Future 600 MHz band & OTHER discussion thread (was "Sprint + 600 MHz?")

[mhammett]

2. Once you have high quality wireline back haul to a site, the cost of additional bandwidth is marginal. I'm sure the interfaces to Sprint equipment...on both aides of the link...can do gigabit, and Sprint's AAV vendors will give them a decent deal because the cost for them is marginal as well...and Sprint has plenty of scale.

 

Now if we're talking about wireless fed sites there may be issues, particularly on longer spurs. But I would just expect those sites to be last on the list for TD upgrades. That, or if they need TD they will get fiber or short range, high cap wireless backhaul.

Microwave is capable of delivering any amount of backhaul a site (or multiple sites) needs.

 

I suppose VZ won't see much demand for their new 500 Mbps tier, but anyone could tell them that.. not many in this economy would be willing to fork over $300+fees a month for internet, regardless of the want or need.

 

Peering and transit costs on fixed-line broadband have been dropping for years, and yet prices keep rising, with the use of caps growing. Data use is a poor measure of a detrimental effect on fixed networks, and the problems from sharing a fixed resource are not as acute as they are for wireless, since heavy use for an individual could occur at a time of day when broadband is plentiful (basically any time other than the early evening). ISP's are banking on people being accustomed now to the metered plans on their phones rather than the traditional flat billing at home.

You have no idea what it takes to run a network. If you did, you wouldn't feel so entitled to having the world served to you on a platter. $300 for 500 - 1000 megs delivered to your house is an excellent price. The usage you are so quick to dispense with is the primary source of the problem.

 

I There are plenty of current and potential applications that could take advantage of speeds over 10 mbps (particularly on the upload side as various services are moving to "the cloud"), but ignoring individual use, the number of internet-connected devices in family households is rapidly growing, so of course the more bandwidth shared the better. As average speeds to the home increase, I'm sure additional applications will arise that take advantage of the bandwidth.

If there are plenty of applications, why can't you name any of them? Okay, online backup could use some more upload, but once the initial push is done, the deltas are easily handled. I know a local government that manages a 500 meg connection. They have 1,500 employees, but two other (smaller) governments and three school districts with many thousand of students and hundreds of employees also use the connection. Rare is the occasion that I get less than 100 megs on a speed test.

 

I I agree that the current allocation of spectrum is rather inefficient, and won't be entirely fixed unless AJ is appointed spectrum czar.. but repacking broadcast TV if there's plenty of room for them elsewhere is one good step. The use of cellular broadband is booming while viewership of OTA TV remains flat, so it makes sense to dedicate more spectrum to cellular, as long as there are stringent build-out requirements to make sure it is not being wasted. Few here would argue with the idea that AT&T and VZW have too much sub-1 GHz spectrum, but many of the smaller players (most especially T-Mobile) would definitely stand to benefit from the 600 auction. I don't want the U.S. to end up like Canada, with only 3 major players that are all resented by the people and government of Canada.

There are uses other than OTA video and mobile wireless. They have a greater need for lower spectrum than either of the above parties.

 

 

LTE does not propagate as well as CDMA 1x or even Ev-DO, so lower band spectrum is more important now than before. In the middle of suburban Chicago less than a mile from the tower I cannot get LTE 1900 in my basement, and the signal is borderline (for VoLTE, assuming the cut-off is about -107 dBm RSRP) on the first floor, but the 1x800 signal is quite strong throughout. Unless you want public wi-fi everywhere (I'm guessing you don't), it will remain very important to have a cell signal that penetrates indoors.

 

TD LTE is great, but it's scope will remain limited to city streets and high-trafficked events (like sports stadiums), unless cell site density increases through the use of femtocells and other sorts of micro-sites.

LTE's propagation isn't any different assuming same transmitter power and antenna gain. It does require a higher received signal *AND* a higher signal to noise. That means its less likely to be received as error free as a simpler technology.

 

Why are you worried about LTE in your basement? That's what local WiFi is for. Private WiFi in the home, public WiFi in a public venue.

 

 

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[gnoj]

You have no idea what it takes to run a network. If you did, you wouldn't feel so entitled to having the world served to you on a platter. $300 for 500 - 1000 megs delivered to your house is an excellent price. The usage you are so quick to dispense with is the primary source of the problem.

 

I think we have a different view of high-speed internet access. Much like water and power, I think broadband (at least 100mbps) has reached a high enough level of import that it should be treated like a utility in that it is built out to be widely available and affordable. Yes, I understand the upfront costs of that will be significant, but it's something that should at least be begun to be planned for. It's been attempted by some local municipalities that are fed up waiting for private industry to catch up, but very often they've been stymied by fierce lobbying from those companies. Therefore, I just don't view 100+ mbps internet as a luxury or something that would be "served to me on a platter", particularly for multi-member households. $300 for shared, residential-grade 500mbps broadband (assuming you're lucky enough to live where that is available) is not an "excellent" price. That speed on a dedicated connection with an SLA, static IP, etc.? Sure, then that's absolutely a bargain. So we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. In the middle of the night when many schedule their online backups or updates the marginal cost of that subscriber to the network is negligible.

 

If there are plenty of applications, why can't you name any of them?

 

Steam, Netflix and other video streaming (especially once 4K takes off), torrents, HD teleconferencing, and the burgeoning realm of cloud computing (OnLive, online office suites, Dropbox/Skydrive, etc.) I prefer local backups so I might be fine with only 10 meg upload, but good luck finding a symmetrical residential connection. To get that kind of speed, I have to go cable and get 50-100 mbps download (again, assuming even that's an option). As I said, build it and they will come- once average speeds increase, more applications will be invented to take advantage of it.

 

There are uses other than OTA video and mobile wireless. They have a greater need for lower spectrum than either of the above parties.

 

Which of those other uses are used by as many people as mobile wireless?

 

Why are you worried about LTE in your basement? That's what local WiFi is for. Private WiFi in the home, public WiFi in a public venue.

 

I'm not worried about it in my basement, per se, but it's just an example for how quickly PCS signal deteriorates indoors. I don't exactly live in a Faraday cage or out in the middle of nowhere. I imagine people at the office would like to be able to access the web while keeping the 24/7 surveillance from their boss or IT that comes with using their network to a minimum. Public Wi-Fi is more available than ever before, but is still not ubiquitous. But now that you mention it, having access in my basement and 1st floor would be nice if VoLTE is deployed or my home internet has an outage. Of course, if Sprint set up a Wi-Fi calling system like T-Mobile has, that would alleviate some of my concerns over relying on VoLTE instead of 1xA, particularly with EBS/BRS spectrum, which may or may not have a smooth handoff to PCS, SMR, or 600.

[mhammett]

I cannot publish it. It has a Sprint confidentiality notice on it. I have been thinking of creating my own for publishing, though. It will not be in the very near future, though.

 

Robert

If only the FCC had monthly updates to the shapefiles they published.

 

I got it. Just sayin' slap a "4G" label onto anything to grab the attention of the "Oooh, aaah, shiny objects!" crowd.

Considering that few of the 4G technologies originally qualified as 4G, per the ITU...

 

Mea culpa. I may have come across too emphatic, previously. Nothing has been set in stone for this potentially upcoming 600 MHz band. But I highly doubt that any operator or 3GPP itself will push through W-CDMA standards for this band. Now, I could be dead wrong...

 

AJ

The only thing set in stone is that it is an unlicensed band. I believe also set in stone is that some spectrum will be sold to pay for FirstNet.

 

Does anyone have an article that states when 600 MHz will actually be cleared and ready for use?

No. Not likely for three years.

 

Not to ask this again, but if they current owners of the 600 MHz spectrum don't all bite on the auction and the band is fragmented and/or Qualcomm gets its way and its FDD and requires guard bands. What could be an alternative T-Mobile option? I am sure they can slowly expand into Edge only markets but I am sure it will come at a cost of having a ton more towers, which also means one site would be less likely bogged down I would think. I know a bunch of smaller carriers bought into 700 MHz, and tried to complain that AT&T was blocking them from getting handset compatibly for roaming, do they have enough to do something interesting? What about the 700 MHz that was set aside for that Public Safety network, I am sure Verizon/AT&T would rather get that business and given how at least Verizon/T-Mobile have been able to work deals out (CableCo Spectrum) maybe they could get some of that?

They are getting repacked regardless of the auction.

 

Re: Public Safety, Look into FirstNet.

 

So do I. Tmobile is proposing separating the 600 MHz spectrum into 5 MHz blocks for auction. I really hope all of the TV broadcasters give up their 600 MHz spectrum and take the FCC payment to free up more spectrum for wireless.

 

I agree with maximus1987 in that Verizon and ATT should only be allowed to bid on one 5x5 block and that is it. Sprint, Tmobile and the remaining smaller carriers should only be allowed to bid on the rest of the 5x5 blocks.

Few are needed to, fewer will.

 

I agree it would be valuable in rural areas, however that's also the same exact places that you'd be running into stations not willing to give up their spectrum.

You don't need them to surrender their licenses. There's plenty

 

http://whitespaces.spectrumbridge.com/whitespaces

 

http://www.google.org/spectrum/whitespace/channel/

 

https://prism.telcordia.com/tvws/main/home/contour_vis.shtml

 

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[mhammett]

Also, they likely won't have to build new structures wherever they expand. There are tons of structures everywhere to be leased.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[mhammett]

I think we have a different view of high-speed internet access

We must.

 

 

Yes, I understand the upfront costs of that will be significant

It would be several hundred billion for something we don't need.

 

 

I just don't view 100+ mbps internet as a luxury or something that would be "served to me on a platter", particularly for multi-member households. $300 for shared, residential-grade 500mbps broadband (assuming you're lucky enough to live where that is available) is not an "excellent" price.

If you thinking everyone needs to drive a Bugatti Veyron for $250/month, you are indeed expecting the world on a silver platter. Again, you have no idea how much it costs to build and run one of these networks.

 

 

 

an SLA

Mostly useless.

 

 

 

static IP

Essentially free

 

 

 

So we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

I can't make you learn, only teach you.

 

 

 

In the middle of the night when many schedule their online backups or updates the marginal cost of that subscriber to the network is negligible.

Agreed.

 

 

I Steam, Netflix and other video streaming (especially once 4K takes off), torrents, HD teleconferencing, and the burgeoning realm of cloud computing (OnLive, online office suites, Dropbox/Skydrive, etc.)

Out of all of that, the only thing that requires a sustained high upload is HD video conferencing, which I already referenced.

 

NetFlix does just fine in 10 megabit now for their highest quality. When they start doing 4k, we'll see, but I'd be surprised if it used more than 20. I have observed the downward trend of the bandwidth required for a given quality.

 

All of the file backups, syncing, etc. just has a large transfer when first setup, then smaller, bursty transfers.

 

Really, large pipes for Office 365?

 

 

good luck finding a symmetrical residential connection. To get that kind of speed, I have to go cable and get 50-100 mbps download (again, assuming even that's an option). As I said, build it and they will come- once average speeds increase, more applications will be invented to take advantage of it.

If you want connection symmetry, go to an independent ISP and ask.

 

There is general availability of fast enough services to permit those next gen apps to develop. If those apps come, the rest of the circuits can come soon enough.

 

 

 

 

Which of those other uses are used by as many people as mobile wireless?

Except that mobile wireless hasn't demonstrated a need for that much. Fixed wireless has. M2M has.

 

 

I'm not worried about it in my basement, per se, but it's just an example for how quickly PCS signal deteriorates indoors. I don't exactly live in a Faraday cage or out in the middle of nowhere.

I live in the middle of nowhere and it works in my basement. ;-)

 

 

I imagine people at the office would like to be able to access the web while keeping the 24/7 surveillance from their boss or IT that comes with using their network to a minimum.

Violating company policy?

 

 

Public Wi-Fi is more available than ever before, but is still not ubiquitous.

I'm trying my hardest to solve that.

 

 

But now that you mention it, having access in my basement and 1st floor would be nice if VoLTE is deployed or my home internet has an outage. Of course, if Sprint set up a Wi-Fi calling system like T-Mobile has, that would alleviate some of my concerns over relying on VoLTE instead of 1xA, particularly with EBS/BRS spectrum, which may or may not have a smooth handoff to PCS, SMR, or 600.

Femtocell?

 

Yeah, VoAnything should be worked on. Several companies have the WiFi handoffs down.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[ericdabbs]

Wow that is a lot of quotation mhammett.

[maximus1987/lou99]

As far as streaming goes it seems H.265 will go a long way to make HD/HD+ leaner in transit.

50% reduction in bandwidth for same video quality.

[IamMrFamous07]

Any update on this auction? Once the auction is done how long will it take for sprint to deploy it? 2016

[mhammett]

Any update on this auction? Once the auction is done how long will it take for sprint to deploy it? 2016

Don't count on the auction for at least a year, if not two.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[Mobilesolutions]

Well, I should say the demand for fixed services in rural areas is there, but no usable spectrum.Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

What do you mean? I have plenty.

[mhammett]

What do you mean? I have plenty.

Sub 1 GHz, which is needed for foliage penetration and supporting large areas low-density customers.

 

5 GHz works great for me, but won't for others.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[Mobilesolutions]

Sub 1 GHz, which is needed for foliage penetration and supporting large areas low-density customers.

 

5 GHz works great for me, but won't for others.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

I have combined 68 MHZ spectrum some sub GHz and some above 2ghz.

[mhammett]

I have combined 68 MHZ spectrum some sub GHz and some above 2ghz.

What bands?

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[JohnHovah]

Microwave is capable of delivering any amount of backhaul a site (or multiple sites) needs.

 

 

You have no idea what it takes to run a network. If you did, you wouldn't feel so entitled to having the world served to you on a platter. $300 for 500 - 1000 megs delivered to your house is an excellent price. The usage you are so quick to dispense with is the primary source of the problem.

 

 

If there are plenty of applications, why can't you name any of them? Okay, online backup could use some more upload, but once the initial push is done, the deltas are easily handled. I know a local government that manages a 500 meg connection. They have 1,500 employees, but two other (smaller) governments and three school districts with many thousand of students and hundreds of employees also use the connection. Rare is the occasion that I get less than 100 megs on a speed test.

 

There are uses other than OTA video and mobile wireless. They have a greater need for lower spectrum than either of the above parties.

 

LTE's propagation isn't any different assuming same transmitter power and antenna gain. It does require a higher received signal *AND* a higher signal to noise. That means its less likely to be received as error free as a simpler technology.

 

Why are you worried about LTE in your basement? That's what local WiFi is for. Private WiFi in the home, public WiFi in a public venue.

 

 

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

As far as why he would be worried about LTE in his basement consider this fact:  LTE signal propagation is less effective than present CDMA range.  Whether you live in the boonies or not, having a non-existent or spotty signal while in your home makes a mobile device much less mobile and defeats the purpose of its primary use, as a phone.  

 

I live in a huge suburban area in a large market and can only get a usable signal in 25% of my home and it is not necessarily on the perimeters of property or building as one would expect (and we do not have basements in SoCal).  So yes, moving to any voLTE type carrier will need to address many issues, which for the most part are alleviated at the lower end of radio frequencies.

[Txmtx]

As far as why he would be worried about LTE in his basement consider this fact: LTE signal propagation is less effective than present CDMA range. Whether you live in the boonies or not, having a non-existent or spotty signal while in your home makes a mobile device much less mobile and defeats the purpose of its primary use, as a phone.

 

I live in a huge suburban area in a large market and can only get a usable signal in 25% of my home and it is not necessarily on the perimeters of property or building as one would expect (and we do not have basements in SoCal). So yes, moving to any voLTE type carrier will need to address many issues, which for the most part are alleviated at the lower end of radio frequencies.

I'm seeing this perception a lot lately so I want to make a broad, generic clarifying statement about the LTE airlink. You didn't really say anything incorrect but I am assuming it comes from the same, slightly incomplete picture. All other things being equal, LTE is more fragile than CDMA, true enough. But it has been intended from day 1 to limit its exposure to those situations and exploit the ways it is superior.

 

Same amount of devices, same freq, same physical locations of the users and tower, same devices: EVDO outperforms LTE. But LTE's strength is exploiting multiple towers/cells as references, like a rake receiver wired to other rakes. If you're on truly only one tower, EVDO wins. If you're seeing more than 1, even if each one individually is pretty weak, a nigh-unusable condition on EVDO becomes 1+ Mb down and .1 up, or better, the more cells you see.

 

So, true cell-edge performance is worse: this is the misinterpreted statement I see spreading in the forum these days. But typically, for LTE, a cell edge is actually a cell seam, and that us a beneficial situation, vice CDMA where it must simply pick one. You get greatly increased performance on LTE cell "edges" compared with CDMA, provided that edge has more than just one reference tower.

[maximus1987/lou99]

Don't count on the auction for at least a year, if not two.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

Once the auction ends, how long till equipment for carriers becomes available?

 

And why the huge time window for the auction date?

[mhammett]

Once the auction ends, how long till equipment for carriers becomes available?

 

And why the huge time window for the auction date?

 

They don't know what they're auctioning yet under what terms. The FCC has been directed by Congress to have an auction, otherwise I don't think there would even be an auction. Unlicensed use of this band has been in the works for 10+ years.

 

It'll also take a year or two for devices to be available\network to be built.

[koiulpoi]

I'm seeing this perception a lot lately so I want to make a broad, generic clarifying statement about the LTE airlink. You didn't really say anything incorrect but I am assuming it comes from the same, slightly incomplete picture. All other things being equal, LTE is more fragile than CDMA, true enough. But it has been intended from day 1 to limit its exposure to those situations and exploit the ways it is superior.

 

Same amount of devices, same freq, same physical locations of the users and tower, same devices: EVDO outperforms LTE. But LTE's strength is exploiting multiple towers/cells as references, like a rake receiver wired to other rakes. If you're on truly only one tower, EVDO wins. If you're seeing more than 1, even if each one individually is pretty weak, a nigh-unusable condition on EVDO becomes 1+ Mb down and .1 up, or better, the more cells you see.

 

So, true cell-edge performance is worse: this is the misinterpreted statement I see spreading in the forum these days. But typically, for LTE, a cell edge is actually a cell seam, and that us a beneficial situation, vice CDMA where it must simply pick one. You get greatly increased performance on LTE cell "edges" compared with CDMA, provided that edge has more than just one reference tower.

What an interesting post. That is certainly information I did not know.

 

While it certainly shows a benefit of LTE over EV-DO, this is sadly not true in all cases. Sprint has many cell seams are are really cell edges. Several former affiliate markets *cough West Michigan cough* have some pretty bad tower spacing, and unless you're in a place there T-Mobile would also have coverage (heh), you'll be lucky for your device to see more than one site. Which brings me to the next point - this is also only true in a fully deployed market. If you're in a "scattershot" 30% deployed market, well, it's rare to have a situation at all where multiple LTE sites overlap. Naturally, this will improve with time, but does not help now, today.

 

Additionally, this comparison doesn't say much about 1X vs LTE, which is a primary concern for moving to VoLTE, and 1X is quite usable very far down into fringe signals, when talking about voice usability. I've noticed I can use voice often a bit past -105 dBm RSSI, while LTE rarely works at all past -110 dBm RSRP. Sure, apples and oranges there, but still both fruit.

[Txmtx]

What an interesting post. That is certainly information I did not know.While it certainly shows a benefit of LTE over EV-DO, this is sadly not true in all cases. Sprint has many cell seams are are really cell edges. Several former affiliate markets *cough West Michigan cough* have some pretty bad tower spacing, and unless you're in a place there T-Mobile would also have coverage (heh), you'll be lucky for your device to see more than one site. Which brings me to the next point - this is also only true in a fully deployed market. If you're in a "scattershot" 30% deployed market, well, it's rare to have a situation at all where multiple LTE sites overlap. Naturally, this will improve with time, but does not help now, today.

Heh. I hope I phrased it vaguely enough for it to remain accurate under scrutiny. My statements omit a lot of "if and only if" specifics. Of course, the designers are attempting to exploit the strengths wherever possible during the sparse rollout. There are a lot of "just barely" overlapping seams, where a building and/or just holding the handset at the wrong angle can reduce the signal enough that when the channel fades due to predicable atmospherics, it will often enough drop entirely down to EVDO or 1x.

 

Additionally, this comparison doesn't say much about 1X vs LTE...

Indeed :)To elaborate, the primary reason is the phenomenon of "cell breathing", and most of us far preferentially use up spectrum with data. 1x and EVDO are both subject to CDMA cell breathing detrimental effects, but 1x isn't remotely saturated like EVDO is on the airlink (typically). Thus, WYSIWYG regarding dBm for 1x, most times -- your SNR is similar to what the tower sees from you in terms of usable signal. EVDO is/was (thanks to LTE offloading) highly saturated. For any CDMA, saturation causes the perplexing "full bars" (your handset sees the tower clearly) yet no performance (for the tower, you are lost in the noise). It's the CDMA version of unintentional DDOS. This can be demonstrated with streaming downlink connections set up specifically to require no confirmations (or to consider any confirmation as valid). You'll pull in the data, with the BER you'd expect for your RSSI. But for real-world connections -- browsing, YouTube, whatever -- the protocols require timely-enough responses of "yep, got it, send more" or "got it but repeat this one section" even for primarily downlink-type activity. This frequently fails to be received, and is therefore repeated until successful. This is the cause of the all-too-familiar handset-but-really-pocketwarmer which dies by midday despite only attempting to check email once. This is one reason proxy + web compression tech like legacy Opera mobile and the like work so well on overloaded CDMAnetworks -- the advantage goes far beyond just the compression. Packing the whole set of resources into a couple large chunks helps address that weakness in the airlink. tl;dr, you don't typically experience issues with 1x because it is not saturated. But it must exist, they can't really slice it and give spectrum to Ev. Some of this is aided by software in NV -- if you're in an NV-upgraded area and find yourself dropping LTE for 1x or sitting on 1x for data vice 3G more than before, that is frequently why. It attempts to calculate for cell breathing and kick you to 1x -- thus you'll see "weird" behavior like -96dBm 3G, and then look again and notice the "dreaded" circle of 1x. What gives? That was basically full bars for Ev, right?? In fact, it is very much like a DDOS. The available spectrum has had it's "breath sucked out" but it isn't so much because the underlying bandwidth is gone, but rather that the cell simply cannot handle the raw amount of UE doing even basic things like checking for push notifications.

 

...which is a primary concern for moving to VoLTE, and 1X is quite usable very far down into fringe signals, when talking about voice usability.

(Doesn't hurt Sprint's voice codecs are gentler than, say, big red's... but god I can't wait for "HD-voice" fidelity.)

 

I've noticed I can use voice often a bit past -105 dBm RSSI, while LTE rarely works at all past -110 dBm RSRP. Sure, apples and oranges there, but still both fruit.

Yeppp. As I described lengthily above. I'll call 'em avocados and oranges. Oranges (1x CDMA) roll farther, but if you're in a place where you're getting avocados (LTE) from two different trees, that'll sustain you a lot better than oranges from two trees. (Invent some analogy here for why you can only eat oranges from one tree at a time while avocados can be devoured as received.) Then there's apples (Ev CDMA). Fuckin' everyone picks those trees bare. In between trees is mathematically within rolling distance but those things are nabbed almost before they hit the ground, so you better camp under the tree if you are hungry.This is also why Sprint takes LTE sites live as they are installed, but CDMA NV must get realigned in clusters. Generally, another LTE cell either does nothing for you, or helps you. CDMA cells require much more careful optimization with downtilt and height and blah blah blah, and therefore must be calibrated in clusters (and then tweaked for a while too, and again and again as pop. density and UE density and etc. fluctuates...). Edited August 10, 2013 by Txmtx

[Txmtx]

^btw: sorry for the text wall, as it appears to me. Tapatalk is garbage. Edited repeatedly, and it still rapes the formatting regardless.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Txmtx

[WiWavelength]

Same amount of devices, same freq, same physical locations of the users and tower, same devices: EVDO outperforms LTE. But LTE's strength is exploiting multiple towers/cells as references, like a rake receiver wired to other rakes. If you're on truly only one tower, EVDO wins. If you're seeing more than 1, even if each one individually is pretty weak, a nigh-unusable condition on EVDO becomes 1+ Mb down and .1 up, or better, the more cells you see.

 

So, true cell-edge performance is worse: this is the misinterpreted statement I see spreading in the forum these days. But typically, for LTE, a cell edge is actually a cell seam, and that us a beneficial situation, vice CDMA where it must simply pick one. You get greatly increased performance on LTE cell "edges" compared with CDMA, provided that edge has more than just one reference tower.

 

Please elaborate on this.  Either I am not following your explanation, or you are posting some currently inaccurate info.

 

LTE does not presently support "soft handoff" connections with multiple sectors/sites.  That may be coming in LTE Advanced with CoMP.

 

About the only thing that LTE may be able to do now to improve cell edge/seam performance is to coordinate dynamically OFDMA subcarrier usage between/among adjacent sectors/sites in order to minimize interference.  Of course, that comes at a price -- it is basically non unity frequency reuse all over again and lowers overall system capacity.

 

Additionally, my experience with cell edge/seam performance on the Sprint LTE network is consistent with it being power or noise limited, not interference limited.  So, dynamic OFDMA subcarrier coordination may do relatively little to improve performance.

 

AJ

[Txmtx]

Please elaborate on this. Either I am not following your explanation, or you are posting some currently inaccurate info.

 

LTE does not presently support "soft handoff" connections with multiple sectors/sites. That may be coming in LTE Advanced with CoMP.

 

About the only thing that LTE may be able to do now to improve cell edge/seam performance is to coordinate dynamically OFDMA subcarrier usage between/among adjacent sectors/sites in order to minimize interference. Of course, that comes at a price -- it is basically non unity frequency reuse all over again and lowers overall system capacity.

 

Additionally, my experience with cell edge/seam performance on the Sprint LTE network is consistent with it being power or noise limited, not interference limited. So, dynamic OFDMA subcarrier coordination may do relatively little to improve performance.

 

AJ

Yes, a large amount of what I am referring to regarding advantages of LTE at cell seams is based on yet-undeployed Release 11 CoMP.

 

Without CoMP, soft handoffs are not practical, but OFDMA / SC-FDMA as deployed in Rev 8 and 9 already offers significant benefits over CDMA at cell seams, namely being impervious to "breathing" which is what dicks over most UE on loaded CDMA cells.

 

Soft handoffs aren't important in LTE, at least until CoMP HetNet for fast-moving UE.

[Txmtx]

http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/DocumentStreamerServlet?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=White_Papers/CPG0599090904_LTE_Network_Architecture_EN_StraWhitePaper.pdf

 

That should prove invaluable for understanding my statements, and is cool anyway. This is all Rel 8 stuff. Pay particular attention to the sections on S1 and the glorious X2 (lossless handover with multiple candidate eNodeBs and initiated by load and QoS management completely transparent to the UE sounds pretty "soft" to me...) for why I say cell seams are inherently better on LTE.

 

Indeed, with Rel 11 and CoMP + HetNet (and then Rel 12 to help issues with rapid X2 handoffs in the case of fast-moving UE) basically everywhere will be a cell seam and it could be said that it is considerably more desirable to be in moderate range of multiple eNodeBs than it is to be sitting directly beneath a tower itself.

 

But, even in Rel 8, you bounce between eNodeBs via X2 probably a lot more often than you might realize.

[WiWavelength]

Yes, a large amount of what I am referring to regarding advantages of LTE at cell seams is based on yet-undeployed Release 11 CoMP.

 

Without CoMP, soft handoffs are not practical, but OFDMA / SC-FDMA as deployed in Rev 8 and 9 already offers significant benefits over CDMA at cell seams, namely being impervious to "breathing" which is what dicks over most UE on loaded CDMA cells.

 

Soft handoffs aren't important in LTE, at least until CoMP HetNet for fast-moving UE.

 

The problem is that -- without CoMP or maybe even with CoMP -- we have LTE networks that are not truly VoLTE ready.  VoLTE will be a significant step back in voice coverage because the RF robustness just is not there.  Places where users can currently make low RSSI but still reliable CDMA1X voice calls -- in part due to soft handoff -- will be without VoLTE service.

 

AJ

[koiulpoi]

Yeppp. As I described lengthily above. I'll call 'em avocados and oranges. Oranges (1x CDMA) roll farther, but if you're in a place where you're getting avocados (LTE) from two different trees, that'll sustain you a lot better than oranges from two trees. (Invent some analogy here for why you can only eat oranges from one tree at a time while avocados can be devoured as received.) Then there's apples (Ev CDMA). Fuckin' everyone picks those trees bare. In between trees is mathematically within rolling distance but those things are nabbed almost before they hit the ground, so you better camp under the tree if you are hungry. This is also why Sprint takes LTE sites live as they are installed, but CDMA NV must get realigned in clusters. Generally, another LTE cell either does nothing for you, or helps you. CDMA cells require much more careful optimization with downtilt and height and blah blah blah, and therefore must be calibrated in clusters (and then tweaked for a while too, and again and again as pop. density and UE density and etc. fluctuates...).

 

Avocados are still fruit.

 

As an aside, one big reason that CDMA NV sites are brought up in clusters is that (possibly for reasons related to what you said), in many markets, NV 3G sites do not hand off properly to legacy sites. Chicago was one, and West Michigan is another.