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Sprint TD-LTE 2500/2600mhz Discussion


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Unfortunately I think that is what Sprint will end up doing and not break up the LTE coverage into 2 colors for 800/1900 LTE and 2500 LTE. This is why I wish Sensorly could make a new group called Sprint LTE 2500 or Clearwire LTE so that we can clearly see which areas have 2500 LTE mapped.

Differing colors for different LTE bands might be too much work/overhead for a free app like sensorly. In Sensorly, when the colors darken and/or the coverage area is less "patchy/spotty" might be the only way to tell if LTE has improved in your area.

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Clearwire still has there own site so the might put it there.

 

I hope so.  It would be nice to have a different color to overlay the Wimax green on the www.clear.com site.

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I hope so.  It would be nice to have a different color to overlay the Wimax green on the www.clear.com site.

I'd expect that site will disappear by the end of the year after the integration is complete

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Not with the old Clearwire gear. Those are single mode Wimax only.

 

This is the specifications for the Samsung TD-LTE / Wimax RRU they're deploying,

 

Posted Image

Interesting it says 5mhz, 10mhz, and 20mhz. I wonder if the sites Robert is connected to is limited to 10Mhz carrier.
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Unfortunately I think that is what Sprint will end up doing and not break up the LTE coverage into 2 colors for 800/1900 LTE and 2500 LTE.  This is why I wish Sensorly could make a new group called Sprint LTE 2500 or Clearwire LTE so that we can clearly see which areas have 2500 LTE mapped.

Regular LTE and goes to 11 LTE turbo...

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Robert, did you do the contract plan or buy outright and do the as you go plan for the hotspot?

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Robert, did you do the contract plan or buy outright and do the as you go plan for the hotspot?

They wouldn't sell it off contract. :td:

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

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Even if you pay full price or byod a new line will make a new contract on Sprint.

 

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Which is unfortunate. It's partly why I have a prepaid Verizon MiFi--because I don't use it often enough to justify paying monthly for 2+ years, but I do need it occasionally on trips and such. The new Sprint unlimited plans might make an extra $10 for hotspot access on my phone doable though.

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you don't have to have a contract for tablets or hotspots, you can activate as you go, you pre-pay for whatever bandwidth and when it runs out you either renew then or wait until the next time you need it.

 

The evo view for example had it.

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/services_solutions/details.jsp?detId=mbb_passes&catId=service_mbb&catName=Mobile%20Broadband&detName=Mobile%20Broadband%20Passes&specialCat=

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you don't have to have a contract for tablets or hotspots, you can activate as you go, you pre-pay for whatever bandwidth and when it runs out you either renew then or wait until the next time you need it.

 

The evo view for example had it.

 

http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/services_solutions/details.jsp?detId=mbb_passes&catId=service_mbb&catName=Mobile%20Broadband&detName=Mobile%20Broadband%20Passes&specialCat=

 

I even talked with store manager and threw around the S4GRU name.  They looked for all rate codes and anything they could do to sell it off contract.  They couldn't do it.  If I wanted to walk out the door with the new Netgear Triband LTE MiFi today in Lone Tree, Colorado, I had to sign a two year agreement.  So I did, even though I had planned to pay full retail and do a month to month.

 

Robert

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Here is some points today of my Denver Band 41 TD-LTE testing.

  • Netgear TriBand LTE Hotspot is awesome.  Love the color touch screen display.  Easy to use.  And in Network Settings, it will tell you which LTE Band you are using.  Around Denver I used Band 41 (2600) in most places, and occasionally Band 25 (1900).
  • Denver TD-LTE 2600 seemed to me to be on every WiMax site I encountered.  It just very well may be a full market deployment.
  • I rarely lost LTE 2600 signal, unless I went into a tunnel, under a long overpass, went into a significant depression or behind a hill.  On the wide open Denver freeways and boulevards, I kept a steady Band 41 LTE signal with smooth handoffs.  Way smoother than WiMax.
  • I bounced around between -130dBm RSRP and -55dBm RSRP all over the Denver Metro area.  Zero to six bars.  This MiFi will hold on to some very weak signals.  I don't know if triband smartphones will be able to do the same.  However -120dBm signals were usable most of the time with 2-6Mbps speeds.  Even at -130 RSRP I was able to get 1-2Mbps download.  I kept the device in LTE Only mode, and it may not do so well in mixed LTE/CDMA mode.
  • I tried to get Band 41 LTE to hand off to Band 25 LTE.  Over in East Aurora near DIA, it looked like my best shot.  However, there was about a 1/2 mile between where Band 41 ended and Band 25 started.  So no luck there.
  • Maximum speed test hit was 40Mbps in all my testing.  Maximum upload hit was almost 25Mbps.  Lowest ping time was 100ms.  But remember that this was from a hotspot, so some ping is lost there.  When I could test on Band 25, my hotspot was adding between 75-150ms to pings over what my Note 2 was doing from the same site/sector.
  • It seems in the current Denver deployment, LTE 2600 download speeds seemed limited on Clearwire's existing backhaul that is being shared with WiMax.  For instance, I had a WiMax Galaxy S2 that I was using side by side with my TD-LTE hotspot.  When I hit 40Mbps DL on TD-LTE, I was hitting 14-16Mbps DL on WiMax (although I cannot guarantee I was on the same site).  However, when I would hit 8Mbps DL on TD-LTE with a full signal, I would also only hit about 6-8Mbps DL on WiMax.  So with this, I concluded that Clearwire is sharing their LTE and WiMax on the same backhaul.  So if the LTE/WiMax 2600 site has more backhaul speed available than the WiMax airlink could support, then the LTE would be much faster than WiMax, up to whatever speed the backhaul was currently running.  If the backhaul was burdened to a speed lower than the WiMax airlink, then the LTE and WiMax 2600 were the same speed roughly.
  • Upload speeds.  Upload speeds were good to great.  I averaged 8-10Mbps upload speeds.  Sometimes hitting into the 20's.  At sites where speeds were below 7-8Mbps, the upload was averaging higher.  WiMax upload was limited to 1.5Mbps, but Clearwire TDD LTE is much higher.  This leads me to conclude that these are indeed 20MHz channels.  I don't think we would see 20Mbps+ upload speeds on Time Division with only 10MHz channels.
  • My conclusion after 8 hours of testing is that I believe these to be 20MHz TDD channels.  With the very high upload speeds, I'm left with no other conclusions.  With a full signal, I encountered between 6Mbps - 40Mbps download speeds, and 6Mbps - 25Mbps upload speeds.  Even though a 10MHz TDD channel could hit 40Mbps DL speeds in ideal situations, I don't think it could then also deliver 20Mbps+ speeds too on it.  A 10MHz TDD channel would likely have around a 10Mbps upload speed, or even possibly less.  I think that the 40/20 could be even higher with better backhaul delivered to these sites.
  • Indoor usability on Band 41 stinks.  No suprise, though.  I would lose between 15-25dBm going indoors.  If I had worse than -100dBm outside, I likely wasn't going to get inside reception at all.  Since LTE 2600/Band 41 is supposed to be overlaid always with 1900 and 800, this will not be a problem at build out.  And I had better reception and speeds than WiMax.  But you will not be fond of LTE 2600 indoor usage.
  • Another point about the hotspot, but not Band 41 (TDD-LTE) related, is that it is a RF beast.  The Netgear MiFI tends to best my Note 2 on Band 25 LTE signals by 6-10dBm.  That's a lot.  In Castle Rock, Colorado with a 10dBm difference, my Note 2 would do 11Mbps on its own, but connected to the hotspot it would do 20Mbps.  Huge difference in speed with 10dBm.  Also, my CDMA RSSI is roughly 4-8dBm better too.

Robert

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I even talked with store manager and threw around the S4GRU name.

Well, If that don't light a fire under their ass, nothin' will! ;)

 

I imagine the conversation went a little something like this...

 

 

:P

 

AJ

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Awesome info... This is exciting news!  Thanks, Robert!  

 

Edit: I think Sprint owe's you (another) Thank You, as you probably just added another Netgear TriBand LTE Hotspot to their sales tally. :)  

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Here is some points today of my Denver Band 41 TD-LTE testing.

  • Netgear TriBand LTE Hotspot is awesome.  Love the color touch screen display.  Easy to use.  And in Network Settings, it will tell you which LTE Band you are using.  Around Denver I used Band 41 (2600) in most places, and occasionally Band 25 (1900).
  • Denver TD-LTE 2600 seemed to me to be on every WiMax site I encountered.  It just very well may be a full market deployment.
  • I rarely lost LTE 2600 signal, unless I went into a tunnel, under a long overpass, went into a significant depression or behind a hill.  On the wide open Denver freeways and boulevards, I kept a steady Band 41 LTE signal with smooth handoffs.  Way smoother than WiMax.
  • I bounced around between -130dBm RSRP and -55dBm RSRP all over the Denver Metro area.  Zero to six bars.  This MiFi will hold on to some very weak signals.  I don't know if triband smartphones will be able to do the same.  However -120dBm signals were usable most of the time with 2-6Mbps speeds.  Even at -130 RSRP I was able to get 1-2Mbps download.  I kept the device in LTE Only mode, and it may not do so well in mixed LTE/CDMA mode.
  • I tried to get Band 41 LTE to hand off to Band 25 LTE.  Over in East Aurora near DIA, it looked like my best shot.  However, there was about a 1/2 mile between where Band 41 ended and Band 25 started.  So no luck there.
  • Maximum speed test hit was 40Mbps in all my testing.  Maximum upload hit was almost 25Mbps.  Lowest ping time was 100ms.  But remember that this was from a hotspot, so some ping is lost there.  When I could test on Band 25, my hotspot was adding between 75-150ms to pings over what my Note 2 was doing from the same site/sector.
  • It seems in the current Denver deployment, LTE 2600 download speeds seemed limited on Clearwire's existing backhaul that is being shared with WiMax.  For instance, I had a WiMax Galaxy S2 that I was using side by side with my TD-LTE hotspot.  When I hit 40Mbps DL on TD-LTE, I was hitting 14-16Mbps DL on WiMax (although I cannot guarantee I was on the same site).  However, when I would hit 8Mbps DL on TD-LTE with a full signal, I would also only hit about 6-8Mbps DL on WiMax.  So with this, I concluded that Clearwire is sharing their LTE and WiMax on the same backhaul.  So if the LTE/WiMax 2600 site has more backhaul speed available than the WiMax airlink could support, then the LTE would be much faster than WiMax, up to whatever speed the backhaul was currently running.  If the backhaul was burdened to a speed lower than the WiMax airlink, then the LTE and WiMax 2600 were the same speed roughly.
  • Upload speeds.  Upload speeds were good to great.  I averaged 8-10Mbps upload speeds.  Sometimes hitting into the 20's.  At sites where speeds were below 7-8Mbps, the upload was averaging higher.  WiMax upload was limited to 1.5Mbps, but Clearwire TDD LTE is much higher.  This leads me to conclude that these are indeed 20MHz channels.  I don't think we would see 20Mbps+ upload speeds on Time Division with only 10MHz channels.
  • My conclusion after 8 hours of testing is that I believe these to be 20MHz TDD channels.  With the very high upload speeds, I'm left with no other conclusions.  With a full signal, I encountered between 6Mbps - 40Mbps download speeds, and 6Mbps - 25Mbps upload speeds.  Even though a 10MHz TDD channel could hit 40Mbps DL speeds in ideal situations, I don't think it could then also deliver 20Mbps+ speeds too on it.  A 10MHz TDD channel would likely have around a 10Mbps upload speed, or even possibly less.  I think that the 40/20 could be even higher with better backhaul delivered to these sites.
  • Indoor usability on Band 41 stinks.  No suprise, though.  I would lose between 15-25dBm going indoors.  If I had worse than -100dBm outside, I likely wasn't going to get inside reception at all.  Since LTE 2600/Band 41 is supposed to be overlaid always with 1900 and 800, this will not be a problem at build out.  And I had better reception and speeds than WiMax.  But you will not be fond of LTE 2600 indoor usage.
  • Another point about the hotspot, but not Band 41 (TDD-LTE) related, is that it is a RF beast.  The Netgear MiFI tends to best my Note 2 on Band 25 LTE signals by 6-10dBm.  That's a lot.  In Castle Rock, Colorado with a 10dBm difference, my Note 2 would do 11Mbps on its own, but connected to the hotspot it would do 20Mbps.  Huge difference in speed with 10dBm.  Also, my CDMA RSSI is roughly 4-8dBm better too.

Robert

 

Now you should fly out to LA to test out the Band 41 to Band 25 LTE handoff test!!  :P  I would be curious to how extensive they have 2.5 TD-LTE in LA.  

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Awesome info... This is exciting news!  Thanks, Robert!  

 

Edit: I think Sprint owe's you (another) Thank You, as you probably just added another Netgear TriBand LTE Hotspot to their sales tally. :)  

He just sold me on 5 for my company

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Here is some points today of my Denver Band 41 TD-LTE testing.

  • Netgear TriBand LTE Hotspot is awesome. Love the color touch screen display. Easy to use. And in Network Settings, it will tell you which LTE Band you are using. Around Denver I used Band 41 (2600) in most places, and occasionally Band 25 (1900).
  • Denver TD-LTE 2600 seemed to me to be on every WiMax site I encountered. It just very well may be a full market deployment.
  • I rarely lost LTE 2600 signal, unless I went into a tunnel, under a long overpass, went into a significant depression or behind a hill. On the wide open Denver freeways and boulevards, I kept a steady Band 41 LTE signal with smooth handoffs. Way smoother than WiMax.
  • I bounced around between -130dBm RSRP and -55dBm RSRP all over the Denver Metro area. Zero to six bars. This MiFi will hold on to some very weak signals. I don't know if triband smartphones will be able to do the same. However -120dBm signals were usable most of the time with 2-6Mbps speeds. Even at -130 RSRP I was able to get 1-2Mbps download. I kept the device in LTE Only mode, and it may not do so well in mixed LTE/CDMA mode.
  • I tried to get Band 41 LTE to hand off to Band 25 LTE. Over in East Aurora near DIA, it looked like my best shot. However, there was about a 1/2 mile between where Band 41 ended and Band 25 started. So no luck there.
  • Maximum speed test hit was 40Mbps in all my testing. Maximum upload hit was almost 25Mbps. Lowest ping time was 100ms. But remember that this was from a hotspot, so some ping is lost there. When I could test on Band 25, my hotspot was adding between 75-150ms to pings over what my Note 2 was doing from the same site/sector.
  • It seems in the current Denver deployment, LTE 2600 download speeds seemed limited on Clearwire's existing backhaul that is being shared with WiMax. For instance, I had a WiMax Galaxy S2 that I was using side by side with my TD-LTE hotspot. When I hit 40Mbps DL on TD-LTE, I was hitting 14-16Mbps DL on WiMax (although I cannot guarantee I was on the same site). However, when I would hit 8Mbps DL on TD-LTE with a full signal, I would also only hit about 6-8Mbps DL on WiMax. So with this, I concluded that Clearwire is sharing their LTE and WiMax on the same backhaul. So if the LTE/WiMax 2600 site has more backhaul speed available than the WiMax airlink could support, then the LTE would be much faster than WiMax, up to whatever speed the backhaul was currently running. If the backhaul was burdened to a speed lower than the WiMax airlink, then the LTE and WiMax 2600 were the same speed roughly.
  • Upload speeds. Upload speeds were good to great. I averaged 8-10Mbps upload speeds. Sometimes hitting into the 20's. At sites where speeds were below 7-8Mbps, the upload was averaging higher. WiMax upload was limited to 1.5Mbps, but Clearwire TDD LTE is much higher. This leads me to conclude that these are indeed 20MHz channels. I don't think we would see 20Mbps+ upload speeds on Time Division with only 10MHz channels.
  • My conclusion after 8 hours of testing is that I believe these to be 20MHz TDD channels. With the very high upload speeds, I'm left with no other conclusions. With a full signal, I encountered between 6Mbps - 40Mbps download speeds, and 6Mbps - 25Mbps upload speeds. Even though a 10MHz TDD channel could hit 40Mbps DL speeds in ideal situations, I don't think it could then also deliver 20Mbps+ speeds too on it. A 10MHz TDD channel would likely have around a 10Mbps upload speed, or even possibly less. I think that the 40/20 could be even higher with better backhaul delivered to these sites.
  • Indoor usability on Band 41 stinks. No suprise, though. I would lose between 15-25dBm going indoors. If I had worse than -100dBm outside, I likely wasn't going to get inside reception at all. Since LTE 2600/Band 41 is supposed to be overlaid always with 1900 and 800, this will not be a problem at build out. And I had better reception and speeds than WiMax. But you will not be fond of LTE 2600 indoor usage.
  • Another point about the hotspot, but not Band 41 (TDD-LTE) related, is that it is a RF beast. The Netgear MiFI tends to best my Note 2 on Band 25 LTE signals by 6-10dBm. That's a lot. In Castle Rock, Colorado with a 10dBm difference, my Note 2 would do 11Mbps on its own, but connected to the hotspot it would do 20Mbps. Huge difference in speed with 10dBm. Also, my CDMA RSSI is roughly 4-8dBm better too.
Robert

Excellent info Robert!!! I speak for everybody here when I say thank you for taking your time (and money) to test Band 41 2.6ghz TD-LTE!!

 

This is very exciting for me and really solidifies my decision to stay with Sprint! This time next year, Sprint may just have one of the most impressive networks out there!

 

Sprint owes you big-time, mate.

 

 

Sent from my Sprint iPhone 5, not the old one (using Tapatalk 2).

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I might try to pick up one of these Tri-Band hotspots. I know of a cell site near my home in NYC that was WiMax. It regularly gave me 16Mbps, probably had fiber or some type of AAV backhaul. I don't know if it got converted or not because I always assumed it was a T-Mobile site until I saw the Clearwire coverage map.

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