Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

[Fraydog]

A one sentence boast that Son has been saying since 2013 with nothing tangible to back it up?  Damn, being CEO is easy...

 

Doubters like beef, and yet the first sentence of the article says Softbank recorded a 49 percent plunge in profit from a year ago.  After shrugging off Sprint's losses with an empty quip, Son then pivots to boasting that he will also do awesome spending billions in India; and then also do awesome in Japanese electricity at the same time.  Son likely has a controlling ownership stake in Softbank.  Otherwise, a sane Board of Directors or common shareholders would have long ago fired him as CEO for having lost tens of billions of dollars in just a few years.

 

 

SoftBank isn't a bad run business, just look at the other businesses they hold. That said, I would like to see more active involvement from Mr. Son. He should be spending at least half his time in Overland Park at this time. One of the biggest mysteries of this entire process since 2013 is "why didn't SoftBank demand even deeper changes given that Sprint was broken when they bought it?" I wish I had a good answer for that, if I did I would be selling my services to Masa to fix it. 

 

I wanted to see VoLTE movement in 2016 but if CapEx is cut to 3 billion that makes me doubt that is part of the plan. If anything I'm of the philosophy that Sprint should power to an All-LTE network as fast as possible. Even if you count the 2.6 GHz trove, beyond that, Sprint has to be extremely efficient with their spectrum deployment. At the most they have 10 MHz of LTE in low band and 40 MHz in mid band. Yes, capital has to be deployed more efficiently, but I don't see 3 Bln cutting it even if deployment is efficient. I would be OK with 5 Bln but apparently SoftBank is tired of Sprint deploying capital inefficiently.  I can't say I blame them. 

 

In the end, I wonder if Son shouldn't embark on being more hands on and demanding a more drastic transformation of every aspect of this business. All options need to be on the board at this stage. 

[ase500]

We have routers support WiGig which is 60GHz, they're small. It's only time until laptops, then tablets, and finally phones support 802.11ad. When phones support 802.11ad, they can easily do 39GHz phone networks.

 

Edit: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2016/01/05/qualcomm-80211ad-products-lead-way-multi-band-wi-fi-ecosystem

There's already a laptop that can handle WiGig and smartphones are apparently in the pipeline for this year.

WiGig has been stalled for some time and hasn't shown much signs of life. WiGig is probably going to be used primary for near communications. I think the Wikipedia entry sums the problem up very well  "The 60 GHz signal cannot typically penetrate walls but can propagate off reflections from walls, ceilings, floors and objects using beamforming built into the WiGig system. When roaming away from the main room the protocol can switch to make use of the other lower bands at a much lower rate, both of which can propagate through walls." We are seeing it already with WiGig being used for Wireless USB and Wireless HDMI. I honestly don't see it becoming a main stream for networking. If you need 7 Gbps of transfer you probably are going to wire what ever it is. 

We have to start to get honest here, the average user can't tell the difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps. The talk of "5G" is just hype at this point and using 39 Ghz on mobile networks is such a pipe dream at this point it isn't even funny. And when you see someone say we are "Testing" in a lab that in no way means they have had any success with it. The reason for even releasing such information is purely marketing. The average user thinks "More GHZ must be better" so they play on that. 

[kg4icg]

WiGig has been stalled for some time and hasn't shown much signs of life. WiGig is probably going to be used primary for near communications. I think the Wikipedia entry sums the problem up very well "The 60 GHz signal cannot typically penetrate walls but can propagate off reflections from walls, ceilings, floors and objects using beamforming built into the WiGig system. When roaming away from the main room the protocol can switch to make use of the other lower bands at a much lower rate, both of which can propagate through walls." We are seeing it already with WiGig being used for Wireless USB and Wireless HDMI. I honestly don't see it becoming a main stream for networking. If you need 7 Gbps of transfer you probably are going to wire what ever it is.

We have to start to get honest here, the average user can't tell the difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps. The talk of "5G" is just hype at this point and using 39 Ghz on mobile networks is such a pipe dream at this point it isn't even funny. And when you see someone say we are "Testing" in a lab that in no way means they have had any success with it. The reason for even releasing such information is purely marketing. The average user thinks "More GHZ must be better" so they play on that.

Anything above 10ghz is going to have that problem really. To go thru walls and other material you will have to pump up the power which basically means frying anything and everything.

 

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[ase500]

Anything above 10ghz is going to have that problem really. To go thru walls and other material you will have to pump up the power which basically means frying anything and everything.

 

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Exactly the problem.

 

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[greenbastard]

 

I wanted to see VoLTE movement in 2016 but if CapEx is cut to 3 billion that makes me doubt that is part of the plan. If anything I'm of the philosophy that Sprint should power to an All-LTE network as fast as possible. Even if you count the 2.6 GHz trove, beyond that, Sprint has to be extremely efficient with their spectrum deployment. 

It would be awesome if Sprint rolled out VoLTE as an opt-in trial program in which some users can sign up and test out the network for them. It would be a quick way to collect data on network performance and network gaps. I'm sure VoLTE can be turned on and CDMA turned off and vice versa through a profile update just in case people decide to leave the program if its not working for them.

 

I'm mostly interested to see the limitations of LTE. I've had B41 stick to my phone as low as -130, yet SMS still worked perfectly (both inbound/outbound). I'm sure VoLTE can still work reliably way beyond the the usual cut off line of -117 RSRP Sprint has set for its LTE threshold before our phones go to 3G EVDO. I want to see at what point does VoLTE really start to fail if QoS is implemented.

[Fraydog]

It would be awesome if Sprint rolled out VoLTE as an opt-in trial program in which some users can sign up and test out the network for them. It would be a quick way to collect data on network performance and network gaps. I'm sure VoLTE can be turned on and CDMA turned off and vice versa through a profile update just in case people decide to leave the program if its not working for them.

 

I'm mostly interested to see the limitations of LTE. I've had B41 stick to my phone as low as -130, yet SMS still worked perfectly (both inbound/outbound). I'm sure VoLTE can still work reliably way beyond the the usual cut off line of -117 RSRP Sprint has set for its LTE threshold before our phones go to 3G EVDO. I want to see at what point does VoLTE really start to fail if QoS is implemented.

I'm not for it going online yet. Densify the network more first. I'm speaking more of long-term goals.

 

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[greenbastard]

Exactly the problem.

 

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Well, not a problem if you want to sterilize yourself.

[mozamcrew]

I'm seeing a lot of griping on here about how Sprint has slashed it's expected CapEx number all the way down to 3 Billion is a sign of collapse. Didn't anyone read the earnings report?? This was addressed in one of the questions. They said some of the taper from 2015 to 2016 is from the completion of network vision, and that this was expected since one of the selling points of NV was to reduce future capital and operating costs. But the biggest cause of the "reduction" was mostly that the bills from network densification are basically going to be a quarter or two later than planned, pushing some of them into the first part of 2017. So it's not that they are going to be reducing the amount of CapEx they were planning, it's just that money that was expected to be paid in late 2016 will be shifted partially into early 2017.

[RAvirani]

It would be awesome if Sprint rolled out VoLTE as an opt-in trial program in which some users can sign up and test out the network for them. It would be a quick way to collect data on network performance and network gaps. I'm sure VoLTE can be turned on and CDMA turned off and vice versa through a profile update just in case people decide to leave the program if its not working for them.

 

I'm mostly interested to see the limitations of LTE. I've had B41 stick to my phone as low as -130, yet SMS still worked perfectly (both inbound/outbound). I'm sure VoLTE can still work reliably way beyond the the usual cut off line of -117 RSRP Sprint has set for its LTE threshold before our phones go to 3G EVDO. I want to see at what point does VoLTE really start to fail if QoS is implemented.

Maybe they could add VoLTE as an option (a service) on their website. That way, regular people would not be able to accidentally enable it and complain about dropping calls but people like us would be able to test it.

[payturr]

Anything above 10ghz is going to have that problem really. To go thru walls and other material you will have to pump up the power which basically means frying anything and everything.

 

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High band is gonna be meant for the streets, not in buildings. LTE will be relieved so it'll be stronger for indoor use.

[payturr]

WiGig has been stalled for some time and hasn't shown much signs of life. WiGig is probably going to be used primary for near communications. I think the Wikipedia entry sums the problem up very well "The 60 GHz signal cannot typically penetrate walls but can propagate off reflections from walls, ceilings, floors and objects using beamforming built into the WiGig system. When roaming away from the main room the protocol can switch to make use of the other lower bands at a much lower rate, both of which can propagate through walls." We are seeing it already with WiGig being used for Wireless USB and Wireless HDMI. I honestly don't see it becoming a main stream for networking. If you need 7 Gbps of transfer you probably are going to wire what ever it is.

We have to start to get honest here, the average user can't tell the difference between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps. The talk of "5G" is just hype at this point and using 39 Ghz on mobile networks is such a pipe dream at this point it isn't even funny. And when you see someone say we are "Testing" in a lab that in no way means they have had any success with it. The reason for even releasing such information is purely marketing. The average user thinks "More GHZ must be better" so they play on that.

The point is these high band networks have so much free spectrum, a carrier can be 160x160. That allows for major speeds and heavy capacity on small cells which allow major data flow.

 

5G is not meant for the entire country, just cities. It'll relieve mass congestion on the streets while LTE becomes unloaded for indoor operation. I used WiGig as an example because it is tech that shows high band operation in compact devices is achievable; it is also alive as new WiGig equipment was shown in CES. I'd never use it though, it's not necessary in homes. In public arenas and colleges however..

[ase500]

The point is these high band networks have so much free spectrum, a carrier can be 160x160. That allows for major speeds and heavy capacity on small cells which allow major data flow.

 

5G is not meant for the entire country, just cities. It'll relieve mass congestion on the streets while LTE becomes unloaded for indoor operation. WiGig is alive because new WiGig equipment was shown in, and the point is that 60GHz in compact equipment is achievable.

Um so you expect them to put a micro cell in every room of your house and office. Maybe on evey light poll... Just accept that it isn't going happen. The higher the frequency the less penetration. It also mean the more fragile the data link. At the frequency you are talking about you would start losing speed at about ten feet and it would be unusable at less then 200 feet. You would have to boost with more power. See the problem. You may see these frequencies at some point, it won't be in 5g. You would nees to rip and replace nearly every piece of equipment in every network to even begin to support those frequencies. The power requirements and backhauls would all need to be upgraded. 5g hasn't been defined and we still haven't actually met 4g standards yet. WiGig is a fringe technology 7 years after conception. And on a side note any mobile technology will have to be national to be feasible. 60 percent of the population lives on cities of less than 100,000 and 40 percent live in cities of less than 50,000. This is the biggest reason why Verizon and AT&T have held onto their leads. Most of the people don't want to live in the center of a metro hence suburbs.

 

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[payturr]

Um so you expect them to put a micro cell in every room of your house and office. Maybe on evey light poll... Just accept that it isn't going happen. The higher the frequency the less penetration. It also mean the more fragile the data link. At the frequency you are talking about you would start losing speed at about ten feet and it would be unusable at less then 200 feet. You would have to boost with more power. See the problem. You may see these frequencies at some point, it won't be in 5g. You would nees to rip and replace nearly every piece of equipment in every network to even begin to support those frequencies. The power requirements and backhauls would all need to be upgraded. 5g hasn't been defined and we still haven't actually met 4g standards yet. WiGig is a fringe technology 7 years after conception. And on a side note any mobile technology will have to be national to be feasible. 60 percent of the population lives on cities of less than 100,000 and 40 percent live in cities of less than 50,000. This is the biggest reason why Verizon and AT&T have held onto their leads. Most of the people don't want to live in the center of a metro hence suburbs.

 

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Again, this isn't for indoor use, strictly outdoor data consumption. LTE-A will be relieved of congestion at that point because of 5G, so that most users will probably have at least 50Mbps for in office use. 5G will be using higher level MIMO, higher level QAM, and beamforming with new antenna techniques to boost signals, so we're looking at reasonable coverage from a small cell/DAS. Of course it'll need new equipment, but the point is the era of the macro with major planning permits will be a thing of the past, and at that point carriers will only need a simple pole permit to get the network up. I know we haven't hit the peak of 4G, but we will be soon as there isn't that much spectrum left to use. Could we hit 600Mbps? Yeah in some markets but never in NYC or LA. That's the point of 5G - provide ridiculous bandwidth to serve ridiculous numbers of people to ensure our LTE networks are clear for indoor use.

[ase500]

Again, this isn't for indoor use, strictly outdoor data consumption. LTE-A will be relieved of congestion at that point because of 5G, so that most users will probably have at least 50Mbps for in office use. 5G will be using MIMO, beamforming, and QAM with new antenna techniques to boost signals, so we're looking at reasonable coverage from a small cell/DAS. Of course it'll need new equipment, but the point is the era of the macro with major planning permits will be a thing of the past, and at that point carriers will only need a simple pole permit to get the network up. I know we haven't hit the peak of 4G, but we will be soon as there isn't that much spectrum left to use. Could we hit 600Mbps? Yeah in some markets but never in NYC or LA. That's the point of 5G - provide ridiculous bandwidth to serve ridiculous numbers of people to ensure our LTE networks are clear for indoor use.

You still don't get it. Indoor or outdoor is irrelevant the distance wouldn't be far enough to make it useful. You would need to run fiber to every light poll and strap a micro cell to every light poll. Not exactly practical. Your young and obviously inexperienced in networking and I am really trying not to sound like a jerk hear but, I have almost as many years in technology as you have been alive. What you are talking about isn't going to happen for many years and certainly isn't going to happen during the next cycle of upgrades..... It isn't an opinion it is a fact. And I am done.

 

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[payturr]

You still don't get it. Indoor or outdoor is irrelevant the distance wouldn't be far enough to make it useful. You would need to run fiber to every light poll and strap a micro cell to every light poll. Not exactly practical. Your young and obviously inexperienced in networking and I am really trying not to sound like a jerk hear but, I have almost as many years in technology as you have been alive. What you are talking about isn't going to happen for many years and certainly isn't going to happen during the next cycle of upgrades..... It isn't an opinion it is a fact. And I am done.

 

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First of all, what does age have to do with anything? By that idea, any person of 50 should be smarter than any person of 20. While in some cases thats true, it's not always.

Second, this isn't just a marketing side show by Verizon. Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm are all experimenting with it. So is every major carrier INCLUDING Sprint. FCC is aware this spectrum is viable for 5G so they're kicking off the repurposing this summer. This is more than just fantasy idea; it's completely plausible.

Third, in the span of 6 years we brought phone technology from 500Kbps to 100Mbps. In 6 years we can figure out, build, and create technology to efficiently harness high band frequency for data at a reasonable cost with reasonable coverage.

Last but not least, and certainly most important, NYU's 5G Research Department did a paper covering the usage of mmW in cellular and came to the conclusion it's completely doable, and that coverage can spand several hundred meters (paper here: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6515173). 

 

It's ridiculous to claim 39GHz is not usable in cellular just like it was ridiculous to say 2.5GHz isn't usable in cellular. Will it be difficult? Yes, but technology constantly advances. I can see this happening in the next decade.

[kg4icg]

First of all, what does age have to do with anything? By that idea, any person of 50 should be smarter than any person of 20. While in some cases thats true, it's not always.

Second, this isn't just a marketing side show by Verizon. Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm are all experimenting with it. So is every major carrier INCLUDING Sprint. FCC is aware this spectrum is viable for 5G so they're kicking off the repurposing this summer. This is more than just fantasy idea; it's completely plausible.

Third, in the span of 6 years we brought phone technology from 500Kbps to 100Mbps. In 6 years we can figure out, build, and create technology to efficiently harness high band frequency for data at a reasonable cost with reasonable coverage.

Last but not least, and certainly most important, NYU's 5G Research Department did a paper covering the usage of mmW in cellular and came to the conclusion it's completely doable, and that coverage can spand several hundred meters (paper here: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6515173).

 

It's ridiculous to claim 39GHz is not usable in cellular just like it was ridiculous to say 2.5GHz isn't usable in cellular. Will it be difficult? Yes, but technology constantly advances. I can see this happening in the next decade.

I got news for you, at the power levels it requires to equal 2.5ghz in distance and everything. You will receive rf burns. I already posted what a 30ghz setup looks like for a ham radio operator and that is recent. Amateur Radio operators have been experimenting in those frequencies for years now and the gear has only been reduced in size by 30 percent. Those bands are not going to be good for mobile use. Point to point Los, yes. Moving around with a 5g moto g handheld. Don't think so.

 

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[ase500]

First of all, what does age have to do with anything? By that idea, any person of 50 should be smarter than any person of 20. While in some cases thats true, it's not always.

Second, this isn't just a marketing side show by Verizon. Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm are all experimenting with it. So is every major carrier INCLUDING Sprint. FCC is aware this spectrum is viable for 5G so they're kicking off the repurposing this summer. This is more than just fantasy idea; it's completely plausible.

Third, in the span of 6 years we brought phone technology from 500Kbps to 100Mbps. In 6 years we can figure out, build, and create technology to efficiently harness high band frequency for data at a reasonable cost with reasonable coverage.

Last but not least, and certainly most important, NYU's 5G Research Department did a paper covering the usage of mmW in cellular and came to the conclusion it's completely doable, and that coverage can spand several hundred meters (paper here: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6515173).

 

It's ridiculous to claim 39GHz is not usable in cellular just like it was ridiculous to say 2.5GHz isn't usable in cellular. Will it be difficult? Yes, but technology constantly advances. I can see this happening in the next decade.

Ok buddy. Come back here when you're 30 and reread your posts. The human brain doesn't mature until about 25. Second we didn't go from 500k to where we are now in 6 years. Cellular moved from analog to digtal voice technology then simply upped the data channel. LTE is the very first data optimized cell protocol GSM, CDMA, EVDO and HSPA all were optimized for voice. LTE shares much more in common with WIMAX than any other technologies and that goes back to a lab at intel in 1996. It took 20 years not 6. It took 6 to adapt the networks to the technology that was already there.

 

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[payturr]

I got news for you, at the power levels it requires to equal 2.5ghz in distance and everything. You will receive rf burns. I already posted what a 30ghz setup looks like for a ham radio operator and that is recent. Amateur Radio operators have been experimenting in those frequencies for years now and the gear has only been reduced in size by 30 percent. Those bands are not going to be good for mobile use. Point to point Los, yes. Moving around with a 5g moto g handheld. Don't think so.

 

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It does not need to equal 2.5GHz in distance. If we learned anything from Sprint, it's that operating 2.5GHz on a macro works, but what makes better sense is to slap a small cell on a pole and use shorter ranges. That's the entire goal.

TP-Link took 60GHz and put it into a tiny regular sized router. Sure, it's signal doesn't get far. But these small cells will be bigger than a router.

[payturr]

Ok buddy. Come back here when you're 30 and reread your posts. The human brain doesn't mature until about 25. Second we didn't go from 500k to where we are now in 6 years. Cellular moved from analog to digtal voice technology then simply upped the data channel. LTE is the very first data optimized cell protocol GSM, CDMA, EVDO and HSPA all were optimized for voice. LTE shares much more in common with WIMAX than any other technologies and that goes back to a lab at intel in 1996. It took 20 years not 6. It took 6 to adapt the networks to the technology that was already there.

 

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I said this before, but from the looks of it 5G will be LTE with all the antenna and channel techniques we've been using & talking about with support for larger carriers. That's nothing too far fetched and complex. It's just putting it together in a box. Can we put 39GHz into already existing tech and have it live hanging on a pole in 6-10 years? I think so

[ase500]

I said this before, but from the looks of it 5G will be LTE with all the antenna and channel techniques we've been using & talking about with support for larger carriers. That's nothing too far fetched and complex. It's just putting it together in a box. Can we put 39GHz into already existing tech and have it live hanging on a pole in 6-10 years? I think so

Even if we could build the technology 10 years it would require another 5 to deploy and that's if production could be ramped up to handle it (unlikely). So you're looking at more like 20 years from now. Not in 5g.

 

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[Paynefanbro]

I think something that is worth noting is that there is this ongoing belief that 5G networks will have to be something as ubiquitous as current networks are. Who's to say that they don't take the approach that many connected cities are with regard to their WiFi.

 

By this I mean having hotspots of incredibly fast network connections in a dense deployment where outdoors you're covered decently and able to get those speeds when necessary. Indoors one doesn't need as fast speeds and likely could be bumped down to a 4G network much the same way we used to think about 3G and 2G networks.

[payturr]

I think something that is worth noting is that there is this ongoing belief that 5G networks will have to be something as ubiquitous as current networks are. Who's to say that they don't take the approach that many connected cities are with regard to their WiFi.

 

By this I mean having hotspots of incredibly fast network connections in a dense deployment where outdoors you're covered decently and able to get those speeds when necessary. Indoors one doesn't need as fast speeds and likely could be bumped down to a 4G network much the same way we used to think about 4G and 3G networks.

This is exactly what I've been suggesting, thank you very much! I strongly believe 5G will be limited to cities and only for outdoors use, and that 4G will be the indoors network.

[payturr]

Even if we could build the technology 10 years it would require another 5 to deploy and that's if production could be ramped up to handle it (unlikely). So you're looking at more like 20 years from now. Not in 5g.

 

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Why would it take 10 years to take LTE and revise it for high bandwidth? Samsung built a 60GHz transmitter prototype in no time and got it working. They can build and finalize radios and we'll start to see deployment after 5 or 6, maybe 7 years. 2020-2022 is pretty much the expected time frame.

[kg4icg]

Only thing I've seen on 60ghz is made by Panasonic and they are telephones.

 

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[payturr]

Only thing I've seen on 60ghz is made by Panasonic and they are telephones.

 

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http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/AD7200.html

Your next router, sir