Softbank - New Sprint - Discussion

[digiblur]

And look how fast Samsung has done even a larger scope of work in each market in the 4th rounders. Although I think you may have highlighted an Ericsson problem.

 

Many would call it a Sprint problem for not cracking the whip. Fire them, I am sure Samsung would gladly send in their crews to clean up the mess Ericsson has made.

[Fraydog]

Many would call it a Sprint problem for not cracking the whip. Fire them, I am sure Samsung would gladly send in their crews to clean up the mess Ericsson has made.

I fully agree with digiblur here but I'll add, behind closed doors, that I'd love to know what Bob Azzi is doing when he meets with the head of Ericsson. If I didn't know what I knew about the deployment I'd be calling for his scalp. I can get why outsiders who don't know of the existence of S4GRU could want him to be run. Even still if Sprint loses too many customers at the onslaught of TMobile that he could be a scapegoat for those higher up on the food chain.

[Nickel]

I fully agree with digiblur here but I'll add, behind closed doors, that I'd love to know what Bob Azzi is doing when he meets with the head of Ericsson. If I didn't know what I knew about the deployment I'd be calling for his scalp. I can get why outsiders who don't know of the existence of S4GRU could want him to be run. Even still if Sprint loses too many customers at the onslaught of TMobile that he could be a scapegoat for those higher up on the food chain.

Was he around when Sprint made the original Ericsson deal?

[Rawvega]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/will-the-wireless-industry-continue-to-change-awKvce5vSleqgP4b4gmAOw.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Interesting Bloomberg interview with Denny Strigl, former Verizon CEO. Typical CEO sounding guy, but he touched on some good points regardless. Naturally, he spoke on the wireless industry from the business rather than technical aspect. He also spoke on a potential SoftBank/Sprint and T-Mobile merger. For one he says that AT&T should've been allowed to buy T-Mobile and similarly that SoftBank/Sprint should also be allowed to acquire T-Mobile. They hosts tried to goad him into saying something about John Legere, but he wouldn't take the bait for the most part. Worth a look if one has 11 minutes or so to kill.

 

Among other things: 

 

Going back to the history of the industry we have seen plenty of very active growth periods that come with essentially stealing customers or lowering prices to the point where they're not profitable...When you want to sell your company, the way to do is to pile customers on and let the next guy make money.

 

 

The cutting prices is not a long term strategy. That is a short term strategy. You can't do that forever in this industry and still build the infrastructure that you need. So something at T-Mobile is currently being shortchanged while they go to the expense of adding customers at the rate that they're adding them.

 

This potential merger is seeming more and more like a horrible idea, and NOT because of any technological or integration issues. They'd do well to spend their money elsewhere for the time being and let T-Mobile see if they can continue doing what they're doing over the long-term.

[utiz4321]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/will-the-wireless-industry-continue-to-change-awKvce5vSleqgP4b4gmAOw.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Interesting Bloomberg interview with Denny Strigl, former Verizon CEO. Typical CEO sounding guy, but he touched on some good points regardless. Naturally, he spoke on the wireless industry from the business rather than technical aspect. He also spoke on a potential SoftBank/Sprint and T-Mobile merger. For one he says that AT&T should've been allowed to buy T-Mobile and similarly that SoftBank/Sprint should also be allowed to acquire T-Mobile. They hosts tried to goad him into saying something about John Legere, but he wouldn't take the bait for the most part. Worth a look if one has 11 minutes or so to kill.

 

Among other things:

 

 

 

 

This potential merger is seeming more and more like a horrible idea, and NOT because of any technological or integration issues. They'd do well to spend their money elsewhere for the time being and let T-Mobile see if they can continue doing what they're doing over the long-term.

Of course Verizon wants tmobile to merge with some one. The fewer players the more market power for the firms and the more they can extract from consumers. The fact that vzw wants more consolidation even when they are not involved should tell everyone something, namely it's good for the firms bad for consumers. It is interest that the host admitted that the US has fewer players that most other countries.

[utiz4321]

I think he is saying that LTE on 2600 will be usable everywhere that LTE on 1900 is. In an equal deployment scenario, 1900 reaches only 30% farther than 2600. So with densification, it is easy to see how on just that alone 2600 will be similar to 1900.

 

However, there is a way to increase the signal propagation. Beamforming. Clearwire and Sprint have rejected beamforming in the past. But it's possible they are rethinking it. Beamforming is expensive, though. I'll explain why.

 

Beamforming is where you deploy several narrow-beam panels/sectors instead of the standard three standard beam panels. If you deployed (9) 33-degree narrow beam panels, you could extend the reach of 2600 significantly. Deploying three separately aimed panels per sector, creating a 9 sector site. This would probably reach even further than 1900. This also increases capacity by an exponential amount!

 

However, there are some drawbacks. Number one is cost. All those additional radios/panels/carrier cards and the associated increase in power consumption and lease costs is a huge multiplier. Huge. In the past, no one has bought into beamforming because there did not seem to be a cost/benefit pay off for doing it.

 

The second big issue is...the uplink. The site beamforms a signal out past a devices ability to use the same spectrum channel to send back. So you will have devices that are capable of receiving the beamformed signal, but not send it back.

 

The solution I have always heard to beamforming uplink problem is by having another Band carry back the uplink. Like Band 25 or 26. But we do not have devices or networks capable yet of downlinking on one band and uplinking on another. And it may be problematic to downlink TDD and uplink FDD. At a minimum it would just complicate things.

 

Robert

If you havent already and have the time there is a webcast of Dan Hesse speaking at a UBS event in December last year (which can be accessed on sprints investor relations page) where he states sprint is seeing td 2.6 having similar propagation characteristics as FD 1900. From the context it didn't seem he was talking about in a densified network just flat out they where similar. He did go into much detail though.

 

Also a few earnings calls back someone had mentioned that SoftBank was seeing better propagation characteristics than expected on their 2.6 and asked Hesse to comment but he didn't really. I don't think SoftBank uses beamforming but this peak my interest. Anyway if you have it is an interesting conversation to listen to and may let me know what you think he is talking about.

[Nickel]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/will-the-wireless-industry-continue-to-change-awKvce5vSleqgP4b4gmAOw.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Interesting Bloomberg interview with Denny Strigl, former Verizon CEO. Typical CEO sounding guy, but he touched on some good points regardless. Naturally, he spoke on the wireless industry from the business rather than technical aspect. He also spoke on a potential SoftBank/Sprint and T-Mobile merger. For one he says that AT&T should've been allowed to buy T-Mobile and similarly that SoftBank/Sprint should also be allowed to acquire T-Mobile. They hosts tried to goad him into saying something about John Legere, but he wouldn't take the bait for the most part. Worth a look if one has 11 minutes or so to kill.

 

Among other things: 

 

 

 

 

This potential merger is seeming more and more like a horrible idea, and NOT because of any technological or integration issues. They'd do well to spend their money elsewhere for the time being and let T-Mobile see if they can continue doing what they're doing over the long-term.

How did that lady make it to TV? She had solid arguments and she was tripping over herself trying to make them. Also, seems like she caught magentaitis.

[Nickel]

If you havent already and have the time there is a webcast of Dan Hesse speaking at a UBS event in December last year (which can be accessed on sprints investor relations page) where he states sprint is seeing td 2.6 having similar propagation characteristics as FD 1900. From the context it didn't seem he was talking about in a densified network just flat out they where similar. He did go into much detail though.

 

Also a few earnings calls back someone had mentioned that SoftBank was seeing better propagation characteristics than expected on their 2.6 and asked Hesse to comment but he didn't really. I don't think SoftBank uses beamforming but this peak my interest. Anyway if you have it is an interesting conversation to listen to and may let me know what you think he is talking about.

You do realize that Hesse, while a smart guy for sure, doesn't have a technical background, right? At least as far as I know, I could be wrong about that.

[utiz4321]

You do realize that Hesse, while a smart guy for sure, doesn't have a technical background, right? At least as far as I know, I could be wrong about that.

Yeah but he knows quite a bit and is smart enough not to claim that they are going to see better coverage than they are (at least i hope so). So i listen to a webcast hosted by citi (a little more recent) and he said something about 8t8r allows for better link budgets and thus for better propagation charecteristics. But i not super technical and dont kniw why that would be. Something to research but if any one thinks they could explain i would be glad of it.

[Nickel]

Yeah but he knows quite a bit and is smart enough not to claim that they are going to see better coverage than they are (at least i hope so). So i listen to a webcast hosted by citi (a little more recent) and he said something about 8t8r allows for better link budgets and thus for better propagation charecteristics. But i not super technical and dont kniw why that would be. Something to research but if any one thinks they could explain i would be glad of it.

The biggest problem with 8x8 MIMO (i'm assuming that's what you're talking about) is that it would extremely tough to get that into a cell phone.

[utiz4321]

The biggest problem with 8x8 MIMO (i'm assuming that's what you're talking about) is that it would extremely tough to get that into a cell phone.

I think he was talking about the base station being 8t8r (8 transmit and 8 receive, antennas) and in any case that is what they are deploying for 2.6. If it was useless to handsets because of size constrants it weird that they would deploy it and claim it would give then better propagatiib.

[Nickel]

I think he was talking about the base station being 8t8r (8 transmit and 8 receive, antennas) and in any case that is what they are deploying for 2.6. If it was useless to handsets because of size constrants it weird that they would deploy it and claim it would give then better propagatiib.

There's more to wireless devices than just handsets   

[JosefTor]

I rounded up a couple articles I found enlightening:

 

 

http://www.telecompetitor.com/cutting-edge-wireless-technology-underlies-50-60-mbps-sprint-spark

 

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/techzine/8t8r-radio-modules-transform-lte-tdd-deployments

 

[Destroyallcubes]

The talk of how The FCC and DOJ giving the stink eye to Sprint for the talks of a merger, I wonder how the story would be if T-mobile was trying to buy out sprint? Do you think The FCC/DOJ would change their thoughts? I am thinking that if Sprint bought the smaller regional carriers, put Ericsson in their place, Maybe things would change in a more positive way. But I know for sprint to get some of these areas back, such as HAWAII and the NOLA markets, They need to show change, show things work when people need them to , and give them incentive to be with them. Softbank Needs to get aggressive once NV1 is over. Once they can provide stable service , without a network scapegoat of Upgrades and such, then I think People will actually see why the wait was worth it. 

[utiz4321]

I rounded up a couple articles I found enlightening:

 

 

http://www.telecompetitor.com/cutting-edge-wireless-technology-underlies-50-60-mbps-sprint-spark

 

http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/techzine/8t8r-radio-modules-transform-lte-tdd-deployments

This was very helpful. Then I guess sprint is deploying beam forming on 2.6. That is if I am interpreting everything correctly. Thanks.

[Rawvega]

Of course Verizon wants tmobile to merge with some one. The fewer players the more market power for the firms and the more they can extract from consumers. The fact that vzw wants more consolidation even when they are not involved should tell everyone something, namely it's good for the firms bad for consumers. 

 

Perhaps Verizon is in favor of the merger, however Strigl doesn't officially speak for them. He's their former CEO as of the end of 2009.

[Nickel]

Perhaps Verizon is in favor of the merger, however Strigl doesn't officially speak for them. He's their former CEO as of the end of 2009.

Actually, he retired as COO and President in 2009.

[Rawvega]

Actually, he retired as COO and President in 2009.

 

Eh, ok fine. CEO, COO...

 

[The Dave]

Newer technology.

Wimax gear vs LDD-LTE much different.

Laser Division Duplex LTE? I've been wondering why Sprint's new 4G core has been drawing so much scrutiny from NSA, EPA and NATO.

 

SoftBank isn't playing around with their plans for world domination through Sprint Network Vision.

 

 

The only downside is the odd effect that it has to local wildlife...

 

 

I would hate to be Verizon or AT&T right now.

[Paynefanbro]

If you havent already and have the time there is a webcast of Dan Hesse speaking at a UBS event in December last year (which can be accessed on sprints investor relations page) where he states sprint is seeing td 2.6 having similar propagation characteristics as FD 1900. From the context it didn't seem he was talking about in a densified network just flat out they where similar. He did go into much detail though.

 

Also a few earnings calls back someone had mentioned that SoftBank was seeing better propagation characteristics than expected on their 2.6 and asked Hesse to comment but he didn't really. I don't think SoftBank uses beamforming but this peak my interest. Anyway if you have it is an interesting conversation to listen to and may let me know what you think he is talking about.

In areas like NYC where Band 41 deployment is very dense already, people find themselves on Band 41 more often than not. When they enter their home, their phone stays on 1 bar of Band 41 but they still 20Mbps down which is insane.

[Boosted20V]

In areas like NYC where Band 41 deployment is very dense already, people find themselves on Band 41 more often than not. When they enter their home, their phone stays on 1 bar of Band 41 but they still 20Mbps down which is insane

is insane.

 

Insane IS insane! But seriously, I think many will be pleasantly surprised with how far along B41 is as more tri-band devices get sold/enabled.

[Fraydog]

Was he around when Sprint made the original Ericsson deal?

I believe so.

 

http://www.ericsson.com/article/120302_sprint_managed_services_1595655398_c

[Nickel]

Eh, ok fine. CEO, COO...

He is a former Verizon CEO too though.

[transitwatch889]

In areas like NYC where Band 41 deployment is very dense already, people find themselves on Band 41 more often than not. When they enter their home, their phone stays on 1 bar of Band 41 but they still 20Mbps down which is insane.

I wish that were true... But uptown is not great a lot of sites have been in work in progress so not fully operational for months now... early December to present... due to schedule and weather I don't see that being a rectified till spring.... I don't get any lte in my neighborhood on my tri band phone... it's just not picking up the tower... single band phones are fine though.... But reading in another thread the potential of what could be is what keeps me calm...

[Nickel]

That's a lot of ellipses.