Verizon turns up the heat with 40mhz AWS Spectrum now live in a few major cities

[Fraydog]

 

 

Since I have to have VZW as I'm in Sprint no-go native land, I did check for Verizon AWS 20x20 in Atlanta and found it all over the place on Thanksgiving.

 

[Deval]

That's really slick of them. Get the sites on air silently, and customers will not know the difference other than faster data throughput. 

[shannonbrian]

will cat 4 phone perform any better . note 2 vers note 3 speeds be the same on speed test ?

[Mobilesolutions]

will cat 4 phone perform any better . note 2 vers note 3 speeds be the same on speed test ?

 

Where backhaul is sufficient you could see up to 120 on a 20x20 sector with a Cat 4 device.

[shannonbrian]

i wondering on sprint 1900 device like with cat 3 verscat 4 speeds 

[Nickel]

i wondering on sprint 1900 device like with cat 3 verscat 4 speeds 

No, the category doesn't matter on band 25 but the improved modem in 8974 will help.

[shannonbrian]

That's what I thought

[MasterTruth]

Man, I can only dream about speeds like that on Sprint!. Even more than 5 mbps down would be awesome honestly!

 

 

Which phones support this new band? Does a verizon 5S support it?

[milan03]

Man, I can only dream about speeds like that on Sprint!. Even more than 5 mbps down would be awesome honestly!

 

 

Which phones support this new band? Does a verizon 5S support it?

LG G2, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4, Moto X, iPhone 5s/c, etc.

Only the first two devices are Category 4, capable of 150Mbps on the downlink.

[Destroyallcubes]

Man, I can only dream about speeds like that on Sprint!. Even more than 5 mbps down would be awesome honestly!

 

 

Which phones support this new band? Does a verizon 5S support it?

Well in another post you had, you  said 8-9 mbps speed test. You seem to be here for nothing productive. And what are you going to use 60mbps for on your mobile phone? 5mbps is fine. You just want something to replace your home internetwith most likely. I am actually glad I do not have 60mbps. It is just a show off to see who has the biggest number, just like Smartphone camera megapixel counts. Meaningless without out other features, and good equipment. 

[TheForce627]

This attitude of "this is all we need" is what got sprint into this situation in the first place. Instead of fiber backhaul like everybody else, t1 was all we need and now look at them, racing to upgrade backhaul all over the network. I say go for being the fastest and future proof the network and that's what sprint is doing.

[MasterTruth]

This attitude of "this is all we need" is what got sprint into this situation in the first place. Instead of fiber backhaul like everybody else, t1 was all we need and now look at them, racing to upgrade backhaul all over the network. I say go for being the fastest and future proof the network and that's what sprint is doing.

I agree. all I'm hearing is excuses. Sprint deserves the best.

Edited December 30, 2013 by MasterTruth

[NYC126]

I got the GS4 on Verizon here in new york city, and I have seen the AWS on action in small parts of midtown Manhattan only. I have not seen those ridiculous speeds in uptown or other boroughs yet.

[The Dave]

I agree. all I'm hearing is excuses. Sprint deserves the best.

Sprint has upgraded nearly 32,000 towers thus far from the ground up in about 2 years. This is despite the fact that there are different laws and hurdles between States, counties and towns. This is despite the fact that Sprint has to rely on the schedules of vendors, manufacturers and providers. This is despite blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes and the nesting habits of birds. This is despite the massive financial and technical undertaking involved. This is despite running two networks side by side and maintaining serviceability to millions of customers while installing, testing and optimizing equipment. I don't see many excuses. I see a company working every day to push forward despite how big of a project this is. I see my town go from slow speeds and no data in places to LTE even deep inside a metal building and speeds just kissing 40 Mbps on a still incomplete network. I see results. I see new pins on the NV complete map every couple of days.

 

If you don't feel satisfied with Sprint's commitment to you, then you need to look at your options and decide if you feel Verizon or AT&T are more focused on delivering a better experience for you. If all you can do is complain then all I see from you is excuses.

 

Now back on topic..

[S4GRU]

If you don't feel satisfied with Sprint's commitment to you, then you need to look at your options and decide if you feel Verizon or AT&T are more focused on delivering a better experience for you. If all you can so is complain then all I see from you is excuses.

Now back on topic..

He already is an AT&T customer. He was accessing the forums from AT&T Mobility IP addresses. He is a troll. And he didn't respond to my warning, except to criticize it. So he has been banned.

 

Robert

[Destroyallcubes]

This attitude of "this is all we need" is what got sprint into this situation in the first place. Instead of fiber backhaul like everybody else, t1 was all we need and now look at them, racing to upgrade backhaul all over the network. I say go for being the fastest and future proof the network and that's what sprint is doing.

But why do you need to be the fastest? There is a point speed is irrelevant.  Higher speeds will give people a higher chance of them using it as their home Internet source. Which in turn kills the network and ends unlimited data. 

[milan03]

I got the GS4 on Verizon here in new york city, and I have seen the AWS on action in small parts of midtown Manhattan only. I have not seen those ridiculous speeds in uptown or other boroughs yet.

I have Verizon variants of Note 3 and iPhone 5s, and AWS is available literally everywhere in Manhattan. As soon as you walk outside your AWS capable UE will connect to AWS since Verizon is heavily steering LTE traffic to AWS to offload Band 13 using every known technique.

In indoor environment you'll most likely going to be sitting at Band 13. 

 

In addition to that, Verizon seems to be the only operator here in NYC using Closed Loop Spatial Multiplexing (Transmission Mode 4) which further enhances peak throughput, while AT&T and T-Mobile use TM3. Not sure about Sprint, Note 3 users should be able to see this in ServiceMode. They all fall back to TM2 for robustness, except underground on NYC Subway platforms, where city is clearly trying to save money and has Transit Wireless install DAS that operates in SISO only mode with TM1 which effectively halves the throughput...

[NYC126]

I have Verizon variants of Note 3 and iPhone 5s, and AWS is available literally everywhere in Manhattan. As soon as you walk outside your AWS capable UE will connect to AWS since Verizon is heavily steering LTE traffic to AWS to offload Band 13 using every known technique.

In indoor environment you'll most likely going to be sitting at Band 13. 

 

In addition to that, Verizon seems to be the only operator here in NYC using Closed Loop Spatial Multiplexing (Transmission Mode 4) which further enhances peak throughput, while AT&T and T-Mobile use TM3. Not sure about Sprint, Note 3 users should be able to see this in ServiceMode. They all fall back to TM2 for robustness, except underground on NYC Subway platforms, where city is clearly trying to save money and has Transit Wireless install DAS that operates in SISO only mode with TM1 which effectively halves the throughput...

Perhaps I am connected to the AWS band since I get over 30 megabits down everywhere, but I have seen the 70 and 80 megabits down 8nly in Midtown Manhattan. Now how do you get to the engineering screen 5o see which band you are connected to?

[milan03]

Perhaps I am connected to the AWS band since I get over 30 megabits down everywhere, but I have seen the 70 and 80 megabits down 8nly in Midtown Manhattan. Now how do you get to the engineering screen 5o see which band you are connected to?

Need to root, then follow this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2303905

[S4GRU]

At my office, my VZW LTE 750 speeds on my hotspot had dropped to less than 1Mbps most of the day for the past 6-8 weeks. I was going bonkers. And AT&T WCDMA was running 200k - 1Mbps. I'm on a heavily used sector, including a large middle school, high school and most of Ellsworth Air Force Base with 10,000 airmen and about 15,000 contractors.

 

Suddenly, my VZW speeds shot up to 20-30Mbps last week. Since my hotspot is AWS capable, I assumed that maybe VZW fired up some Band 4 LTE on my local site. I figured the reason it was only 20-30 was because either my market was limited to 10MHz channels, or the backhaul couldn't handle speeds faster than that with the current load.

 

Finally, yesterday I drove by the site. There is no AWS deployed. What they did was add a narrow beam LTE 750 panel in between the two busiest sectors. Essentially making a four sector site. Whoa! It looks like they also re-aimed the other panels slightly away from the new sector.

 

This is a great idea for sites that have one heavily burdened sector and not ready (or able) to deploy another band. Part of me wonders if VZW only addressed this problem because of the military, or if this is something they employ commonly when needed. There are other places in Rapid City that could use this as well. We'll see if it only occurs at the Ellsworth site.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[The Dave]

It sounds like Verizon's solution to everything is to just bolt on a new attachment to their existing equipment and let things ride out. It makes things easier and faster, for sure. Just sounds like a duct tape kind of a solution.

[Vette]

Their strategy seems to work though. They will keep the 3g equipment (1x included) live until they can go all LTE/VoLTE, then pull that equipment off. All the while the network works seamlessly and usually has decent speed unless overburdened (which is quite common these days). I like their service, it's just their business practices that tick me off. If you ever want to get angry, listen to an investor conference call of Verizon; plus, who do you think is going to pay for the $120 Billion purchase from Vodafone?

[S4GRU]

It sounds like Verizon's solution to everything is to just bolt on a new attachment to their existing equipment and let things ride out. It makes things easier and faster, for sure. Just sounds like a duct tape kind of a solution.

I wouldn't call it a duct tape solution. Let's say this site wasn't going to get Band 4 for another 18 months. Should VZW let their LTE 750 deteriorate even further than 1Mbps? Or should they institute an effective stop gap until then? Especially when the site's traffic is 75% on one sector. Splitting that sector further makes a lot of sense. It's not a cheap solution and highly effective.

 

Sprint in the past would have done nothing in the same scenario. I'm hopeful the New Sprint with the new network would employ any means in its arsenal to keep performance at acceptable levels.

 

What remains to be seen is if this is VZW just taking care of a really large customer, or if they will employ this everywhere that is suffering from performance problems on 750 with no AWS deployment imminent.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Terrell352]

Plenty of reasons. 1. Competition how would it look if in the future Sprint just said we will only provide 4-5 mbps down of unlimited while att, verizon and tmobile all where at 40-60 on average. Even prepaid carriers are pushing 8-15 mbps. Thats like the samsung or apple saying why do we need to innovate and is not how humans are. 2. Capacity so if Sprint was just 5mbps it would slow down to nothing in no time. 3. Price. If I can get 60mbps on tmobile or 10-15 on prepaid and pay less than sprint then why would I want to stay. Also we are the minority on knowing how to root and get unlimited hotspot access. I have yet meet anyone in my city to use that method. Im sure someone knows how but they are the minority. Sprint needs to be faster to survive and thats the bottom line.

But why do you need to be the fastest? There is a point speed is irrelevant. Higher speeds will give people a higher chance of them using it as their home Internet source. Which in turn kills the network and ends unlimited data.

[S4GRU]

Sprint needs to be faster to survive and thats the bottom line.

Sprint doesn't need to be the fastest. They just need to be competitive. Which is probably what you mean. Their Band 41 overlay will make the competitive or better. Band 26 will make the competitive or better. Good solid steps toward the future.

 

Band 25 alone is not enough. Which I think we all agree with.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro