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I've read about Sprint acquiring Clearwire and their 2.5GHz spectrum, but does anyone know exactly what frequencies / how big of a pipe they acquired from Clearwire?  Does it vary from city to city in the US?

 

The FCC Reboot site should have the answer, but it's been broken for me last 2 days : /

 

Thought I'd ask here, any info greatly appreciated!

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I've read about Sprint acquiring Clearwire and their 2.5GHz spectrum, but does anyone know exactly what frequencies / how big of a pipe they acquired from Clearwire?  Does it vary from city to city in the US?

 

The FCC Reboot site should have the answer, but it's been broken for me last 2 days : /

 

Thought I'd ask here, any info greatly appreciated!

 

It varies from market to market.  But it's nationwide.  It's between 60MHz and 160MHz.  Most Top 100 markets are over 120MHz.  But it is an aggregate of dozens of pieces that may or may not be conjoining.  It is two bands from the FCC, EBS and BRS.  It runs from 2496MHz to 2690MHz.  Conjoined into one band for 3GPP...Band 41.

 

BRS is directly licensed from the FCC.  EBS is owned by Educational Institutions and subleased to Sprint (and Clearwire formerly).  BRS licenses are easier to track in the FCC database.  EBS leases are very difficult to track and they are only for 35 miles from the licensed institution.  In places where two EBS licenses overlap, they "split the football."  It is a very messy licensing scheme and hard to track.

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It varies from market to market.  But it's nationwide.  It's between 60MHz and 160MHz.  Most Top 100 markets are over 120MHz.  But it is an aggregate of dozens of pieces that may or may not be conjoining.  It is two bands from the FCC, EBS and BRS.  It runs from 2496MHz to 2690MHz.  Conjoined into one band for 3GPP...Band 41.

 

BRS is directly licensed from the FCC.  EBS is owned by Educational Institutions and subleased to Sprint (and Clearwire formerly).  BRS licenses are easier to track in the FCC database.  EBS leases are very difficult to track and they are only for 35 miles from the licensed institution.  In places where two EBS licenses overlap, they "split the football."  It is a very messy licensing scheme and hard to track.

Thank you!   That's incredibly useful info.

 

Do you know if the Sprint Spark network will utilize all of those 120MHz in the top markets or is it something they only use as needed and/or sell to other carriers?

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Thank you! That's incredibly useful info.

 

Do you know if the Sprint Spark network will utilize all of those 120MHz in the top markets or is it something they only use as needed and/or sell to other carriers?

It will all be utilized.

 

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Thank you! That's incredibly useful info.

 

Do you know if the Sprint Spark network will utilize all of those 120MHz in the top markets or is it something they only use as needed and/or sell to other carriers?

Sprint has no plans to get rid of any BRS/EBS holdings at this point. I can only imagine this ever happening to try to get under the spectrum screen in a future auction. And then, it still is not likely. Once Sprint moves to have the infrastructure and cell placement for a good 2.5 network, then it makes no sense to get rid of the vast spectrum they have that they can use to keep intensifying capacity and performance through additional B41 carriers.

 

And in many instances, the amount of EBS/BRS spectrum they would have to shed to get under the spectrum screen to pick up an additional 5 or 10MHz here or there just would not likely be worth it. I just don't see this spectrum going anywhere anytime soon.

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Ah, that all makes sense... is the reason Sprint is able to offer 50-60 Mbps downloads because the 2.5 network allows faster download speeds than 880MHz/1.9GHz, or because they're able to allow downloads from all three bands at once, or something else entirely?

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Ah, that all makes sense... is the reason Sprint is able to offer 50-60 Mbps downloads because the 2.5 network allows faster download speeds than 880MHz/1.9GHz, or because they're able to allow downloads from all three bands at once, or something else entirely?

20 MHz TDD LTE carriers vs 5x5 mhz FDD lte carriers.

 

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Ah, that all makes sense... is the reason Sprint is able to offer 50-60 Mbps downloads because the 2.5 network allows faster download speeds than 880MHz/1.9GHz, or because they're able to allow downloads from all three bands at once, or something else entirely?

The 2.5 network is wide enough to support 20MHz channels. Sprint's 800/1900MHz LTE network currently can support only 5MHz wide channels. This is the biggest difference.

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Ah, that all makes sense... is the reason Sprint is able to offer 50-60 Mbps downloads because the 2.5 network allows faster download speeds than 880MHz/1.9GHz, or because they're able to allow downloads from all three bands at once, or something else entirely?

In simple English... 2.5 ghz is a 6 lane super highway during rush hour. 800 and 1900 are a 2 lane highway with the same amount of traffic as the the super highway.

 

 

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In simple English... 2.5 ghz is a 6 lane super highway during rush hour. 800 and 1900 are a 2 lane highway with the same amount of traffic as the the super highway.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6 on Crapatalk

I know you know this, but to clarify for those who may not, this is true of these bands on Sprint currently based on their spectrum holdings. But it is not true to say in general terms that 2.5 is faster than 800 or 1900. It all depends on width of the channels the provider is deploying. I just felt like I should add this so someone else may come along and think that 800 and 1900 are slower than 2600 for every provider. Which, of course, is not accurate. If Sprint had 10x10 or 15x15 FDD in 800 or 1900, it would act very similarly to their 2.5 20MHz TDD channels in case of throughput download speed.

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it's somewhere between 10x10 and 15x15 since only about 17.8 mhz is being used. All theoretically ofcourse.

 

A 20mh TDD setup that Sprint is using is probably best compared with 10x10 FDD lte.

 

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it's somewhere between 10x10 and 15x15 since only about 17.8 mhz is being used. All theoretically ofcourse.

 

A 20mh TDD setup that Sprint is using is probably best compared with 10x10 FDD lte.

 

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Yeah, since 10MHz FDD maxes out at 75Mbps, and we have seen faster results on Sprint 20MHz, I try to infer that it is faster than just 10MHz FDD alone. Peak real world 10MHz FDD comes in around 60-70Mbps in the most ideal situations. But we see 70-80Mbps in 20MHz TDD all the time. Also, on my very densely deployed local Verizon 15x15 network, I don't see above 30-35Mbps any more. So this sure makes Sprint's 20MHz TDD look better than 15x15 in many ways. ;)

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Sprint has no plans to get rid of any BRS/EBS holdings at this point. I can only imagine this ever happening to try to get under the spectrum screen in a future auction. And then, it still is not likely. Once Sprint moves to have the infrastructure and cell placement for a good 2.5 network, then it makes no sense to get rid of the vast spectrum they have that they can use to keep intensifying capacity and performance through additional B41 carriers.

 

And in many instances, the amount of EBS/BRS spectrum they would have to shed to get under the spectrum screen to pick up an additional 5 or 10MHz here or there just would not likely be worth it. I just don't see this spectrum going anywhere anytime soon.

I know that Sprint has no plans to get rid of EBS/BRS holdings, but I know that the educational institutions are grumbling that they are not getting paid enough. I know of no institutions that are using the spectrum for its original purpose which was for remote learning. Is EBS counted or will it be counted in the spectrum screen since it's leased and not owned?

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I know that Sprint has no plans to get rid of EBS/BRS holdings, but I know that the educational institutions are grumbling that they are not getting paid enough. I know of no institutions that are using the spectrum for its original purpose which was for remote learning. Is EBS counted or will it be counted in the spectrum screen since it's leased and not owned?

I am not certain about EBS. But BRS will for certain be included in the spectrum screen in future auctions. In the past leases have counted. But EBS is kind of like it's own thing. I'm sure Sprint will lobby that they shouldn't be counted. But I don't think they'll win that argument.

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In simple English... 2.5 ghz is a 6 lane super highway during rush hour. 800 and 1900 are a 2 lane highway with the same amount of traffic as the the super highway.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6 on Crapatalk

More like a 6 lane super HOV Highway that only certain cars are allowed on and that's why there is no congestion. While in the left lanes you laugh at everyone else in the congested 2 lanes to your right.
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Yeah, since 10MHz FDD maxes out at 75Mbps, and we have seen faster results on Sprint 20MHz, I try to infer that it is faster than just 10MHz FDD alone. Peak real world 10MHz FDD comes in around 60-70Mbps in the most ideal situations. But we see 70-80Mbps in 20MHz TDD all the time. Also, on my very densely deployed local Verizon 15x15 network, I don't see above 30-35Mbps any more. So this sure makes Sprint's 20MHz TDD look better than 15x15 in many ways. ;)

 

If they use 6:3 ratio then it should behave like a 12MHz download channel.

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I know you know this, but to clarify for those who may not, this is true of these bands on Sprint currently based on their spectrum holdings. But it is not true to say in general terms that 2.5 is faster than 800 or 1900. It all depends on width of the channels the provider is deploying. I just felt like I should add this so someone else may come along and think that 800 and 1900 are slower than 2600 for every provider. Which, of course, is not accurate. If Sprint had 10x10 or 15x15 FDD in 800 or 1900, it would act very similarly to their 2.5 20MHz TDD channels in case of throughput download speed.

 

Is there a plan to go from 5x5 to 10x10 channels on the 1900Mhz band? Would it be possible or would Sprint need to run multiple carriers per site?

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Is there a plan to go from 5x5 to 10x10 channels on the 1900Mhz band? Would it be possible or would Sprint need to run multiple carriers per site?

No there isn't.

 

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Is there a plan to go from 5x5 to 10x10 channels on the 1900Mhz band? Would it be possible or would Sprint need to run multiple carriers per site?

I don't think they want to do carrier aggregation on PCS. Once they free enough EVDO and 1x channels on 1900MHz, they might add more channels. There are places that Sprint has a 15x15 MHz C block allocation so in those places it will eventually do a 15x15 channel and a 5x5 channel (G block). But that assumes that they have totally refarmed their PCS spectrum which might not be for a little while. It all depends on how fast they can get people using LTE and then VOLTE.

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Sprint will not be doing anything as wide as 10x10 in PCS for some time.  There are not really any markets where they can deploy a 10MHz PCS channel in A-F blocks and a 5MHz G block channel...and then still provide for the needs of 1x and EVDO for the next several years.

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Sprint will not be doing anything as wide as 10x10 in PCS for some time.  There are not really any markets where they can deploy a 10MHz PCS channel in A-F blocks and a 5MHz G block channel...and then still provide for the needs of 1x and EVDO for the next several years.

Oh I am not hinkng the next 2 years, I am thinking 3-5 years down the road.

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Oh I am not hinkng the next 2 years, I am thinking 3-5 years down the road.

I didn't mean to make it sound like my response was conflicting with yours. But rather, I was agreeing with you and expanding the thought a little.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

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When Sprint adds additional channels will they all run at 6:3?  Is there a potential of running certain channels at a different ratio to service a different type of demand?  I'm thinking of sites that are near venues for big events where users may be doing more uploading than downloading.  (I have no evidence to support that assertion.)

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When Sprint adds additional channels will they all run at 6:3? Is there a potential of running certain channels at a different ratio to service a different type of demand? I'm thinking of sites that are near venues for big events where users may be doing more uploading than downloading. (I have no evidence to support that assertion.)

Impossible with today's lte implementation.

 

Possible in future lte implementations.

 

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