How long do you think thay Sprint will stay CDMA?

[EggotheKilljoy]

With MWC going on, I started thinking that the reason that there hasn't been any phones from there going to Sprint is the fact that manufacturers find it cheaper to produce all of their devices with GSM than to produce the same device with a CDMA band instead of GSM. What are your thoughts on this subject everyone?

[4ringsnbr]

With MWC going on, I started thinking that the reason that there hasn't been any phones from there going to Sprint is the fact that manufacturers find it cheaper to produce all of their devices with GSM than to produce the same device with a CDMA band instead of GSM. What are your thoughts on this subject everyone?

 

Since Sprint upgraded from GSM to CDMA in 1999, it would be unlikely they'd take a step backwards in technology. Sprint does do some dumb things, but going from a circa-1995 technology to one that was developed in Europe in the mid-1980s sounds even dumber than buying NexTel (or MetroPCS).

[S4GRU]

Since Sprint upgraded from GSM to CDMA in 1999, it would be unlikely they'd take a step backwards in technology. Sprint does do some dumb things, but going from a circa-1995 technology to one that was developed in Europe in the mid-1980s sounds even dumber than buying NexTel (or MetroPCS).

 

Well, when you say it that way...

[legion125]

Sprint will be on CDMA until around the 2015 time frame. Although there will be advantages to 1xA with LTE. Implementing NV is putting Sprint behind in going to an all VoLTE network. Verizon will be starting to transition late this year toward the end of the 4th quarter.

 

AT&T will be a year out from that since they are muddling around with its network running EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE but I think they will still beat Sprint to the finish line. The only bright spot will be that Sprint will have it before T-Mobile. All the carriers will benefit since all their spectrum can be focused on one technology so chip sets will be more efficient and smaller. Once there, all we need is the FCC to get some roaming agreements in place.

[WiWavelength]

Since Sprint upgraded from GSM to CDMA in 1999...

 

This is incorrect. Sprint did not upgrade from GSM to CDMA.

 

Are you thinking of the lone Sprint Spectrum GSM 1900 market in Washington, DC-Baltimore? That was a partnership among The Washington Post Company, several of the usual cable companies, and Sprint. It launched the first PCS 1900 MHz commercial network in December 1995.

 

AJ

[ericdabbs]

I want Sprint to wait until the guinea pigs in Verizon and AT&T to test out VoLTE first to iron out the kinks before Sprint makes that leap. CDMA 1xAdvanced should last for a while because of all the efficiencies that have been made from CDMA 1x2000.

 

What I am curious about is the amount of data traffic that it will take for both voice, text, and data all on LTE. I think Sprint can take some lessons learned when Verizon and AT&T deploy it.

[legion125]

I'm sure Sprint has been watching and taking notes. We can only hope most of the bugs are ironed out before its LTE market goes live. The good thing about Verizon is that it stays on top of things so solutions should have already been worked out.

[twospirits]

My prediction would be 2028 for CDMA to most likely the year Sprint states it will do away with CDMA.

 

TS

[centermedic]

This is incorrect. Sprint did not upgrade from GSM to CDMA.

 

Are you thinking of the lone Sprint Spectrum GSM 1900 market in Washington, DC-Baltimore? That was a partnership among The Washington Post Company, several of the usual cable companies, and Sprint. It launched the first PCS 1900 MHz commercial network in December 1995.

 

AJ

Actually Sprint bought Centel in 1993 and sold it off in 95 I think. Centel went on to become Alltel(presumably CDMA). They then started a GSM network in the DC/Baltimore area in 1995. Later they switched to CDMA(1999?) and sold the GSM assets to Ominipoint which became Voicestream and then T-Mobile.

[Josh]

Since Sprint upgraded from GSM to CDMA in 1999, it would be unlikely they'd take a step backwards in technology. Sprint does do some dumb things, but going from a circa-1995 technology to one that was developed in Europe in the mid-1980s sounds even dumber than buying NexTel (or MetroPCS).

 

The MetroPCS deal would have been more about an increased spectrum in the larger cities, additional prepaid customers would not have helped much. I think Dan Hesse was thinking that they could easily expand to another LTE carrier in the large cities if they could offload some voice traffic to Metro's airwaves. Yes, it wasn't a good deal and it wasn't something they could afford now, but I believe that was the reason they tried.

[omega]

 

The MetroPCS deal would have been more about an increased spectrum in the larger cities' date=' additional prepaid customers would not have helped much. I think Dan Hesse was thinking that they could easily expand to another LTE carrier in the large cities if they could offload some voice traffic to Metro's airwaves. Yes, it wasn't a good deal and it wasn't something they could afford now, but I believe that was the reason they tried.[/quote']

 

Keep in mind that Metro was making out there spectrum I'm most of there markets.

[pyroscott]

 

Keep in mind that Metro was making out there spectrum I'm most of there markets.

 

What?

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[Sgt. Slaughter]

 

What?

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

U didn't understand that? Lol

 

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

[4ringsnbr]

What?

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

I think he meant that Metro was maxing out their spectrum in most of their markets.

Edited March 19, 2012 by 4ringsnbr

[pyroscott]

Ah, thanks for translating.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[ericdabbs]

I am curious what Sprint will do with the PTT customers after CDMA is shut down. Even if they convert the Nextel customers using iDEN to Sprint Direct Connect using CDMA/EVDO and we are speculating that sometime in 2015/2016 is when CDMA will shut down, what will the folks that depend on the PTT feature use?

 

Will voLTE replace PTT and provide that instant connectivity that current Nextel and Sprint Direct Connect are used to? I am hoping that this is already discussed because 2015 doesn't seem too far away from now.

 

Sprint needs to rely on 1x Advanced for as long as it can for voice given its tight spectrum holdings since it is about 2x more efficient than voLTE.

[irev210]

The MetroPCS deal would have been more about an increased spectrum in the larger cities, additional prepaid customers would not have helped much. I think Dan Hesse was thinking that they could easily expand to another LTE carrier in the large cities if they could offload some voice traffic to Metro's airwaves. Yes, it wasn't a good deal and it wasn't something they could afford now, but I believe that was the reason they tried.

 

I think it was the other way around. Sprint was not going to deploy AWS-capable phones because of the small amount of spectrum that PCS has.

 

It's the other way around. PCS would fit VERY well into the Boost/Virgin prepaid lineup that Sprint has. All of Metro's phones already work flawlessly on Sprint's 3G network. 10 million prepaid subs, sell off the spectrum to AT&T or Verizon, win/win/win.

 

The only problem was that Sprint's stock price fell too much for the deal to financially make sense to Sprint.

[legion125]

I am curious what Sprint will do with the PTT customers after CDMA is shut down. Even if they convert the Nextel customers using iDEN to Sprint Direct Connect using CDMA/EVDO and we are speculating that sometime in 2015/2016 is when CDMA will shut down, what will the folks that depend on the PTT feature use?

 

Will voLTE replace PTT and provide that instant connectivity that current Nextel and Sprint Direct Connect are used to? I am hoping that this is already discussed because 2015 doesn't seem too far away from now.

 

Sprint needs to rely on 1x Advanced for as long as it can for voice given its tight spectrum holdings since it is about 2x more efficient than voLTE.

 

Sprint doesn't seem to concerned about PTT of moving them to SDC. I've been snooping trying to find any significant marketing for transition but Sprint must be handling it on an account by account basis. There news releases seem to indicate that's the path their taken.

[lordsutch]

I can't imagine Sprint will drop CDMA until Verizon dropping it forces their hand (e.g. Sprint won't have anywhere for CDMA customers to roam, and there won't be the economies of scale for the manufacturers that Big Red's CDMA provides), which probably won't happen for years; a couple of slivers of 1X at 1900 and ESMR can handle all the voice traffic Sprint carries. Going all-VoLTE is going to require a national infrastructure for native and roaming coverage that just won't be ready before 2020.

 

Remember, AMPS (aka analog cellular) was still around until 2008, largely because it took that long for the Cellular A & B block holders (largely Verizon and AT&T, but also some of the regional players too like C Spire) to build out digital GSM and CDMA to have as big a footprint. That's despite the fact that AMPS-native phones were already on the way out in the late 1990s.

 

That said when CDMA dies it will be with a whimper... by 2020, voice traffic will be so little of what the network carries bandwidth-wise that even if theoretically CDMA can carry it more efficiently than VoLTE, in practice maintaining the infrastructure and setting aside a whole band for it won't be worth the cost.

 

I can't see Sprint rolling out any GSM unless they see some opportunity to make money from roaming. Presumably NV makes that more feasible than in the past, but in most of the US there's better native GSM coverage from the Cellular A/B holders than anything Sprint could deploy anyway.

[MacinJosh]

I can't imagine Sprint will drop CDMA until Verizon dropping it forces their hand (e.g. Sprint won't have anywhere for CDMA customers to roam, and there won't be the economies of scale for the manufacturers that Big Red's CDMA provides), which probably won't happen for years; a couple of slivers of 1X at 1900 and ESMR can handle all the voice traffic Sprint carries. Going all-VoLTE is going to require a national infrastructure for native and roaming coverage that just won't be ready before 2020.

 

Remember, AMPS (aka analog cellular) was still around until 2008, largely because it took that long for the Cellular A & B block holders (largely Verizon and AT&T, but also some of the regional players too like C Spire) to build out digital GSM and CDMA to have as big a footprint. That's despite the fact that AMPS-native phones were already on the way out in the late 1990s.

 

That said when CDMA dies it will be with a whimper... by 2020, voice traffic will be so little of what the network carries bandwidth-wise that even if theoretically CDMA can carry it more efficiently than VoLTE, in practice maintaining the infrastructure and setting aside a whole band for it won't be worth the cost.

 

I can't see Sprint rolling out any GSM unless they see some opportunity to make money from roaming. Presumably NV makes that more feasible than in the past, but in most of the US there's better native GSM coverage from the Cellular A/B holders than anything Sprint could deploy anyway.

 

No national carrier has truly ever completed replacing AMPS in all areas of their network like they should have. AT&T Wireless had AMPS & TDMA coverage on CA127 on the road from Baker, CA to Shoshone, CA. After AMPS was shuttered, they never lit up GSM to fully replace that coverage area. They only covered what they thought would be the areas that would bring them profit. Sad too how they pulled that one off.

 

If Sprint ever decided to go the GSM route, at least there is already nationwide GSM deployment, but even then, LTE will fully cover this country before that would ever feasibly happen.

[4ringsnbr]

I can't imagine Sprint will drop CDMA until Verizon dropping it forces their hand (e.g. Sprint won't have anywhere for CDMA customers to roam, and there won't be the economies of scale for the manufacturers that Big Red's CDMA provides), which probably won't happen for years; a couple of slivers of 1X at 1900 and ESMR can handle all the voice traffic Sprint carries. Going all-VoLTE is going to require a national infrastructure for native and roaming coverage that just won't be ready before 2020.

 

Remember, AMPS (aka analog cellular) was still around until 2008, largely because it took that long for the Cellular A & B block holders (largely Verizon and AT&T, but also some of the regional players too like C Spire) to build out digital GSM and CDMA to have as big a footprint. That's despite the fact that AMPS-native phones were already on the way out in the late 1990s.

 

That said when CDMA dies it will be with a whimper... by 2020, voice traffic will be so little of what the network carries bandwidth-wise that even if theoretically CDMA can carry it more efficiently than VoLTE, in practice maintaining the infrastructure and setting aside a whole band for it won't be worth the cost.

 

I can't see Sprint rolling out any GSM unless they see some opportunity to make money from roaming. Presumably NV makes that more feasible than in the past, but in most of the US there's better native GSM coverage from the Cellular A/B holders than anything Sprint could deploy anyway.

No national carrier has truly ever completed replacing AMPS in all areas of their network like they should have. AT&T Wireless had AMPS & TDMA coverage on CA127 on the road from Baker, CA to Shoshone, CA. After AMPS was shuttered, they never lit up GSM to fully replace that coverage area. They only covered what they thought would be the areas that would bring them profit. Sad too how they pulled that one off.

 

If Sprint ever decided to go the GSM route, at least there is already nationwide GSM deployment, but even then, LTE will fully cover this country before that would ever feasibly happen.

 

You guys need to remember that GSM is actually a 2G TDMA standard setup before CDMA came on the scene in 1995. CDMA was superior, but was banned in Europe. When the 3GGP community that used GSM needed a 3G standard, GPRS (and subsequently HSPA) was a creation of Qualcomm et.al. based upon W-CDMA technology. ALL 3G standards are CDMA-based now. The only significant difference between GPRS/HSPA's W-CDMA and CDMA/EVDO is carrier size. CDMA & EVDO still use the old 1.25x1.25 MHz (1.23 in Cellular band) carrier size. W-CDMA does 5x5, which is why HSPA does 14.4 mbps. The EVDO/CDMA 1.25 MHz carriers were thought to be sufficient for data since with EVDO Rev. 0 they gave up to 2.4 mbps (now 4.9 mbps with Rev. B per carrier; however if bonded together (ala Rev. MC or Rev. B multicarrier mode), it will give better data performance in the same carrier size than HSPA. GSM would always be a step backwards from CDMA.

 

3GGP: 1985 GSM (2G) ----> 2000 GPRS (3G) -----> 2003 HSPA (3.5G) -----> 2011 LTE (4G)

 

3GGP2: 1995: CDMAOne (2G) --> 1999 CDMA2000 1xRTT & EVDO Rev. 0 (3G) ---> 2006 EVDO Rev. B (3.5G) ---> 2011 LTE (4G)