Wireless Week article on Triband device decision making

[ceopwong]

Good article on network buildout, MiFi device selection, decision on device manufacturing, and good general info from an official Sprint PR person.  Read on: 

 

http://www.wirelessweek.com/articles/2013/06/sprint%E2%80%99s-tri-band-lte-could-be-valuable-differentiator

 

PW

[4ginnc]

I know it's been talked about some around here, when does Sprint decide to launch a market and this confirms it:

 

 

She added that Sprint sets a threshold of 40 percent POPs per city before it will officially announce that city as an LTE market.

 

 

And also the mention of availability of tri-band phones which I missed in the hotspot press release:

 

 Oh, and Sprint will be selling Samsung and LG smartphones that run on tri-band LTE by the end of the year.

“I probably shouldn’t have put that at the very bottom of the release,” said Mermelstein, admitting she may have buried the lead a little bit.

[WeRtechSupport]

I know it's been talked about some around here, when does Sprint decide to launch a market and this confirms it:

 

 

 

And also the mention of availability of tri-band phones which I missed in the hotspot press release:

 

 

 

That threshold info is a good find, thanks!

[TyrellCorpse]

So how complicated will this get with 600Mhz auction if Sprint goes for it.  Will they offer quadband or some triband with say 800/1900/2500 and others with 600/1900/2500.  Or if Sprint gets a lot of 600, maybe some spectrum swapping takes place between carriers?  Is quadband more realistic long term?

 

Hope to see a higher end Sammy SG4 or SG5 by end of this year with tri-band and not something mid-range.  If LG does a high end and Sammy doesn't, it could be LG's break like what the first EVO did for HTC.

Edited June 24, 2013 by TyrellCorpse

[TyrellCorpse]

That threshold info is a good find, thanks!

 

Sprint would be better off not officially announcing LTE cities until mostly complete.  Would be better for users to be surprised to see LTE with lower expectations than to have high expectations when announced and find only 40% of market has it.  Maybe Sprint should just announce 'LTE rollout has hit 40% of market and growing weekly' when at 40% or something that delivers more than what is announced.

[IamMrFamous07]

So how complicated will this get with 600Mhz auction if Sprint goes for it. Will they offer quadband or some triband with say 800/1900/2500 and others with 600/1900/2500. Or if Sprint gets a lot of 600, maybe some spectrum swapping takes place between carriers? Is quadband more realistic long term?

 

Hope to see a higher end Sammy SG4 or SG5 by end of this year with tri-band and not something mid-range. If LG does a high end and Sammy doesn't, it could be LG's break like what the first EVO did for HTC.

I would keep LTE on 600/1900/2500. And use 800 smr strictly for voice

[TyrellCorpse]

Wouldn't that still be a quad-band radio?

[IamMrFamous07]

Wouldn't that still be a quad-band radio?

Yes but for LTE purposes just the three

[ericdabbs]

Before we get ahead of ourselves and start talking about quad band LTE phones, we need to slow down because we don't know anything about the 600 MHz auction.  We don't know how much 600 MHz will be freed up since this is a reverse auction where the FCC is paying TV broadcasters to give up their 6 MHz blocks to be used for broadband use.  Depending on how many TV broadcasters take the money from the FCC we can only determine how much spectrum is out there. 

 

The 600 MHz band plan is still a work in progress and I do like the Tmobile plan for the different scenarios that are carved up depending on how much spectrum is available.  I do think the 600 MHz band should be using FDD technology rather than TD technology.  We won't be seeing 600 MHz for another several years until all this coordination and rebanding effort is complete.

[mc_gusto]

You would think a website named wirelessweek would have a mobile version of its website.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[peteyz24]

So how complicated will this get with 600Mhz auction if Sprint goes for it.  Will they offer quadband or some triband with say 800/1900/2500 and others with 600/1900/2500.  Or if Sprint gets a lot of 600, maybe some spectrum swapping takes place between carriers?  Is quadband more realistic long term?

 

Hope to see a higher end Sammy SG4 or SG5 by end of this year with tri-band and not something mid-range.  If LG does a high end and Sammy doesn't, it could be LG's break like what the first EVO did for HTC.

 

 

I believe a Tri band GS4 has been slated to release this fall.  Im sure we wont see a GS5 until next spring.

[jamesinclair]

Sprint would be better off not officially announcing LTE cities until mostly complete.  Would be better for users to be surprised to see LTE with lower expectations than to have high expectations when announced and find only 40% of market has it.  Maybe Sprint should just announce 'LTE rollout has hit 40% of market and growing weekly' when at 40% or something that delivers more than what is announced.

 

I agree that 40% still leaves too many gaps.

 

Should maybe wait until 60%.

 

Good news on the tri-band confirmation.

[S4GRU]

 

 

Sprint would be better off not officially announcing LTE cities until mostly complete. Would be better for users to be surprised to see LTE with lower expectations than to have high expectations when announced and find only 40% of market has it. Maybe Sprint should just announce 'LTE rollout has hit 40% of market and growing weekly' when at 40% or something that delivers more than what is announced.

 

 

 

I agree that 40% still leaves too many gaps.

 

Should maybe wait until 60%.

 

Good news on the tri-band confirmation.

I agree that 40% POPs is too low. However, I'm glad to know their methodology now.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[4ginnc]

I agree that 40% POPs is too low. However, I'm glad to know their methodology now.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

I'd also like to know their methodology for determining what cities/towns to announce.  They can't possibly announce every city in the U.S.  What size town would they even bother announcing?  Their last announcement include Dunn, NC which has a population just under 10,000 and previously they announced Lincolnton, NC which is just over 10,000.

[S4GRU]

I'd also like to know their methodology for determining what cities/towns to announce.  They can't possibly announce every city in the U.S.  What size town would they even bother announcing?  Their last announcement include Dunn, NC which has a population just under 10,000 and previously they announced Lincolnton, NC which is just over 10,000.

 

 

I think they said previously they are using MSA's.  Because this is what the competition was doing.

 

Robert

[4ginnc]

I think they said previously they are using MSA's.  Because this is what the competition was doing.

 

Robert

 

In this case they must bean a combination of both the Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

 

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

 

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

 

 

Raleigh is considered a Metropolitan Statistical Area and contains Dunn and Henderson which are Micropolitan areas.  Durham-Chapel Hill are a separate Metro area so they'd get announced together most likely.

 

Counting those together that's a total of 967 areas that could be announced.  Although Sprint won't cover all of those.  Makes a bit more sense now.  I need to look at those maps a little closer, interesting to see where/how areas have been split up.

[halcyoncmdr]

I think they said previously they are using MSA's.  Because this is what the competition was doing.

 

Robert

 

It's a mix. The standard Sprint markets wouldn't get people excited at all (only 99 to announce). However, going down to a city level, that leaves a lot of room for the marketing folks.