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

[Conan Kudo]

His point is that with Sprint's 50 mil, no one would lose anything by making devices just for them.

And my point is that from the suppliers' perspective, the R&D costs aren't made up from such a small base. It's not just parts. It's paying the people to figure out the proper optimizations and arrangements to make the hardware work with a suitably high level of performance. If this was a raw manufacturing game, he'd be right. But he's not because it isn't. It has never been that way.

 

And besides, of that 50 million, only 25-28 million actually are served by the Sprint brand. And that makes it worse. And of those subscribers, roughly 30-40% actually upgrade to new handsets. That means that the reasonable target is much smaller.

[lynyrd65]

And my point is that from the suppliers' perspective, the R&D costs aren't made up from such a small base. It's not just parts. It's paying the people to figure out the proper optimizations and arrangements to make the hardware work with a suitably high level of performance. If this was a raw manufacturing game, he'd be right. But he's not because it isn't. It has never been that way.

 

And besides, of that 50 million, only 25-28 million actually are served by the Sprint brand. And that makes it worse. Because of those subscribers, roughly 30-40% actually upgrade to new handsets. That means that the reasonable target is much smaller.

 

Really?

 

50 Million possible sales isn't worth the 2 or 3 million dollars worth of research to create a radio for these devices? I don't think so.

[maximus1987/lou99]

Really?

 

50 Million possible sales isn't worth the 2 or 3 million dollars worth of research to create a radio for these devices? I don't think so.

If they refuse to make more CDMA, what choice will Sprint have?

 

With Verizon's 100mil gone, it's a losing game for Sprint. Qualcomm, if it can, will raise rates for CDMA chips to make up for !poof! departure of 100mil potential customers.

 

Who else in the world is still marketing CDMA service?

 

As an engineer, it is sad to see an inferior voice technology win out. According to

 

http://d1sxb0xfyrci7y.cloudfront.net/asset_files/0001/5119/99f87820-4045-012d-1e0f-123136004881/v6/1XAdvanced_Web_08162011_NA_EXT_original.pdf

 

pg 12/16, 1xA has 4/2.1 = 1.9 the capacity of VoLTE.

 

Then again, the network-side engineers must pine for the day when they only have to deal with one network technology.

 

Edited July 27, 2013 by asdf190

[Conan Kudo]

If they refuse to make more CDMA, what choice will Sprint have? With Verizon's 100mil gone, it's a losing game for Sprint. Qualcomm, if it can, will raise rates for CDMA chips to make up for !poof! departure of 100mil potential customers. Who else in the world is still marketing CDMA service?

At this point, the only operators that offer CDMA-850 or CDMA-1900 service globally are MTS India (850), Verizon Wireless (850/1900), and Sprint (1900). KDDI and China Telecom use CDMA-2100, and U+ uses CDMA-1800.

[lynyrd65]

At this point, the only operators that offer CDMA-850 or CDMA-1900 service globally are MTS India (850), Verizon Wireless (850/1900), and Sprint (1900). KDDI and China Telecom use CDMA-2100, and U+ uses CDMA-1800.

 

Come on now. There is CDMA 1900 and 850 service in Canada and Mexico as well.

 

If you were right, U+ using CDMA 1800 as a lone user would throw a dagger into your previous argument. How does U+ get devices for its network if its such a small fry with a proprietary CDMA spectrum?

[tmiw]

Come on now. There is CDMA 1900 and 850 service in Canada and Mexico as well.

 

If you were right, U+ using CDMA 1800 as a lone user would throw a dagger into your previous argument. How does U+ get devices for its network if its such a small fry with a proprietary CDMA spectrum?

 

At least for Canada, it's only there for legacy devices. The Canadian carriers have all switched to UMTS.

[gnoj]

At this point, the only operators that offer CDMA-850 or CDMA-1900 service globally are MTS India (850), Verizon Wireless (850/1900), and Sprint (1900). KDDI and China Telecom use CDMA-2100, and U+ uses CDMA-1800.

 

The only operators? The only major operators, perhaps. In the U.S. (ignoring the soon to be defunct MetroPCS, Alltel (ATN), and Cricket networks), USCC, C Spire, nTelos, GCI and Alaska Communication Systems are still around. Individually they don't have a lot of customers, but together they still provide demand for CDMA on PCS. There are also still some CDMA operators in other smaller countries. When CDMA does eventually get phased out it will be interesting to see which choose to invest to rebuild their networks and which seek to be bought out.

 

I do think Sprint should dedicate SMR entirely to 1xA and ride that as long as possible for their voice services. LTE can be on 600/1900/2600, with PCS A-F refarmed to FDD LTE. However, even on 600 MHz, VoLTE will have inferior capacity and propagation to 1xA on SMR. I'd be willing to pay a little more for my handset if it means I have superior voice coverage. The only issue that would need to be resolved then is a band plan with Canada and Mexico so Sprint can deploy SMR at full power in the IBEZ.

 

I suppose if Sprint's willing to put up more cell sites it could get the same coverage with VoLTE, but I imagine that'd be more expensive than paying some more for handsets.

[maximus1987/lou99]

The only operators? The only major operators, perhaps. In the U.S. (ignoring the soon to be defunct MetroPCS, Alltel (ATN), and Cricket networks), USCC, C Spire, nTelos, GCI and Alaska Communication Systems are still around. Individually they don't have a lot of customers, but together they still provide demand for CDMA on PCS. There are also still some CDMA operators in other smaller countries. When CDMA does eventually get phased out it will be interesting to see which choose to invest to rebuild their networks and which seek to be bought out.

 

I do think Sprint should dedicate SMR entirely to 1xA and ride that as long as possible for their voice services. LTE can be on 600/1900/2600, with PCS A-F refarmed to FDD LTE. However, even on 600 MHz, VoLTE will have inferior capacity and propagation to 1xA on SMR. I'd be willing to pay a little more for my handset if it means I have superior voice coverage. The only issue that would need to be resolved then is a band plan with Canada and Mexico so Sprint can deploy SMR at full power in the IBEZ.

 

I suppose if Sprint's willing to put up more cell sites it could get the same coverage with VoLTE, but I imagine that'd be more expensive than paying some more for handsets.

That depends how expensive qualcomm is willing to make it. As CDMA dies, they'll want to keep that revenue up as long as possible by increasing rates.

Edited July 27, 2013 by asdf190

[ericdabbs]

I do think Sprint should dedicate SMR entirely to 1xA and ride that as long as possible for their voice services. LTE can be on 600/1900/2600, with PCS A-F refarmed to FDD LTE. However, even on 600 MHz, VoLTE will have inferior capacity and propagation to 1xA on SMR. I'd be willing to pay a little more for my handset if it means I have superior voice coverage. The only issue that would need to be resolved then is a band plan with Canada and Mexico so Sprint can deploy SMR at full power in the IBEZ.

 

I still don't like the idea of dedicating the entire SMR to 1xA.  At this point one 1xA carrier should be plenty of capacity since the improvements to 1xA allow for up to 4x capacity over 1xCDMA 2000.  People use their smartphones nowadays more for the data than voice so you don't need to have 14 MHz worth of spectrum. Sprint needs to most use of spectrum for data purposes.  Also like you mentioned that the IBEZ issues with Canada and Mexico are still a few years away from being resolved.  By then 1xA will become less and less relevant to the point where you need to dedicate that much spectrum to it.

 

We can't assume 600 MHz will yield the full 120 MHz or even 84 MHz available for auction which I hope Sprint can try to obtain 20 MHz (two 5x5 Mhz blocks) hopefully contiguous.  Even then I still want Sprint to dedicate as much low band spectrum to LTE as possible because I think with a combination of 600 MHz and 800 MHz LTE should put Sprint in a pretty position to compete with Verizon and ATT.

[WiWavelength]

At least for Canada, it's only there for legacy devices. The Canadian carriers have all switched to UMTS.

 

Yet, years later, Bell and Telus CDMA2000 coverage is still broader than that of W-CDMA.  I just pulled these national coverage images from the Telus web site:

 

CDMA2000:

 

 

W-CDMA:

 

 

I think it rather embarrassing how Bell and Telus bought the GSM side's bill of goods.  Bell and Telus wanted the iPhone to compete with Rogers, so they went for the W-CDMA overlay.  But if they had waited a little bit longer, they could have had a CDMA2000 iPhone.  And the roaming revenue from the Vancouver Winter Olympics was so short lived as to not be worth the trouble.  Now, they have had to invest years and millions, if not billions into the W-CDMA overlay, which has not yet reached CDMA2000 level of coverage breadth.  And LTE is quickly usurping W-CDMA in importance.  Basically, they jumped the gun.

 

Oh well, I guess all of that just gives me nice ammo to make fun of Bell and Telus...

 

AJ

[dedub]

That depends how expensive qualcomm is willing to make it. As CDMA dies, they'll want to keep that revenue up as long as possible by increasing rates.

 

qualcomm can't keep jacking up CDMA prices too much, as then it will simply be further motivation for any remaining carriers to get out as fast as possible, killing the revenue all together.

[maximus1987/lou99]

Then Sprint would be left with ZTE, Huawei, and Kyocera. The rest would be told "go screw yourselves".

 

 

None, but most operators in the US will only do interoperability as far as it benefits them to do so. Sprint should be using Band 27 instead of Band 26 for its ESMR LTE, but it won't. In fact, Sprint should have pushed for 26 and 27 to be combined into a single band, but it didn't, because it wanted to keep its competitors out of the space.

Who uses the extra 7MHz that band 27 includes and competes with Sprint?

 

Wait, Sprint did something to the detriment of the consumer - and INTEROPERABILITY - for its own interest? But, but ... only the duopoly do that!

 

AJ?

Edited July 27, 2013 by asdf190

[gnoj]

I still don't like the idea of dedicating the entire SMR to 1xA...

 

I'm not a Sprint network engineer so I don't know exactly how much spectrum is needed for voice anymore, but I figure that if PCS will be entirely refarmed to LTE, then more room will have to be made for voice on SMR. Also, in the SouthernLINC markets, Sprint only has 10 MHz of SMR, rather than 14 (and I don't think Southern wants to be bought out anytime soon). So in areas where there is more than enough voice capacity, 1xA could be tuned to support higher data speeds instead (up to 500kbps), to make 1x browsing a little more bearable.

 

You're absolutely right though that this plan does assume a successful 600 MHz auction. I'm running on the assumption that Sprint can secure at least a contiguous 10x10 block there. If they only get 5x5, I agree they should leave the 5x5 (or at least 3x3) LTE carrier on SMR alone.

[WiWavelength]

qualcomm can't keep jacking up CDMA prices too much, as then it will simply be further motivation for any remaining carriers to get out as fast as possible, killing the revenue all together.

 

Seemingly, no one has provided any substantive evidence that Qualcomm is increasing CDMA2000 prices.  Right now, it is just an idea, not a reality.  And since Qualcomm owns the vast majority of CDMA2000 intellectual property, it might as well milk those patents for every last dollar rather than price CDMA2000 users out of the market.

 

AJ

[Mobilesolutions]

I'm building my own radios, I dont have millions for R&D Though.

I do agree that if large manufacturers won't make products for a network of 50 million they should be kicked to the curb. There is a whole group of tier 2&3 companies waiting for their chance to shine. Just need to ensure strict QC....and convince consumers they are better or equally good to the beloved iPhone.

[maximus1987/lou99]

I'm not a Sprint network engineer so I don't know exactly how much spectrum is needed for voice anymore, but I figure that if PCS will be entirely refarmed to LTE, then more room will have to be made for voice on SMR. Also, in the SouthernLINC markets, Sprint only has 10 MHz of SMR, rather than 14 (and I don't think Southern wants to be bought out anytime soon). So in areas where there is more than enough voice capacity, 1x could be tuned to support higher data speeds instead (up to 500kbps), to make 1x browsing a little more bearable.

 

You're absolutely right though that this plan does assume a successful 600 MHz auction. I'm running on the assumption that Sprint can secure at least a contiguous 10x10 block there. If they only get 5x5, I agree they should leave the 5x5 (or at least 3x3) LTE carrier on SMR alone.

They don't need 10x10 600. ATT is running 5x5 on 700 in Chicago so I think Sprint will manage with 5x5 600 in addition to PCS once its all reframed.

 

Why do you think they need 10x10 in 600? Even if they use 800 entirely for voice, they still don't need 10x10 LTE.

The only people who are only gonna be within reach of 600 or 800 are: deep within buildings and way out in country. In both cases, its not gonna be a lot of people PER SECTOR.

Edited July 27, 2013 by asdf190

[Conan Kudo]

Come on now. There is CDMA 1900 and 850 service in Canada and Mexico as well.

 

If you were right, U+ using CDMA 1800 as a lone user would throw a dagger into your previous argument. How does U+ get devices for its network if its such a small fry with a proprietary CDMA spectrum?

Well, it used to run CDMA-850 service until they refarmed it for LTE in 2011. The CDMA-1800 service is largely cell site protection at this point, since U+ has VoLTE deployed on LTE-850 and LTE-2100. The regulatory environment makes it difficult to convert a license for one technology to another, so it is cheaper to just let the network rot.

 

Iusacell doesn't seem to sell any CDMA service in Mexico to subscribers anymore, so I didn't count it.

 

 

The only operators? The only major operators, perhaps. In the U.S. (ignoring the soon to be defunct MetroPCS, Alltel (ATN), and Cricket networks), USCC, C Spire, nTelos, GCI and Alaska Communication Systems are still around. Individually they don't have a lot of customers, but together they still provide demand for CDMA on PCS. There are also still some CDMA operators in other smaller countries. When CDMA does eventually get phased out it will be interesting to see which choose to invest to rebuild their networks and which seek to be bought out.

 

I do think Sprint should dedicate SMR entirely to 1xA and ride that as long as possible for their voice services. LTE can be on 600/1900/2600, with PCS A-F refarmed to FDD LTE. However, even on 600 MHz, VoLTE will have inferior capacity and propagation to 1xA on SMR. I'd be willing to pay a little more for my handset if it means I have superior voice coverage. The only issue that would need to be resolved then is a band plan with Canada and Mexico so Sprint can deploy SMR at full power in the IBEZ.

 

I suppose if Sprint's willing to put up more cell sites it could get the same coverage with VoLTE, but I imagine that'd be more expensive than paying some more for handsets.

 

 

You're right. I forgot about USCC. However, GCI and ACS are merging their spectral assets into a shared GSM/UMTS/LTE network (called Alaska Wireless Network, or AWN) to better compete against Verizon and AT&T. The FCC recently approved the network sharing and spectral transfer agreements.

 

nTelos wants to be bought out, and their size makes them irrelevant. I did also forget about C Spire (shame on me, I live in Mississippi!), but at the same time, C Spire is piggybacking off of Sprint's ecosystem, so it isn't doing anything on its own.

 

As for CDMA 850/1900 in other countries, the networks are gone. Telstra and Telecom New Zealand replaced their networks with UMTS. Vivo in Brazil returned its spectrum to the government years ago in exchange for some 900MHz spectrum and completed its CDMA shutdown earlier this year. America Movil has shut down CDMA across its Latin American properties except for Claro Puerto Rico, where the network has been downsized and merely exists for VZW roaming. There is Open Mobile in Puerto Rico (a divested movistar/BellSouth asset that went bankrupt and came back to life only to buy 700MHz Upper C block for PR+USVI and deploy LTE and VoLTE). 

 

 

Seemingly, no one has provided any substantive evidence that Qualcomm is increasing CDMA2000 prices.  Right now, it is just an idea, not a reality.  And since Qualcomm owns the vast majority of CDMA2000 intellectual property, it might as well milk those patents for every last dollar rather than price CDMA2000 users out of the market.

 

AJ

I never said Qualcomm was jacking up its prices for CDMA2000 chips. But it is lowering the prices of chips that don't have CDMA2000 on them, effectively making the CDMA2000 chips more expensive.

[gnoj]

They don't need 10x10 600. ATT is running 5x5 on 700 in Chicago so I think Sprint will manage with 5x5 600 in addition to PCS once its all reframed. Why do you think they need 10x10 in 600? The only people who are only gonna be within reach of 600 or 800 are: deep within buildings and way out in country. In both cases, its not gonna be a lot of people PER SECTOR.

 

If they want to either a.) leave the door open for VoLTE instead of 1xA down the road, since VoLTE would be horrible on PCS or EBS/BRS, and only a little better than 1x PCS on SMR, or b.) expand rural coverage without the expense of PCS cell site spacing, I believe they'd want 10x10 to be safe.

 

They should take what they can get, although if there's a shortage T-Mobile should have first dibs since that will be their only low-band spectrum and I think 600 MHz is LTE only (so VoLTE only).

 

PCS LTE capacity will be relied upon by the small urban centers that won't get TDD LTE. I know Son is putting a lot of money into Sprint but I just don't see him putting TDD on every tower, especially any new ones out in the country. I hope he proves me wrong.

[ericdabbs]

I'm not a Sprint network engineer so I don't know exactly how much spectrum is needed for voice anymore, but I figure that if PCS will be entirely refarmed to LTE, then more room will have to be made for voice on SMR. Also, in the SouthernLINC markets, Sprint only has 10 MHz of SMR, rather than 14 (and I don't think Southern wants to be bought out anytime soon). So in areas where there is more than enough voice capacity, 1xA could be tuned to support higher data speeds instead (up to 500kbps), to make 1x browsing a little more bearable.

 

You're absolutely right though that this plan does assume a successful 600 MHz auction. I'm running on the assumption that Sprint can secure at least a contiguous 10x10 block there. If they only get 5x5, I agree they should leave the 5x5 (or at least 3x3) LTE carrier on SMR alone.

 

I didn't mean to imply that LTE 800 should only be a 5x5 Mhz configuration.  I am aware of the southeast US being limited to 3x3 MHz which is fine.  The point is that there is LTE available being used at 800 MHz.  I also learned that its not just the southeast US markets that are scheduled to only have 3x3 MHz LTE but there are a few other markets scheduled so no surprise here.

 

Other problems include the assumption that I eluded to in my previous post is that in your scenario that every market in the US has access to 800 MHz spectrum which the Canadian and Mexican IBEZ markets do not have which will be several years from now from being resolved. Also keep in mind that only certain high end phones beginning in 2012 added CDMA 800 support.  Even my poor Moto Photon 4G doesn't support CDMA 800.  There are still a lot of basic phones and smartphones prior to 2012 that are still relying on the CDMA 1900 network.  

 

For now Sprint doesn't need to add another LTE 1900 carrier yet but I think by late 2014 or early 2015, Sprint will need to start adding another 5x5 LTE carrier at 1900 which a lot of markets in the US have enough spectrum to add another 5x5 LTE carrier alongside the current CDMA/EVDO network.  Hopefully by 2015 Sprint will have a more extensive TD-LTE network at 2500 to help relieve LTE capacity concerns at 1900 and 800. Don't forget the PCS H/AWS-2 block spectrum will be available for auction hopefully in Jan 2014 which Sprint can continue to add more capacity to the PCS spectrum portfolio.

[WiWavelength]

If they want to either a.) leave the door open for VoLTE instead of 1xA down the road, since VoLTE would be horrible on PCS or EBS/BRS, and only a little better than 1x PCS on SMR...

 

VoLTE would not be "horrible" on PCS or even BRS/EBS.  It would just have to be used under the right signal conditions.  That might limit it on PCS or BRS/EBS to a smaller fraction of the cell radius, but that is fine.  You are not going to be spending all the time on one band.  Rather, the network is going to put you where you need to be.  And, in a multi band network, that means close in users on high band, middle cell users on mid band, and cell edge users on low band.

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

There is no imminent CDMA equipment shortage.  Not on the device side nor network side.  The costs for CDMA equipment will not be cost prohibitive for years.  What it takes to include CDMA 1xRTT or 1xAdvanced in new cell phones is minimal.  Even if for 5 Million customers, let alone 50 Million.

 

Sprint/SoftBank may chose to make steps in other directions like VoLTE, and possibly even WCDMA (which I doubt), but it is not because there is an imminent CDMA cliff coming in 2-3 years.  They will have no problem supporting CDMA until at least 2020.

 

Additionally, Verizon has not said to my knowledge they are abandoning CDMA in their networks nor in their devices.  They only said they were going trial some LTE only phones in 2014 to see how they worked out.  So even if they did just love LTE only, given the extent of existing devices and contracts, Verizon would still need to keep their CDMA network going for another 3-4 years minimum.  And they would likely keep CDMA still being installed on devices to allow roaming for some time further.  Also, Sprint will likely develop in the VoLTE ecosystem about the same timelines as everyone else.

 

This is much ado about nothing, and is getting WAY off topic.

 

Robert

[ericdabbs]

They don't need 10x10 600. ATT is running 5x5 on 700 in Chicago so I think Sprint will manage with 5x5 600 in addition to PCS once its all reframed. Why do you think they need 10x10 in 600? Even if they use 800 entirely for voice, they still don't need 10x10 LTE. The only people who are only gonna be within reach of 600 or 800 are: deep within buildings and way out in country. In both cases, its not gonna be a lot of people PER SECTOR.

 

If there is 84 MHz or 120 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum is available, then why shouldn't Sprint try to shoot for getting 20 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum. All of the 600 MHz spectrum is going to be sold to some major carrier either way or do we really want Verizon and ATT to gobble up the majority of the 600 MHz spectrum?  Tmobile at most is probably shooting for grabbing 20 MHz of 600 MHz to give them a pretty low band spectrum position that they so lack and the smaller carriers like US Cellular, nTelos, etc are only going to buy a portion of a 5x5 block. 

 

The 600 MHz band is going to be one of the last great spectrum bands available for mobile broadband in the future so Sprint should try to secure more than just a single 5x5 block.  I don't believe a 3x3 or a 5x5 LTE carrier at 800 MHz is going to be enough to handle all deep indoor traffic.   Also who cares about how ATT and Chicago?  That is just one example and that doesn't mean that ATT is happy about it.  If ATT wanted to stand pat with a lot of their major cities only have a 5x5 LTE block at 700 MHz, then they wouldn't have done a deal with Verizon earlier this year to buy a good chunk of the 700 Mhz B block licenses to bolster their 700 MHz holdings to deploy a 10x10 LTE network in NYC, Seattle, SF, Texas markets, etc.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-sell-700-mhz-b-block-spectrum-att-19b/2013-01-25

 

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/146841-verizon-wireless-sells-lower-700mhz-spectrum-to-att-for-1-9-billion

 

Also we don't know what Sprint and Softbank have plans for the 2500 MHz spectrum especially with the EBS licenses.  Perhaps Sprint will only keep a small portion of EBS licenses in areas where they don't have BRS spectrum but I have to think that BRS spectrum is a must keep.  If that is the case then their 2500 MHz spectrum holdings reduce dramatically.

[WiWavelength]

If there is 84 MHz or 120 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum is available...

 

What do you think the chances are that the incentive auction clears anything close to that much UHF spectrum?  Uh...

 

 

AJ

[maximus1987/lou99]

If there is 84 MHz or 120 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum is available, then why shouldn't Sprint try to shoot for getting 20 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum. All of the 600 MHz spectrum is going to be sold to some major carrier either way or do we really want Verizon and ATT to gobble up the majority of the 600 MHz spectrum? Tmobile at most is probably shooting for grabbing 20 MHz of 600 MHz to give them a pretty low band spectrum position that they so lack and the smaller carriers like US Cellular, nTelos, etc are only going to buy a portion of a 5x5 block.

 

The 600 MHz band is going to be one of the last great spectrum bands available for mobile broadband in the future so Sprint should try to secure more than just a single 5x5 block. I don't believe a 3x3 or a 5x5 LTE carrier at 800 MHz is going to be enough to handle all deep indoor traffic. Also who cares about how ATT and Chicago? That is just one example and that doesn't mean that ATT is happy about it. If ATT wanted to stand pat with a lot of their major cities only have a 5x5 LTE block at 700 MHz, then they wouldn't have done a deal with Verizon earlier this year to buy a good chunk of the 700 Mhz B block licenses to bolster their 700 MHz holdings to deploy a 10x10 LTE network in NYC, Seattle, SF, Texas markets, etc.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-sell-700-mhz-b-block-spectrum-att-19b/2013-01-25

 

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/146841-verizon-wireless-sells-lower-700mhz-spectrum-to-att-for-1-9-billion

 

Also we don't know what Sprint and Softbank have plans for the 2500 MHz spectrum especially with the EBS licenses. Perhaps Sprint will only keep a small portion of EBS licenses in areas where they don't have BRS spectrum but I have to think that BRS spectrum is a must keep. If that is the case then their 2500 MHz spectrum holdings reduce dramatically.

Neither TMO not Sprint will get into a bidding war with ATT and Verizon. There will be an effective carve-out for non-ATT/VZW carriers but once that is consumed, the rest will be bid up, up, up by VZW/ATT.

No duh I don't want duo to get that most. I also want marshmallows to grow on trees.

 

Sprint and TMO can aim as high as they want to but it's tough to argue with 191bil and 146bil market cap.

 

And if the reverse auction doesn't raise enough spectrum, guess who's gonna it all? Mr 191bil and mrs 146bil.

Edited July 27, 2013 by asdf190

[ericdabbs]

Neither TMO not Sprint will get into a bidding war with ATT and Verizon. There will be an effective carve-out for non-ATT/VZW carriers but once that is consumed, the rest will be bid up, up, up by VZW/ATT. No duh I don't want duo to get that most. I also want marshmallows to grow on trees. Sprint and TMO can aim as high as they want to but it's tough to argue with 191bil and 146bil market cap. And if the reverse auction doesn't raise enough spectrum, guess who's gonna it all? Mr 191bil and mrs 146bil.

 

There is discussion right now among the spectrum committees about whether the FCC should put auction rules to limit the amount of 600 MHz Verizon and ATT can obtain.  ATT's position is of course let the market forces determine the price of the spectrum and put no limits on the amount of spectrum any carrier can obtain while Tmobile's position is to limit the amount of 600 MHz that Verizon and ATT can obtain and still be able to meet the financial goals for the US govt.  

 

I never mentioned anything about getting into a bidding war with ATT and Verizon.  If the FCC takes Tmobile's position and puts in the rules of the auction to limit the amount of 600 MHz spectrum they can obtain it doesn't matter at that point.  Once Verizon and ATT hit their limits for a particular market, they can't bid anymore.

 

Then you also haven't heard that Tmobile is also proposing that the FCC set a revenue target for each market to ensure it meets its financial goals to finance FirstNet, broadcaster relocation, broadcaster incentive payment, pay down national debt, etc.  

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/t-mobile-proposes-sliding-spectrum-screen-rule-600-mhz-auction/2013-06-25

 

Also this 600 MHz auction is not the only spectrum that is expected to accomplish all the financial goals that the US govt is seeking for.  There is also the PCS/AWS-2 H block auction and the AWS-3 (1755-1780, 2155-2180 MHz) auction to help the US govt achieve its financial goals.  Heck there is even talk about 1695-1710 MHz spectrum up for auction.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/special-reports/aws-2pcs-h-block-spectrum-auction-guide