T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion

[Fraydog]

Disregard holding nearly 100 percent coverage footprint. Actually building nearly 100 percent coverage footprint from scratch is the issue. Now, who or what has ever done that? danlodish345, care to answer that question?

 

AJ

WIFI CALLING!

 

Wait, Sprint has that too? And AT&T and Verizon are adding it too? OK.

 

Yet you'd think from the comments of some that T-Mobile was the only carrier to do this. Not the case.

[lou99/maximus1987]

WIFI CALLING!

 

Wait, Sprint has that too? And AT&T and Verizon are adding it too? OK.

 

Yet you'd think from the comments of some that T-Mobile was the only carrier to do this. Not the case.

TMO has wifi to volte handoff.

[jroepcke51]

TMO has wifi to volte handoff.

To yet a very limited LTE (at least here in NM).

[lou99/maximus1987]

To yet a very limited LTE (at least here in NM).

city?

[jroepcke51]

city?

Good LTE in Albuquerque. Sprint is now matching or exceeding the coverage. 

However, Santa Fe very limited last time I test drove ( June 2014)

[Fraydog]

TMO has wifi to volte handoff.

Do you really think I didn't know that? You think VZW and AT&T won't? They have VoLTE too.

[danlodish345]

Disregard holding nearly 100 percent coverage footprint.  Actually building nearly 100 percent coverage footprint from scratch is the issue.  Now, who or what has ever done that?  danlodish345, care to answer that question?

 

AJ

isnt verizon closest to 100 percent foot print of the usa with their cdma network ?

[Fraydog]

isnt verizon closest to 100 percent foot print of the usa with their cdma network ?

I'd say 80% of the lower 48. I live in an extremely rural area, have Verizon, and can find plenty of dead spots. One is in my town's only grocery store. I have wanted a few of them fixed for years and years and years. Verizon has no incentive to listen. As long as people don't leave, they're voting that they're OK with the dead spots. In fact with Verizon people treat the dead spots as a technical limitation, not a fault of Verizon.

 

Overall, Verizon has a very fast, very large, and very expensive network. Even still they miss a lot. Use the carrier that's right for you in your area.

[danlodish345]

I'd say 80% of the lower 48. I live in an extremely rural area, have Verizon, and can find plenty of dead spots. One is in my town's only grocery store. I have wanted a few of them fixed for years and years and years. Verizon has no incentive to listen. As long as people don't leave, they're voting that they're OK with the dead spots. In fact with Verizon people treat the dead spots as a technical limitation, not a fault of Verizon.

 

Overall, Verizon has a very fast, very large, and very expensive network. Even still they miss a lot. Use the carrier that's right for you in your area.

i mean all the carriers work well in my most of my town....except my area.....and tmobile works well.....but hey to each his own

[burnout8488]

I work in a small and what some would consider rural town. (Owego, NY)

 

Sprint LTE has been active since early 2014 on B25 1900mhz. (B26 is on, but non-optimized so it currently provides no gains over B25.)

 

My iPad has both Sprint/Tmo plans on it. T-Mobile JUST turned on their LTE a few weeks ago, and Band 2 (1900Mhz) is active. It is amazing, as far as signal is concerned. Sprint can only hold a -110dBm B25 signal, and is usually on 3G most of the day.

 

Both carriers are co-located on the same site. I work a quarter mile away from it, my building is line-of-sight with the tower. 

 

Why is T-Mobile stronger than Sprint? I've been waiting months for Sprint to optimize 800Mhz just so I can use LTE indoors, and T-Mobile barges in with amazing 1900Mhz that never seems to drop indoors. That, and they couldn't possibly have optimized already, right? 

 

Main question: Is T-Mobile inherently "stronger" than Sprint on the same frequencies?

[reedacus25]

I work in a small and what some would consider rural town. (Owego, NY)

 

Sprint LTE has been active since early 2014 on B25 1900mhz. (B26 is on, but non-optimized so it currently provides no gains over B25.)

 

My iPad has both Sprint/Tmo plans on it. T-Mobile JUST turned on their LTE a few weeks ago, and Band 2 (1900Mhz) is active. It is amazing, as far as signal is concerned. Sprint can only hold a -110dBm B25 signal, and is usually on 3G most of the day.

 

Both carriers are co-located on the same site. I work a quarter mile away from it, my building is line-of-sight with the tower.

 

Why is T-Mobile stronger than Sprint? I've been waiting months for Sprint to optimize 800Mhz just so I can use LTE indoors, and T-Mobile barges in with amazing 1900Mhz that never seems to drop indoors. That, and they couldn't possibly have optimized already, right?

 

Main question: Is T-Mobile inherently "stronger" than Sprint on the same frequencies?

Well that is quite frankly surprising.

 

T-Mobile's 1900 deployment has been almost exclusively GMO.

 

I am sure someone can chime in with Sprint info here, but it's quite likely that Sprint is using Remote Radio Heads which should afford greater coverage.

 

The only thing I can think of that may impact this, is if Sprint has more sites in the area and is required to run at lower power to mitigate interference. But even still, the GMO is going to be less sensitive on the return path which makes the indoor situation a bit odd.

 

Also it could be due to more favorable sector orientation in your scenario. But I'm going to try and assume they are equal.

[lilotimz]

I work in a small and what some would consider rural town. (Owego, NY)

 

Sprint LTE has been active since early 2014 on B25 1900mhz. (B26 is on, but non-optimized so it currently provides no gains over B25.)

 

My iPad has both Sprint/Tmo plans on it. T-Mobile JUST turned on their LTE a few weeks ago, and Band 2 (1900Mhz) is active. It is amazing, as far as signal is concerned. Sprint can only hold a -110dBm B25 signal, and is usually on 3G most of the day.

 

Both carriers are co-located on the same site. I work a quarter mile away from it, my building is line-of-sight with the tower.

 

Why is T-Mobile stronger than Sprint? I've been waiting months for Sprint to optimize 800Mhz just so I can use LTE indoors, and T-Mobile barges in with amazing 1900Mhz that never seems to drop indoors. That, and they couldn't possibly have optimized already, right?

 

Main question: Is T-Mobile inherently "stronger" than Sprint on the same frequencies?

Different cell site design and cell density plays into it.

 

If sprints is designed to cover 4-7 miles while tmobile is designed for 2-3 miles, sprints antenna will be aimed at a much higher tilt level than tmobile which would have a higher down tilt.

 

Basically think of it like this. If you are standing directly under a cell site the signal is basically broadcasted over you and you would get a better signal a mile or so away where the the antenna is focusing on.

[burnout8488]

Thanks guys, I figured there were way too many variables in this scenario to be able to make an apples to apples comparison. 

 

Also, it could be possible that Sprint's B25 hasn't even been optimized yet on this site, and the only reason I even get it is just because of close proximity. Maybe T-mobile fires up their sites and immediately has an optimization crew go to work. I did notice this particular highway got T-mo LTE coverage in a very short timeframe.

[lilotimz]

Thanks guys, I figured there were way too many variables in this scenario to be able to make an apples to apples comparison.

 

Also, it could be possible that Sprint's B25 hasn't even been optimized yet on this site, and the only reason I even get it is just because of close proximity. Maybe T-mobile fires up their sites and immediately has an optimization crew go to work. I did notice this particular highway got T-mo LTE coverage in a very short timeframe.

Tmobile doesn't fire things up until they're completely ready to go and they usually go by clusters. So they've probably tested it as best as they can before they allows consumer access.

 

Sprint b26 has been done mostly by site technicians firing up according to given instructions. Actual Rf engineers doing drive testing to optimize the signals are lacking. Hopefully the implementation of lte advanced features and the wrap up of the actual deployment frees more workers up to do that.

[lou99/maximus1987]

I'm a TMO fan boy but even I can admit GMO sites suck. If it's an intermediate step to a full build then it's acceptable.

[WiWavelength]

Disregard holding nearly 100 percent coverage footprint.  Actually building nearly 100 percent coverage footprint from scratch is the issue.  Now, who or what has ever done that?  danlodish345, care to answer that question?

isnt verizon closest to 100 percent foot print of the usa with their cdma network ?

 

Dan, Danny, DannyBoy, you neglect the key piece of my point:  actually building nearly 100 percent coverage from scratch is the issue.  Not just holding or acquiring.  Building.

 

Use your New Jersey locale as an example.

 

What if AT&TWS -- a completely separate company -- built the core of your AT&T nee Cingular nee SBC coverage footprint?  What if Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Mobile built the core of your VZW coverage footprint?  What if Omnipoint built the core your T-Mobile nee VoiceStream footprint?

 

Hmm...

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

I think it would be fun to point out who actually built what for each part of the country they are in.

 

In Southern Illinois CMA 401 - Douglas Telecom d/b/a Cellular One had Cellular block A. This was built out in the 1990's. Bought by a new merged company called Cellco Partnership, better known as Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless was itself a mashup of GTE, Bell Atlantic, and Vodafone AirTouch.

 

Cellular B was originally built by First Cellular of Southern Illinois, which was bought by Alltel and then stayed Alltel even as Verizon bought Alltel. A company named Atlantic TeleNetwork operated Alltel here along with areas in five other states before finally selling to AT&T which already had towers they bought out here when they were Cingular which merged with AT&T Wireless who bought Suncom's Illinois properties. Confused yet? Fair enough but then consider Cingular also built from scratch other areas of the CMA including where I live. Then Sprint only partially built in the CMA along the interstates, mostly through their Alamosa affiliate and T-Mobile didn't build roaming overbuild until 2008 or so for the small parts of the region they cover.

 

I'm sure you can find similar stories for each market.

[Fraydog]

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2009/07/twenty-five_years_ago_the_first_cell_phone_rang_in_st_louis.php

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberTel_Cellular

 

Just up the river in St. Louis a local company called Cybertel made the first cellular phone call there on the Cellular A band. They would get purchased by Ameritech, which would get purchased by SBC. SBC already had Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems they established to counter Cybertel so Cybertel got divested to GTE which was in the process of merging with Bell Atlantic. These operations got folded into the new Cellco Partnership doing business as Verizon Wireless. 

 

On the other side is Southwestern Bell as Cellular B, the one that would eat AT&T. It was headquartered in St. Louis once. Now if Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T had kept their headquarters here, there would be two of the largest wireless companies a short jaunt on I-70 from each other. Alas Ed Whitacre moved the HQ to his home city of San Antonio. Randall Stephenson would later move the HQ to Dallas. 

[MacinJosh]

Sprint's "network" in Las Vegas was build years ago by Cox Wireless, which was sold to Sprint, and most of rural California was built by Ubiquitel, which was bought out by Sprint over the Nextel fiasco. T-Mobile's network covering most of California and Southern Nevada was built by Cingular, and divested to T-Mobile as a result of the AT&T Wireless merger because AT&TWS had a network built out.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk 3.1.1

[Paynefanbro]

Sprint's "network" in Las Vegas was build years ago by Cox Wireless, which was sold to Sprint, and most of rural California was built by Ubiquitel, which was bought out by Sprint over the Nextel fiasco. T-Mobile's network covering most of California and Southern Nevada was built by Cingular, and divested to T-Mobile as a result of the AT&T Wireless merger because AT&TWS had a network built out.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk 3.1.1

 

That makes sense. I was wondering why California was such a strong area for T-Mobile.

[lordsutch]

Unlike AJ, I tend to think the argument that nobody "built" 100% coverage is rather specious. Yes, the ex-RBOC's wireless divisions, now called Verizon and AT&T as a result of mergers and acquisitions, built a sizeable chunk of the cellular coverage in America, but since almost all of those RBOCs were at some point part of AT&T - and only forced to become separate companies so AT&T could go on its wild goose chase to try to compete in the corporate computing business - there's no reason to believe old AT&T, with its resources from its wireline monopoly, couldn't have built a national AMPS footprint on 850 on the same timetable that the baby bells did from their regional near-monopolies. The first company to serve an area would find it relatively easy to recover its investment, particularly in the analog AMPS days when the solution to "moar range" was "get a bagphone" or "turn up the Tx power" rather than "we need a tower because TDMA or CDMA won't work beyond x kilometers due to speed of light issues throwing the timing out of sync."

 

Now, whether a third or fourth competitor can economically build a near-100%-coverage network without the resources of a company that already has that rural coverage, given the opportunities for profitable expansion are diminished as a result, is a separate question.

 

Hence it makes more sense for carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile to partner with regional or local carriers, even sometimes competitors, that already have wide coverage (e.g. RRPP) rather than building their own networks in those areas if capacity is sufficient. But if Sprint did buy out everyone in the RRPP, or T-Mobile did something similar, and operated a network as big as AT&T's, I don't think it would diminish or alter the achievement by saying "well, Sprint only really built out its first few dozen corporate markets, and the rest of their coverage was just bought."

[WiWavelength]

Sprint's "network" in Las Vegas was build years ago by Cox Wireless, which was sold to Sprint, and most of rural California was built by Ubiquitel, which was bought out by Sprint over the Nextel fiasco. T-Mobile's network covering most of California and Southern Nevada was built by Cingular, and divested to T-Mobile as a result of the AT&T Wireless merger because AT&TWS had a network built out.

 

The difference is that Sprint nee Sprint PCS was involved in all of that buildout -- from establishing a brand name to providing spectrum to extending device procurement.  If not for their relationship with Sprint, most of those affiliates never would have been able to enter the wireless business.  So, I do not consider those areas "acquired" in the same way that VZW acquired Alltel, for example.

 

And Cingular did not originally construct T-Mobile's California network.  Pac Bell did.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

Good point lordsutch. I'm not completely convinced that the chase for 300 MM POP's of coverage on T-Mobile's end might not end up being a net loser for them. I don't think all Magentans are on board either, there's the crowd that thinks that every tower erected on North Dakota soil comes out of their bill directly. While I don't think that's really true, it might affect T-Mobile's ability to meet investor guidance. Considering they're on tight watch from the German fatherland, the inability for them to sell outside the footprint might be a problem. Honestly I would have been OK with them stitching up native coverage. There's lots of fringe areas they could fix with more cells and modernization of what they have over expanding.

 

Folks take a look at T-Mobile's cell grid in downstate Illinois.

 

 

That needs lots of work, even in places like Springfield and Decatur that are somewhat populated.

[dnwk]

Sprint could buy out CCA

[Fraydog]

http://m.bbc.com/news/business-31144009

 

BT and EE are a thing now, DT and Orange have THAT off their hands. British market is a mess and that is with four providers.