Rumor: Sprint may be preparing to release their own Android flagship phone

[halcyoncmdr]

It boggles my mind how so many people who can afford to spend $110 dollars a month on their cell phone plan can't save up $200 to get the top end phones.  You're gonna spend over $2500 during your contract on your phone and you're gonna settle for a sluggish, outdated device just to save $200?

 

Welcome to the US wireless game.

 

I'd rather see everything switch over to standard networks technology and bands. Have the majority of sales setup like Europe. Contract free offers for everything with identical plans just at a lower price point since the company is not recouping cost for device subsidy, but you can choose to pay for the device entirely up front instead. None of this separate prepaid/postpaid garbage we have now with carrier subsidies being the majority to keep consumers "in line".

[supert0nes]

 

 

It boggles my mind how so many people who can afford to spend $110 dollars a month on their cell phone plan can't save up $200 to get the top end phones. You're gonna spend over $2500 during your contract on your phone and you're gonna settle for a sluggish, outdated device just to save $200?

 

 

Welcome to the US wireless game.

 

I'd rather see everything switch over to standard networks technology and bands. Have the majority of sales setup like Europe. Contract free offers for everything with identical plans just at a lower price point since the company is not recouping cost for device subsidy, but you can choose to pay for the device entirely up front instead. None of this separate prepaid/postpaid garbage we have now with carrier subsidies being the majority to keep consumers "in line".

What does switching to the same bands mean to you?

 

The original cellular bands are all used up. That's why new ones are created for more bandwidth.

 

It's not practical for all carriers to have a small amount of spectrum in all bands either.

 

And countries have different legacy uses for spectrum that might not let them all use world standard bands.

 

sent from phone

 

 

[Thomas L.]

Possibly? I may have read the play book wrong. I can look again tomorrow.

 

I only ask because that phone already sounds outdated - in a year it'll be an antique in cell phone terms, lol. 

[halcyoncmdr]

What does switching to the same bands mean to you?

 

The original cellular bands are all used up. That's why new ones are created for more bandwidth.

 

It's not practical for all carriers to have a small amount of spectrum in all bands either.

 

And countries have different legacy uses for spectrum that might not let them all use world standard bands.

 

sent from phone

 

Are you trying to say that the US can't get by with rebanding all wireless spectrum into consistent bands optimized for multiple operators and the size of the customer base?

 

Or possibly that European countries aren't as densely populated as the US, so less spectrum is required?

 

Forget the carriers, all they do is bicker back and forth about it anyway. The FCC needs to reband the spectrum holdings into consistent blocks instead of the hodgepodge there is around the country now. PCA A-F block here, but only having D-F block there, oh there's an A-C block. I have no idea what I'm talking about here with specific blocks, but you get where I'm going with it. Mixing everything up just leaves unused spectrum there since it needs guard bands around it to help prevent interference. I'd bet with a rebanding we could get a couple new bands made from the excess that must sit between them currently in some spectrum holdings.

[Fraydog]

 

 

 

 

It boggles my mind how so many people who can afford to spend $110 dollars a month on their cell phone plan can't save up $200 to get the top end phones. You're gonna spend over $2500 during your contract on your phone and you're gonna settle for a sluggish, outdated device just to save $200?

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the US wireless game.

 

 

 

I'd rather see everything switch over to standard networks technology and bands. Have the majority of sales setup like Europe. Contract free offers for everything with identical plans just at a lower price point since the company is not recouping cost for device subsidy, but you can choose to pay for the device entirely up front instead. None of this separate prepaid/postpaid garbage we have now with carrier subsidies being the majority to keep consumers "in line".

 

What does switching to the same bands mean to you?

 

 

 

The original cellular bands are all used up. That's why new ones are created for more bandwidth.

 

 

 

It's not practical for all carriers to have a small amount of spectrum in all bands either.

 

 

 

And countries have different legacy uses for spectrum that might not let them all use world standard bands.

 

 

 

sent from phone

 

 

 

 

I couldn't think of a more arbitrary and awful banding system for spectrum than what exists in the United States. It is awful. It is sociopathic. It is insane. I hate it when otherwise intelligent people defend it, I assume to defend the CDMA2000 standard.

 

The idea of a global banding system is an idea whose time has come. The US will pretty much be the only country using the awful 700 MHz plan. Even Canada has delayed their 700 auction. A switch to the APT plan would not shock me.

[Matt.NY.Tech]

I only ask because that phone already sounds outdated - in a year it'll be an antique in cell phone terms, lol.

Oh! No, no... 6/14 as in 6/14/2013

[S4GRU]

The idea of a global banding system is an idea whose time has come.

Sounds like the Tower of Babel to me. God will not be pleased.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[Conan Kudo]

I couldn't think of a more arbitrary and awful banding system for spectrum than what exists in the United States. It is awful. It is sociopathic. It is insane. I hate it when otherwise intelligent people defend it, I assume to defend the CDMA2000 standard.

 

The idea of a global banding system is an idea whose time has come. The US will pretty much be the only country using the awful 700 MHz plan. Even Canada has delayed their 700 auction. A switch to the APT plan would not shock me.

Sadly, Canada isn't switching. The only reason for the delay was so that the companies can adjust their bidding strategies because of the government's rejection of the TELUS/Mobilicity deal.

 

Two countries out of 196 are using US 700 band plan. The remaining 194 have almost universally agreed to APT 700. Some are still deciding, but it's almost a given that they'll use APT 700.

[WiWavelength]

I couldn't think of a more arbitrary and awful banding system for spectrum than what exists in the United States. It is awful. It is sociopathic. It is insane. I hate it when otherwise intelligent people defend it, I assume to defend the CDMA2000 standard.

 

The idea of a global banding system is an idea whose time has come. The US will pretty much be the only country using the awful 700 MHz plan. Even Canada has delayed their 700 auction. A switch to the APT plan would not shock me.

 

No, no, no, you are playing with revisionist history, Ryan.  For background, read this article:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_band_plan_in_the_700_MHz_band

 

The FCC put the wheels in motion for 700 MHz mobile use fully 15 years ago.  None of what is happening now -- as the Eurasians are just finally getting around to it -- could have been anticipated.  Plus, much of the rest of the world differs greatly in its TV spectrum allocations.

 

So, as I have said before, the rest of the world more often needs to follow the spectrum planning of still the most important country on the planet.  But the Eurasians seem to like to wait and see, then stick it to the Americans.

 

As for international roaming compatibility, I could basically not care less.  It is a red herring for nearly all of the US population nearly all of the time.

 

Not to mention, local differences can serve as protectionism that is good for the national economy.  It served Japan with PDC for many years.  And, for example, the Motorola/Google X phone is supposed to be built in the US.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

The FCC band plan should have changed when the duopoly fractured the 700 MHz bands at the 3GPP. Instead they hummed and whistled along in the pockets of Verizon and AT&T.

 

I'm fully aware of the band issues in the US that caused the APT plan to develop - painfully so. Do you think I would open this can of worms without thinking about it for a long time?

 

The real battle developing isn't US vs. Eurasia. It's operators conspiring against consumers. The Euro operators would take our band plans in a New York minute, because they would be able to rake consumers over the coals.

 

Read this as Exhibit A.

 

http://www.gsmamobilewirelessperformance.com/GSMA_Mobile_Wireless_Performance_May2013.pdf

 

That's the European operators commissioning that report. Of course they want our system and paying more to get less.

[AMD64]

I like to hear a rumor about Nokia and sprint like the lumia 928 .enough flooding the market with junk phones

 

Sent from my S2 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[supert0nes]

How many bands in Europe are currently planned for LTE?  Do those bands overlap with the US?  I feel that we aren't seeing this problem in Europe yet because they are just beginning to deploy LTE in the new bands.

[Fraydog]

How many bands in Europe are currently planned for LTE? Do those bands overlap with the US? I feel that we aren't seeing this problem in Europe yet because they are just beginning to deploy LTE in the new bands.

 

Europe has a problem of their consumers not being in a big rush to go to LTE because most consumers over there that I talk to online are satisfied with HSPA+ and are playing low prices to access HSPA+. British provider EE launched LTE early and isn't getting a great uptake because people don't want to overpay for LTE. The British are deploying 800 MHz Digital Dividend and 2600 FD-LTE later this year. I'm guessing most people are waiting for all four major carriers over there to swing out LTE so prices can go down.

 

The Euro country the most like the US on LTE adoption is Sweden, and they only have 5% LTE adoption, which is less than half of what the US has.

 

What I'm angling for is US performance at Euro prices in the long run. No, I'm not angling for the US to follow the Euro system exactly, but a global rebanding down the line is something that should be considered. It would take 7-8 years to do anyway so you would have to do this for the future. CDMA2000 won't be a factor by that time anyway.

[Conan Kudo]

How many bands in Europe are currently planned for LTE?  Do those bands overlap with the US?  I feel that we aren't seeing this problem in Europe yet because they are just beginning to deploy LTE in the new bands.

Of all the bands planned in Europe, only two technically could be implemented in the US: Band 7 (2.6GHz, IMT-E FDD) and Band 38 (2.6GHz, IMT-E TDD). Despite the FCC mandating a transition to ITU Option 3 in 2006 (which enables Band 7+38 operation), the BRS+EBS licenses weren't refactored to make the band easily usable.

 

 

No, no, no, you are playing with revisionist history, Ryan.  For background, read this article:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_band_plan_in_the_700_MHz_band

 

The FCC put the wheels in motion for 700 MHz mobile use fully 15 years ago.  None of what is happening now -- as the Eurasians are just finally getting around to it -- could have been anticipated.  Plus, much of the rest of the world differs greatly in its TV spectrum allocations.

 

So, as I have said before, the rest of the world more often needs to follow the spectrum planning of still the most important country on the planet.  But the Eurasians seem to like to wait and see, then stick it to the Americans.

 

As for international roaming compatibility, I could basically not care less.  It is a red herring for nearly all of the US population nearly all of the time.

 

Not to mention, local differences can serve as protectionism that is good for the national economy.  It served Japan with PDC for many years.  And, for example, the Motorola/Google X phone is supposed to be built in the US.

 

AJ

Just because you wouldn't use it, or many customers don't currently plan on using it, doesn't make it a useless feature. And there are many of those who do use it. And since operators make quite a lot of money with the international roaming capability, it isn't something to ignore. It would be ridiculously foolish to ignore it.

 

And by the way, Japan actually did have international capabilities with PDC, though it was only to China and South Korea. That being said, the only reason they didn't switch to GSM was because Japan (and China and South Korea) use technology-specific licensing. It is incredibly difficult to get licenses converted from one technology to another.

 

However, all operators in Japan are undergoing this process to make room for UMTS and LTE services. Band 41 in Japan is only possible because Willcom (now SoftBank WCP) went through the process to convert the WiMAX license to an LTE TDD one. Other bands are being converted as we speak.

 

Protectionism is foolish as well. It leads to situations like in Canada, where everything is so much more expensive (airing TV, mobile service, etc.). There are a lot of economic problems with protectionism.

 

For an industry that is incredibly reliant on scale, things like this hurt a lot.

[Nickel]

What I'm angling for is US performance at Euro prices in the long run. No, I'm not angling for the US to follow the Euro system exactly, but a global rebanding down the line is something that should be considered. It would take 7-8 years to do anyway so you would have to do this for the future. CDMA2000 won't be a factor by that time anyway.

Are you talking about a complete spectrum reboot across the board or just a few bands that have to do with wireless? If you want the former I think it might take longer than 7-8 Years.

[Fraydog]

 

 

What I'm angling for is US performance at Euro prices in the long run. No, I'm not angling for the US to follow the Euro system exactly, but a global rebanding down the line is something that should be considered. It would take 7-8 years to do anyway so you would have to do this for the future. CDMA2000 won't be a factor by that time anyway.

 

 

Are you talking about a complete spectrum reboot across the board or just a few bands that have to do with wireless? If you want the former I think it might take longer than 7-8 Years.

It depends on what needs to be done. If a more drastic realignment of spectrum would be needed, then it could be much longer than 7-8 years. I'd be fine with taking 700 and realigning it into APT. Even that would create a hellstorm.

[Nickel]

It depends on what needs to be done. If a more drastic realignment of spectrum would be needed, then it could be much longer than 7-8 years. I'd be fine with taking 700 and realigning it into APT. Even that would create a hellstorm.

I'm not an expert but if i'm not mistaken then bands 13 and 17 are subsets of band 12. If that is indeed the case then wouldn't it be easier to just tell VZW and ATT to use band 12?

[Conan Kudo]

I'm not an expert but if i'm not mistaken then bands 13 and 17 are subsets of band 12. If that is indeed the case then wouldn't it be easier to just tell VZW and ATT to use band 12?

Band 17 is a subset of 12. Bands 13 and 14 are separate bands altogether. Band set 12-13-14 (US band plan) and 28 (APT band plan) are mutually exclusive (meaning both cannot be supported, only one or the other).

[WiWavelength]

Protectionism is foolish as well. It leads to situations like in Canada, where everything is so much more expensive (airing TV, mobile service, etc.). There are a lot of economic problems with protectionism.

 

Meh, globalism is just as bad, if not worse.  It brings us such wonderful things as price dumping, offshoring, lax labor and/or environmental regulations, etc.  Americans need to lose the love affair with cheaply made foreign products and pay a bit more for domestically made products.  The end result would be a stronger economy with better wages at the lower end of the scale.  But most American consumers are stupid and short sighted, cannot see the forest for the trees.  So, a little bit protectionism -- economic planning from well educated people who actually know that they are doing -- is in order.

 

Otherwise, "South Park" is right, and a huge percentage of this country is eventually going to find itself unemployed due to globalism.

 

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

 

Meh, globalism is just as bad, if not worse. It brings us such wonderful things as price dumping, offshoring, lax labor and/or environmental regulations, etc. Americans need to lose the love affair with cheaply made foreign products and pay a bit more for domestically made products. The end result would be a stronger economy with better wages at the lower end of the scale. But most American consumers are stupid and short sighted, cannot see the forest for the trees. So, a little bit protectionism -- economic planning from well educated people who actually know that they are doing -- is in order.

 

Otherwise, "South Park" is right, and a huge percentage of this country is eventually going to find itself unemployed due to globalism.

 

 

AJ

No offense, but we're already there. Manufacturing of devices has been done in China for a long time. Same for network equipment. The Old AT&T made everything in the US. AT&T eventually split off Lucent after divesture.

 

I may be calling for spectrum globalism here, but I'm not calling for the US to lay down on its interests. What interests would we be protecting with bad spectrum policy? I can understand the military interests... That makes perfect sense (see DCS vs. PCS, IMT vs. AWS). We've had lots of time to shuffle that spectrum around. Time for it to move.

 

To be fair, the most dominant nation in the UN right now is the United States.

[Nickel]

Band 17 is a subset of 12. Bands 13 and 14 are separate bands altogether. Band set 12-13-14 (US band plan) and 28 (APT band plan) are mutually exclusive (meaning both cannot be supported, only one or the other).

Ah thanks, so would it be possible to make a band to support all of US 700 band plan or would that just make a mess of things?

[Conan Kudo]

No offense, but we're already there. Manufacturing of devices has been done in China for a long time. Same for network equipment. The Old AT&T made everything in the US. AT&T eventually split off Lucent after divesture.

 

I may be calling for spectrum globalism here, but I'm not calling for the US to lay down on its interests. What interests would we be protecting with bad spectrum policy? I can understand the military interests... That makes perfect sense (see DCS vs. PCS, IMT vs. AWS). We've had lots of time to shuffle that spectrum around. Time for it to move.

 

To be fair, the most dominant nation in the UN right now is the United States.

The only thing stopping a reorganization of PCS+AWS to DCS+IMT is the 1755-1850 MHz still currently in use by the government. Once that paired AWS-3 spectrum (1755-1780 MHz, 2155-2180 MHz) is freed up, it would become possible to reband to IMT, but not DCS without more spectrum freed up.

 

IMT uses 1920-1980 MHz for uplink (UL) and 2110-2170 MHz for downlink (DL).

 

PCS (A-F) uses 1850-1910 MHz for UL and 1930-1990 MHz for DL. G block adds 5 MHz to UL and 5 MHz to DL. H block adds another 5 MHz to UL and another 5 MHz to DL.

 

DCS uses 1710-1785 MHz for UL and 1805-1880 MHz for DL.

 

AWS uses 1710-1755 MHz for UL and 2110-2155 MHz for DL. Paired AWS-3 adds 25 MHz to UL and 25 MHz to DL.

 

With the AWS-3, PCS G, and PCS H frequencies released, the following frequency ranges would be available: 1710-1780 MHz, 1850-1920 MHz, 1930-2000 MHz, 2110-2180 MHz. 

 

Rebanding would permit a partial IMT allocation: 1930-1980 MHz for UL, and 2120-2170 MHz for DL. If the PCS duplex gap frequencies can be allocated (1920-1930 MHz), then a full IMT allocation is possible.

 

DCS would still not be doable. The 1805-1850 MHz under DCS is allocated to the federal government for research and military use at this time. On the other hand, the reorganization could allow the government to shift federal use to previously occupied frequencies for PCS to enable DCS. But this would be quite challenging. I'd say it would require 10-15 years of work to do it.

 

Efforts are better spent fixing bands that have frequencies already allocated. 2.6GHz and 700MHz are better deserving the effort to fix them than PCS and AWS. Besides, PCS and AWS have large ecosystems in their own right. US 700MHz does not, nor does Band 41 2.6GHz.

 

Ah thanks, so would it be possible to make a band to support all of US 700 band plan or would that just make a mess of things?

 

Impossible. Bands 13+14 have an reversed duplex configuration from Band 12. That means that not even a cascading duplexing scheme would work, as the relative positioning of the downlink and uplink channels is flipped for half the band. There was little to no planning actually done in the development of the 700MHz band plan, which is why it isn't that efficient and does not promote the development of a large ecosystem.

 

However, there is no reason a device can't support bands 12, 13, and 14 separately in one device. Meaning, that there would be a duplex path for band 12 (with subset 17 supported), and a duplex path for bands 13+14.

[Nickel]

Impossible. Bands 13+14 have an reversed duplex configuration from Band 12. That means that not even a cascading duplexing scheme would work, as the relative positioning of the downlink and uplink channels is flipped for half the band. There was little to no planning actually done in the development of the 700MHz band plan, which is why it isn't that efficient and does not promote the development of a large ecosystem.

 

However, there is no reason a device can't support bands 12, 13, and 14 separately in one device. Meaning, that there would be a duplex path for band 12 (with subset 17 supported), and a duplex path for bands 13+14.

Since band 14 is for public safety there wouldn't be much point in that, but if 12 (with 17 support) and 13 with 4 and 25 that would take care of US LTE for next couple years, and that sounds pretty good to me.

 

Efforts are better spent fixing bands that have frequencies already allocated. 2.6GHz and 700MHz are better deserving the effort to fix them than PCS and AWS. Besides, PCS and AWS have large ecosystems in their own right. US 700MHz does not, nor does Band 41 2.6GHz.

 

This could change in the future with sprint and softbank plus last i heard one of china's telecoms was considering using 41, so that would seem to me like a pretty good ecosystem.

[Conan Kudo]

Since band 14 is for public safety there wouldn't be much point in that, but if 12 (with 17 support) and 13 with 4 and 25 that would take care of US LTE for next couple years, and that sounds pretty good to me.

 

This could change in the future with sprint and softbank plus last i heard one of china's telecoms was considering using 41, so that would seem to me like a pretty good ecosystem.

China as a whole is considering going completely TDD in the future. It is considering using APT 700 TDD, which is Band 44 (which is insane, in my opinion). It is going to use ITU Option 3 (band 41) for 2.6GHz. The US switched to Option 1, while still messing it up enough that Option 1 configurations are not doable.

[Fraydog]

That's a fair point, Conan. I think I did mistype what I said though. 

 

Moving PCS around isn't worth the effort at this point. I should have made that a lot clearer.