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

[kct1975]

I believe the Jags will be a London based team in 10 years...

I actually completely agree with this!

 

The NFL seems determined to expand to Europe...specifically Great Britain, and since the Brits are already familiar with the Jaguar cars, a Jaguar team makes sense.

 

Heck, it might even make marketing sense for the Jaguar car company to actually own the Jaguars Football Team.

 

The biggest problem, of course, is logistics of travel for all of the other NFL teams, and also what division the team would be assigned.

[RAvirani]

Always wondered why they dont do this. I see the same thing with At&t and Tmobile. Its probably because unlike FDD mid band LTE. Band 41 upload becomes virtually unusable at -120 dbm or greater.

 

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Though purely anecdotal, I have never had upload problems on B41 and I regularly sit on a -122 to -126 signal. Uplink CA will be coming soon as well which should aid with weak signal upload issues. Hopefully we will see Sprint start to be more aggressive in terms of higher band placement in the coming months.

[WiWavelength]

Though purely anecdotal, I have never had upload problems on B41 and I regularly sit on a -122 to -126 signal. Uplink CA will be coming soon as well which should aid with weak signal upload issues.

 

No, because of power reduction, uplink CA probably will not function with low signal.  If the uplink maxes out at 23 dBm, for example, it cannot do 26 dBm with 2x uplink CA.  It is limited to 23 dBm, which then has approximately half the usable range of 23 dBm output without uplink CA.

 

AJ

[Dkoellerwx]

Though purely anecdotal, I have never had upload problems on B41 and I regularly sit on a -122 to -126 signal. Uplink CA will be coming soon as well which should aid with weak signal upload issues. Hopefully we will see Sprint start to be more aggressive in terms of higher band placement in the coming months.

I don't think anyone had actually said UL CA is coming. Just because the iPhone supports it doesn't mean it's necessarily coming soon.

 

Sent from my LG G5

[BlueAngel]

The whole point of B26 is to only serve customers not reached by B25/41. What Sprint really needs to do is be more aggressive about moving devices up to a better band. I've seen T-Mobile move people from -102 to -105 B12 up to -120 to -122 B4. Same with AT&T. This is the kind of aggressive band placement Sprint needs to implement if they want to improve the usability of B26.

Sprint needs to increase the power output on B26, I know it can go a lot further than it does now and it would improve coverage greatly. No reason for me to see a ~2-5dBm difference between B41/B26 coming from the same tower.

[nexgencpu]

Sprint needs to increase the power output on B26, I know it can go a lot further than it does now and it would improve coverage greatly. No reason for me to see a ~2-5dBm difference between B41/B26 coming from the same tower.

I think Sprint is well aware of what would happen if they increased B26 coverage. It would decimate its performance. I think it's finally performing well in most places even during the day time here (nyc) due to the second 25 carrier coming online.

[utiz4321]

Sprint needs to increase the power output on B26, I know it can go a lot further than it does now and it would improve coverage greatly. No reason for me to see a ~2-5dBm difference between B41/B26 coming from the same tower.

I think they will after densification. One benefit to densifcation is that it will take users off b26 and thus allow them to turn up the power and not have b26 work at a crawl.

 

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[BlueAngel]

I hope so.

[RAvirani]

No, because of power reduction, uplink CA probably will not function with low signal. If the uplink maxes out at 23 dBm, for example, it cannot do 26 dBm with 2x uplink CA. It is limited to 23 dBm, which then has approximately half the usable range of 23 dBm output without uplink CA.

 

AJ

I see...doesn't category 14 (I think) LTE increase B41's uplink maximum from 23dBm to 26dBm (approximately a double in power)? That would help (~19% increase in range)...

[RAvirani]

I don't think anyone had actually said UL CA is coming. Just because the iPhone supports it doesn't mean it's necessarily coming soon.

 

Sent from my LG G5

 

Gunther has hinted at it numerous times, one of which was just a few days ago in response to a question asked by lilotimz.

[Dkoellerwx]

IMG_5334.PNG

 

Gunther has hinted at it numerous times, one of which was just a few days ago in response to a question asked by lilotimz.

That is just talking about how many carriers there are, each with UL capacity. That didn't in any way hint at UL CA.

 

Sent from my LG G5

[WiWavelength]

I see...doesn't category 14 (I think) LTE increase B41's uplink maximum from 23dBm to 26dBm (approximately a double in power)? That would help (~19% increase in range)...

 

That is not the issue.  Several current or older handsets already top 23 dBm max EIRP on band 41.  For one example, see the featured article on The Wall.

 

In the end, uplink CA could be like SVLTE and SVDO -- not good for handset RF due to battery consumption, multiple antennas, intermodulation, etc.

 

AJ

[reedacus25]

The whole point of B26 is to only serve customers not reached by B25/41.

I've had this discussion with others before, but I've always been of the mindset, especially in urban areas, that B26 should have been viewed as more of a capacity play.

 

If you are in ~2014 Sprint land with the majority of the network with a single G block B25 carrier, and B26 carrier, you have 50 RB available for traffic.

 

However, you are limiting B26 traffic to basically QPSK frames to the UE, because you are only getting to B26 by way of running out of rope on B25 in terms of signal. Never mind B25 was out of rope on capacity in many cases, compared to B26.

 

Why not serve more bits up, increase total served throughput at the site and load balance across B25/B26 to get more 64QAM frames out of B26? 1x800 takes care of CS traffic at cell edge as is, and data on B26 wasn't going to be great with low RSRP/SNR to begin with.

 

That was always my take on it at least. I get the argument for creating a "consistent experience" but it sounded like it was a consistently inconsistent experience as a result.

 

 

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[Paynefanbro]

Band 26 serves as a capacity layer initially and I'm assuming that as small cells become more commonplace, they'll begin shifting it to a more coverage focused layer for VoLTE usage primarily.

[bigsnake49]

I've had this discussion with others before, but I've always been of the mindset, especially in urban areas, that B26 should have been viewed as more of a capacity play.

 

If you are in ~2014 Sprint land with the majority of the network with a single G block B25 carrier, and B26 carrier, you have 50 RB available for traffic.

 

However, you are limiting B26 traffic to basically QPSK frames to the UE, because you are only getting to B26 by way of running out of rope on B25 in terms of signal. Never mind B25 was out of rope on capacity in many cases, compared to B26.

 

Why not serve more bits up, increase total served throughput at the site and load balance across B25/B26 to get more 64QAM frames out of B26? 1x800 takes care of CS traffic at cell edge as is, and data on B26 wasn't going to be great with low RSRP/SNR to begin with.

 

That was always my take on it at least. I get the argument for creating a "consistent experience" but it sounded like it was a consistently inconsistent experience as a result.

 

 

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It was/is still a capacity layer. As more sites get b41 and/or wider band 25 carriers, its capacity role should be diminished.

[RedSpark]

It was/is still a capacity layer. As more sites get b41 and/or wider band 25 carriers, its capacity role should be diminished.

 

 

Tarek Robbiatti (Sprint's CFO) talked about the role of low band Spectrum for Sprint's Network on September 28th:

 

Sprint's (S) Management Presents at Deutsche Bank's 24th Annual Leveraged Finance Conference (Transcript)

 

 

Unidentified Company Representative

And was that part of the rationale behind why -- among other reasons why you were not participating in the current auction which was obviously low band focused? It sounds like the future is going to be the core of the network will be 2.5 and things like millimeter and maybe even centimeter wave technologies will wind up being the offload the backhaul, a lot of the sort of congestion avoidance features?

 

Tarek Robbiati

Yeah, and thank you for asking this. I mean, you know, a year ago when I joined there was a speculation that we did not go for putting our names for the 600 megahertz auction because we didn't have the liquidity to do it. And that is not at all why we made the decision. It wasn't about liquidity, it's about network strategy. And in the world of 5G, you need to have high frequency spectrum. Why bid for low frequency spectrum? We have plenty of it at 800 and 1900 and that's enough. And the new world will be also involving lower frequency spectrum for propagation basically for voice, really important to still have access to 800 spectrum and 1900 spectrum. But we don't want to be buying just for the spectrum. We are building a network for the future. And we have plenty of that spectrum that we can harness and we intend to do so.

 

Sounds like Sprint has really thought this through. I do find it interesting though that Sprint originally signed on to the T-Mobile petition for a 40 MHz Spectrum Reserve for the 600 MHz auction. I wonder what changed in the interim with that, because according to Tarek, they decided not to go ahead with bidding on it after all.

[dnicekid]

Imagine what would be said if he/sprint would have said this loud and clear "it's not that we don't want 600, we just can't afford it"

I don't think that would go over well in the press. ESPECIALLY if sprint says it.

[RedSpark]

Imagine what would be said if he/sprint would have said this loud and clear "it's not that we don't want 600, we just can't afford it"

I don't think that would go over well in the press. ESPECIALLY if sprint says it.

 

 

I guess we either take Tarek at his word on this, or we don't... in which case, as you alluded to, it's pretty good spin.

[nexgencpu]

Imagine what would be said if he/sprint would have said this loud and clear "it's not that we don't want 600, we just can't afford it"

I don't think that would go over well in the press. ESPECIALLY if sprint says it.

We are still talking about 600mhz? why!? Unless a carrier can grab 40mhz of it (its looking more and more like 10Mhz per carrier), I do not see this being valuable in 4 years time when its actually able to be deployed.

 

Sprint needs to get the rest of their macro sites upgraded to B41 and add them 70k small cells. 

 

Let Tmobile grab that tiny piece of the pie, im sure they can deploy one 600Mhz site in a whole county and call it coverage by 2020.

[dnicekid]

We are still talking about 600mhz? why!? Unless a carrier can grab 40mhz of it (its looking more and more like 10Mhz per carrier), I do not see this being valuable in 4 years time when its actually able to be deployed.

 

Sprint needs to get the rest of their macro sites upgraded to B41 and add them 70k small cells.

 

Let Tmobile grab that tiny piece of the pie, im sure they can deploy one 600Mhz site in a whole county and call it coverage by 2020.

 

 

That's about the best way to sum it up!

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[utiz4321]

We are still talking about 600mhz? why!? Unless a carrier can grab 40mhz of it (its looking more and more like 10Mhz per carrier), I do not see this being valuable in 4 years time when its actually able to be deployed.

 

Sprint needs to get the rest of their macro sites upgraded to B41 and add them 70k small cells.

 

Let Tmobile grab that tiny piece of the pie, im sure they can deploy one 600Mhz site in a whole county and call it coverage by 2020.

I don't know why a 10Mhz wouldn't be useful to any carrier at the right price. Sprint doesn't want to spend the money on it, that is the bottom line.

 

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[nexgencpu]

I don't know why a 10Mhz wouldn't be useful to any carrier at the write price. Sprint doesn't want to spend the money on it, that is the bottom line.

 

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If I had a choice of B41 equipment being deployed or 600mhz at similar cost (600Mhz auction cost would probably be on par with building out B41 not to mention B41 has a real and now eco system), its no question that a more dense B41 experience will absolutely trump a 5x5 600Mhz experience.

[bigsnake49]

Tarek Robbiatti (Sprint's CFO) talked about the role of low band Spectrum for Sprint's Network on September 28th:

 

Sprint's (S) Management Presents at Deutsche Bank's 24th Annual Leveraged Finance Conference (Transcript)

 

 

Sounds like Sprint has really thought this through. I do find it interesting though that Sprint originally signed on to the T-Mobile petition for a 40 MHz Spectrum Reserve for the 600 MHz auction. I wonder what changed in the interim with that, because according to Tarek, they decided not to go ahead with bidding on it after all.

They could not afford it. Sprint has basically not been able to afford anything since the ill fated Nextel merger.

Edited October 3, 2016 by bigsnake49

[NYC126]

Meh,like the poster above said Sprint should spend billions on upgrading the rest of their macros to 8T8R equipment. It is not sufficient if a city has 500 macros sites and only 250 have 8T8R radios.

[greenbastard]

If I had a choice of B41 equipment being deployed or 600mhz at similar cost (600Mhz auction cost would probably be on par with building out B41 not to mention B41 has a real and now eco system), its no question that a more dense B41 experience will absolutely trump a 5x5 600Mhz experience.

B41 will never penetrate buildings as well as low band spectrum. B41 will give you great speeds outdoors, but it does not help with indoor reliability, which is something Sprint and T-Mobile suffer from. The difference here is that Sprint couldn't afford the auction and is strolling along with minimal network investments while T-Mobile is investing and expanding.