns closest to me. Carbondale, a town of 25,000 that's the home of Southern Illinois University, is served by one EDGE site. That's not going to cut it even if upgraded to LTE. T-Mobile should try to match the six - yes, six - Carbondale sites that Sprint has. That's not counting that I'm pretty sure that at least one of the sites that I spotted has what looked to be 8T8R radios. Maybe Carbondale isn't the norm - and T-Moble still has more regional coverage here. I did see tower workers on a T-Mobile site also shared by Sprint at Gorham, 15 miles west of Carbondale on the river bottoms, swapping out panels. 

 

Cape Girardeau has LTE and HSPA coverage but there's still spots in the NW of town they could connect into the PCS spaced sites used by Sprint there as well. Then there's the final piece of the puzzle, the 700 MHz that is currently held by US Celluar. USCC only holds a few markets around here, they have vacated St. Louis and Southeast Missouri, selling their Farmington/Ste. Genevieve market to Verizon and St. Louis to Sprint. So if there's a sublease deal that can be had, it is in T-Mobile's best interest to make that deal. 

[milan03]

Leasing new sites -- absolutely. They'll need lots of new sites.

 

Building new sites -- I'm not sure about that. There's a surprising amount of underused, PCS-spaced sites in "rural-ish / small town" areas, according to what their sales reps show me on the American Tower / Crown Castle location tools.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if T-Mobile builds zero new sites, and just leases all of the new sites they need. There's a lot of them already out there, and the rural / small town ones are surprisingly cheap.

Don't forget that T-Mobile may very well avoid usual suspects like American Tower / Crown Castle and go with many small "built to suit" tower companies instead, that will build exactly what T-Mobile's asking for, front the cost, and then lease it long term to T-Mobile.

 

Obviously on the surface co-location sounds like a logical move, but it's not always ideal nor the cheapest.

[Paynefanbro]

To slightly change the subject, not by much, but just a bit, it seems like T-Mobile doesn't have the site density in the college towns closest to me. Carbondale, a town of 25,000 that's the home of Southern Illinois University, is served by one EDGE site. That's not going to cut it even if upgraded to LTE. T-Mobile should try to match the six - yes, six - Carbondale sites that Sprint has. That's not counting that I'm pretty sure that at least one of the sites that I spotted has what looked to be 8T8R radios. Maybe Carbondale isn't the norm - and T-Moble still has more regional coverage here. I did see tower workers on a T-Mobile site also shared by Sprint at Gorham, 15 miles west of Carbondale on the river bottoms, swapping out panels. 

 

Cape Girardeau has LTE and HSPA coverage but there's still spots in the NW of town they could connect into the PCS spaced sites used by Sprint there as well. Then there's the final piece of the puzzle, the 700 MHz that is currently held by US Celluar. USCC only holds a few markets around here, they have vacated St. Louis and Southeast Missouri, selling their Farmington/Ste. Genevieve market to Verizon and St. Louis to Sprint. So if there's a sublease deal that can be had, it is in T-Mobile's best interest to make that deal. 

 

To go along with this, the same seems to be true of T-Mobile at Boston College. It seems as though they'll need an extra site or two to match the other carrier's coverage here. In one of the more heavily trafficked areas of the campus my friend's YouTube video connection just cut out and she had to reconnect to WiFi to get it to start working again.

 

What sucks about BC is that it's location makes it pretty much subpar for every carrier. It's in an upper middle class suburb of Boston which makes having cell sites in the area less than desirable. AT&T is the sponsor for athletics at the school and as a result they've set up DAS in the stadium I believe, however Verizon provides the best service, followed by Sprint, then AT&T, and in a distant 4th place, you have T-Mobile.

[bigsnake49]

Anyone have insight into the CDMA shutdown dates? What's left?

NYC, Michigan, ?

 

Florida, Mass.

[bigsnake49]

No extra money needed. The amount of money allocated this year is the same amount used to upgrade 50K existing sites last year, which should be enough to upgrade the remaining 10K sites and construct all the remaining sites needed. The major cost is when a new site has to be built from scratch, and even then, the cost of that isn't that much more from putting equipment on an existing location or upgrading an existing site. Main issue is red tape and timing, which is likely being worked on as we speak.

 

The problem is that there's little financial truth backing that opinion. "People saying that" doesn't make it true.

 

T-Mobile's just had their best year in recent history. They've gone from 7 million net yearly loss, to roughly break even (all while building an expensive LTE network, running large scale advertising campaigns, financing unprecedented levels of devices / ETF payouts, etc -- things they could easily cut back on, if they decided they wanted to show on-paper profit).

 

Don't take my word for it, their finances are public record :

https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TMUS&annual & https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TMUS

 

T-Mobile is fine, and unless something crazy happens, they can "sustainably" operate as-is for many years.

 

DT pushes the rumor that T-Mobile is "unsustainable" because they want someone to buy out their ownership at a premium price, and that premium is easiest to get if there is no competition in wireless (which is what a Sprint/T-Mobile merger guarantees).

 

Believing DT at face value about this, is like believing an umbrella salesman's weather forecast.

I'm well aware of the financial condition. We will see how much worse it is after the conclusion of the auction and the finishing of the rural build.

[lou99/maximus1987]

I'm well aware of the financial condition. We will see how much worse it is after the conclusion of the auction and the finishing of the rural build.

Analysts saying tmobile spent less than $4bil

 

Remember TMO has 5x5 or even 10x10 AWS Hspa. Once that's shutdown they'll have more lte AWS.

[bigsnake49]

Analysts saying tmobile spent less than $4bil

 

Remember TMO has 5x5 or even 10x10 AWS Hspa. Once that's shutdown they'll have more lte AWS.

Yeah and they're still selling HSPA handsets.

[bigsnake49]

Analysts saying tmobile spent less than $4bil

 

Remember TMO has 5x5 or even 10x10 AWS Hspa. Once that's shutdown they'll have more lte AWS.

We have no idea how much they spent. Something tells me that the CEO might know. They either spend too much for too little or they did not spend anything except some tertiary markets and he's bemoaning the fact that it takes a lot of money to play in this market. If the big 2 swept everything it really reinforces Sprint's and T-Mobile's argument for a merger. Imagine how expensive the 600MHz auction will be!

Sprint will be in big trouble with the EBS license holders they have leases from as those leases expire. They will demand astronomical renewal fees. Is that why Sprint/Claure are willing to shed some of them? Could they also be willing to sell to make the case for a merger even stronger (look, we don't have that much spectrum, we swear)?

Edited January 20, 2015 by bigsnake49

[lou99/maximus1987]

Yeah and they're still selling HSPA handsets.

They sure are and those support Hspa 1900 which will NOT be shutdown. They've been selling Hspa 1900 handsets since at least as far back as jan 2012 see samsung blaze. And after they implement wcdma+ the Hspa 1900 network will be able to handle even more data.

[lou99/maximus1987]

We have no idea how much they spent. Something tells me that the CEO might know. They either spend too much for too little or they did not spend anything except some tertiary markets and he's bemoaning the fact that it takes a lot of money to play in this market. If the big 2 swept everything it really reinforces Sprint's and T-Mobile's argument for a merger. Imagine how expensive the 600MHz auction will be!

Sprint will be in big trouble with the EBS license holders they have leases from as those leases expire. They will demand astronomical renewal fees. Is that why Sprint/Claure are willing to shed some of them? Could they also be willing to sell to make the case for a merger even stronger (look, we don't have that much spectrum, we swear)?

The 600 auction will have reserved an unreserved spectrum and the big boys will mostly bid for unreserved.

If the 2 swept AWS it says they really needed midband. TMO has plenty of midband and sprint has plenty of 2.5ghz

 

The "case" to be made is irrelevant. A republican fcc will approve merger no matter what happens while a democratic one will deny the merger no matter what.

 

In 2017, first opportunity for a merger, will sprint be weaker than tmobile was post att merger? No. So there won't be a case to be made that "we're just too weak, we need to buy TMO please let us"

[JonnygATL]

This was the best part of the city council minutes cited in the Supreme Court decision:

 

 

 

This is Georgia, after all. He is probably an AT&T sub...

 

 

AJ

He very likely is. However, this (Roswell) is quite a wealthy Atlanta suburb and one would expect decent to good service from all tier 1 carriers in the area.

In other news, I was all over Roswell, Alpharetta and Johns Creek yesterday (northern Atlanta suburbs) and I can tell you that I was quite surprised to experience very strong Sprint band 41 coverage with speedtests all over 30mbps. It was delicious!

[bigsnake49]

The 600 auction will have reserved an unreserved spectrum and the big boys will mostly bid for unreserved.

If the 2 swept AWS it says they really needed midband. TMO has plenty of midband and sprint has plenty of 2.5ghz

 

The "case" to be made is irrelevant. A republican fcc will approve merger no matter what happens while a democratic one will deny the merger no matter what.

 

In 2017, first opportunity for a merger, will sprint be weaker than tmobile was post att merger? No. So there won't be a case to be made that "we're just too weak, we need to buy TMO please let us"

The two have plenty of midband. They have not even started touching their 1900MHz holdings...Or their 850Mz holdings...

Edited January 21, 2015 by bigsnake49

[lou99/maximus1987]

The two have plenty of midband. They have not even started touching their 1900MHz holdings...

Vzw has like 10mhz paired not fdd in most of its markets. Att not sure. I think they'll get huge boost when they shutdown 2g dec 31 2016 and refarm to lte.

[milan03]

Vzw has like 10mhz paired not fdd in most of its markets. Att not sure. I think they'll get huge boost when they shutdown 2g dec 31 2016 and refarm to lte.

Huge boost? Definitely not as they've had GSM down to a minimum for years.

HSPA+ will still be around past 2017, with at least two carriers in major urban areas addressing fallback voice/data.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Huge boost? Definitely not as they've had GSM down to a minimum for years.

HSPA+ will still be around past 2017, with at least two carriers in major urban areas addressing fallback voice/data.

How many MHz paired do they have for gsm today?

[milan03]

How many MHz paired do they have for gsm today?

Well, in markets like NYC they only run 3MHz of dedicated GSM in the CLR, and the rest is GSM stuffed in the WCDMA guard band. Meanwhile they're running three WCDMA carriers two in CLR and one in the PCS.

 

That's all.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Well, in markets like NYC they only run 3MHz of dedicated GSM in the CLR, and the rest is GSM stuffed in the WCDMA guard band. Meanwhile they're running three WCDMA carriers two in CLR and one in the PCS.

 

That's all.

What are they gonna use that 3mhz for when they kill gsm?

Flexible umts?

[lou99/maximus1987]

Well, in markets like NYC they only run 3MHz of dedicated GSM in the CLR, and the rest is GSM stuffed in the WCDMA guard band. Meanwhile they're running three WCDMA carriers two in CLR and one in the PCS.

 

That's all.

And a better question is why are the even shutting down GSM if it's not taking up any LTE or Wcdma space?

Seems like it's a luxury they can afford (to have 2g available)

[milan03]

And a better question is why are the even shutting down GSM if it's not taking up any LTE or Wcdma space?

Seems like it's a luxury they can afford (to have 2g available)

They could swap that spectrum with Verizon for contiguity in different markets, plus decommissioning the 2G they're lowering the Opex and moving one step closer towards the leaner "all-LTE" network.

[Fraydog]

Still any swaps VZW and T-Mobile could make in Saint Louis to get to 20x20? VZW already has enough bandwidth but they're B and F AWS 10x10 blocks that are non-contiguous.

[EvanA]

Still any swaps VZW and T-Mobile could make in Saint Louis to get to 20x20? VZW already has enough bandwidth but they're B and F AWS 10x10 blocks that are non-contiguous.

T-Mobile has 15MHz contiguous AWS in St. Louis.  There's nothing they could swap that would net them more spectrum.  

[lou99/maximus1987]

Good resource for TMO's spectra http://www.spectrumgateway.com/t-mobile-spectrum-holdings

[lou99/maximus1987]

I'm just glad someone other than myself noticed it. T-Mobile will firmly push into the "profitable" region with the MetroPCS decommissioning completed this year, since redundant core network for CDMA and the MetroPCS radio access network systems would be removed and costs associated with O&M for those systems will be removed from the books going forward.

 

On top of that, once the buildout to cover 300M POPs and support the AWS/PCS licenses T-Mobile has throughout the country with no underlying network is complete and T-Mobile has sufficiently acquired 600MHz and 700MHz licenses, T-Mobile can start banking cash for 600MHz deployment in 2022 (since 600MHz can't even be used until 39 months after the auction concludes and the licenses are issued).

When will metro CDMA be shutdown?

[bigsnake49]

Fight!!!!    

Yesterday, the CEO of T-Mobile’s parent company — Germany’s Deutsche Telekom — suggested in an interview that the insurgent “Uncarrier” is using a business model that’s “unsustainable,” to which T-Mobile US CEO John Legere responded in a tweet today: “It’s total bullshit.”

Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges “admitted that T-Mobile’s current approach is not sustainable,” according to Re/code, which published the interview. “The question is always the economics in the long term … and earning appropriate money,” Höttges said. “You have to earn your money back at one point in time.”

http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/20/its-total-bullshit-says-t-mobile-ceo-to-claims-that-uncarrier-model-is-unsustainable/

 

I would say that there is a definite difference of opinion. Maybe DT should spinoff T-Mobile US and let them sink or swim on their own.