CDMA carriers use more LTE data than GSM.

[WiWavelength]

My Tmo HSPA+ speeds are highly variable.  From 50kbps on rural sites without upgraded backhaul to 20Mbps on lightly used urban sites with Dual Carrier.  But on the whole, if I am being honest, the average Tmo HSPA+ speed is higher than Sprint's best 3G EVDO speed.

 

Of course, to accomplish that, T-Mobile W-CDMA requires three to nine times the spectrum outlay of EV-DO.  Because T-Mobile went with a Eurasian centric, non American friendly 3GPP standard, it has had to agglomerate an undue amount of PCS and AWS spectrum -- especially for its smallish subscriber base.  And that inefficiency should not be celebrated.  AT&T has been criticized for its excessive spectrum accumulation -- so should T-Mobile.

 

AJ

[Conan Kudo]

Of course, to accomplish that, T-Mobile W-CDMA requires three to nine times the spectrum outlay of EV-DO.  Because T-Mobile went with a Eurasian centric, non American friendly 3GPP standard, it has had to agglomerate an undue amount of PCS and AWS spectrum -- especially for its smallish subscriber base.  And that inefficiency should not be celebrated.  AT&T has been criticized for its excessive spectrum accumulation -- so should T-Mobile.

 

AJ

The other way to look at it is that T-Mobile gets 2x the peak performance for 5MHz FDD and 10x the average performance of EvDO (with Rev B and Phase II enhancements) with HSPA+. EvDO Rev A is much worse than this (7x peak performance, 30x average performance).

 

Additionally, what gave you the dumb idea that 3GPP is "non-American friendly"? ATIS and CITEL have been strongly involved in the GSMA and 3GPP to represent the needs of operators across the Americas since the beginning of GSM rollouts in the Americas in 1993.

 

Heck, the FCC has never auctioned a block of spectrum for CMRS that is so small that you can't roll out WCDMA on it. Asian countries were more likely to offer small blocks than Americans. For example, India releases DCS spectrum in 250kHz FDD blocks! Some countries release in 4.4MHz FDD increments, too. So that reasoning is complete B.S. The smallest block the FCC has released is 5MHz FDD, and many blocks were larger.

 

And if you needed to roll it out on a smaller chunk of spectrum, you could compress a WCDMA carrier to as small as 3.8MHz FDD, which would offer a peak rate of 16Mbps (as opposed to 21Mbps) without WCDMA+ features. Even at that rate, EvDO is still less efficient than WCDMA. Throw in WCDMA+, and you get 21Mbps again, even at 3.8MHz FDD.

 

A decent argument can be made to say that CDMA2000 is more wasteful than WCDMA on a spectral efficiency basis, simply due to the technical advantages of the WCDMA platform. Not only that, CDMA2000 implementations are a strong enabler of "operator domination", which Americans don't like, since it involves restricting their freedom on how to use the service they pay for.

[Ascertion]

 

 

The other way to look at it is that T-Mobile gets 2x the peak performance for 5MHz FDD and 10x the average performance of EvDO (with Rev B and Phase II enhancements) with HSPA+. EvDO Rev A is much worse than this (7x peak performance, 30x average performance).

 

What makes you say T-Mobile gets 2x the performance on 5mhz over Sprint?

 

Sent from my LG-LS980

[WiWavelength]

Additionally, what gave you the dumb idea that 3GPP is "non-American friendly"?

 

Give me a break, Neal.  My assertion is not "dumb" at all.  I do not have time to address it at length now, but I will offer a short retort.

 

Other countries had to auction band 1 just to deploy W-CDMA.  The US did not do that, could not do that.  But, knowing you, you would probably fault the FCC for not doing so.

 

Basically, W-CDMA was built on the Eurasian expectation of "green field" spectrum.  That was not the case in the US, certainly not until AWS-1 became commercially usable, circa 2007-2008.  Meanwhile, AT&T had to devour egregious amounts of Cellular and PCS spectrum to deploy its W-CDMA network.  And T-Mobile was stuck in the GSM dark ages for lack of spectrum available to deploy W-CDMA.

 

If that is not "non American friendly," then I do not know what to tell your "Eurasian centric" self...

 

AJ

[cdk]

[maxsilver]

 

Yep.

 

Do we really need to tread through the GSM/UMTS vs CDMA debate again? We all know where the industry is heading, and we all know why...

 

All rehashing will do is bring up old wounds for the CDMA fans.

 

I swear, even Qualcomm doesn't get this upset about it.

[Conan Kudo]

Give me a break, Neal.  My assertion is not "dumb" at all.  I do not have time to address it at length now, but I will offer a short retort.

 

Other countries had to auction band 1 just to deploy W-CDMA.  The US did not do that, could not do that.  But, knowing you, you would probably fault the FCC for not doing so.

 

Basically, W-CDMA was built on the Eurasian expectation of "green field" spectrum.  That was not the case in the US, certainly not until AWS-1 became commercially usable, circa 2007-2008.  Meanwhile, AT&T had to devour egregious amounts of Cellular and PCS spectrum to deploy its W-CDMA network.  And T-Mobile was stuck in the GSM dark ages for lack of spectrum available to deploy W-CDMA.

 

If that is not "non American friendly," then I do not know what to tell your "Eurasian centric" self...

 

AJ

Actually, you're completely wrong on the premise that WCDMA was designed for greenfield deployment. The first deployment in the world was a refarm deployment on 850MHz in Japan. NTT DoCoMo designed the system to in that context, since Japan had not yet decided on whether it would follow the US band plan further or switch to the same band plan followed by mainland Asia for new bands, or that it would even release new frequencies at all (eventually, Japan moved toward the band plan followed by mainland Asia for new frequencies, as we know today).

 

And when WCDMA was initially standardized, Cellular 850/900, DCS, and PCS were supported. IMT (band 1) was added at the tail end for Europe, which auctioned DCS in tiny 2.5MHz FDD slivers originally. The United States' PCS band was fully capable of supporting WCDMA with wide 15MHz FDD channels on PCS A/B/C and 5MHz FDD channels on PCS D/E/F.

 

And why the world would I blame the FCC for not being able to auction IMT frequencies? PCS channels were wide enough anyway, and failing that, 850MHz was also wide enough to support WCDMA, too. The FCC was remarkably forward thinking when they released large blocks instead of tiny ones.

 

What makes you say T-Mobile gets 2x the performance on 5mhz over Sprint?

 

Sent from my LG-LS980

 

Sprint doesn't use EvDO Rev B with Phase II enhancements (EvDO RevB Phase II has never been deployed). Sprint only uses EvDO Rev A, so the numbers are worse. EvDO RevB Phase II supports up to 14Mbps with 4 contiguous EvDO Rev B carriers aggregated together. Average speeds of Phase II (at least from trial documents) were around 2Mbps. With Phase I, it's only at 9Mbps, with average speeds at 1Mbps. And EvDO Rev A doesn't support aggregating contiguous carriers. EvDO Rev A peaked at 3Mbps and averaged at 400Kbps.

[Nickel]

 

An excellent choice but I think this one is superior.

[EvanA]

An excellent choice but I think this one is superior.

I'm partial to this one:

 

[caspar347]

[WiWavelength]

If that is not "non American friendly," then I do not know what to tell your "Eurasian centric" self...

 

Let me clarify the above statement that I made earlier today.  It was neither "insulting" nor "racist."  Rather, it was a commentary on Neal's views on US band plans versus international band plans -- views of which many of you may not be aware.

 

Neal and I share like minded thoughts and have even worked together on possible reform of the Cellular 850 MHz band, but we diverge greatly in our perspectives on other band plans.  If honest, Neal would not disavow his advocacy for Sprint's band 41 TDD deployment to be rolled back to a clean slate -- in favor of a much smaller bandwidth band 38 TDD deployment to allow the BRS/EBS 2600 MHz band to be realigned for band 7 FDD employed in some other countries.  Furthermore, Lower 700 MHz and Upper 700 MHz would be scrapped and rejiggered to conform to the APT 700 MHz band plan.

 

Sure, different band plans elsewhere can have advantages.  But they may be years behind what is already in place here in the US.  And, in the end, why is it important to be in sync with other countries?  I cannot answer that, but as I stated, it is a "Eurasian centric" mindset.

 

Now, some of you can unbunch your panties...

 

AJ

[Conan Kudo]

Let me clarify the above statement that I made earlier today.  It was neither "insulting" nor "racist."  Rather, it was a commentary on Neal's views on US band plans versus international band plans -- views of which many of you may not be aware.

 

Neal and I share like minded thoughts and have even worked together on possible reform of the Cellular 850 MHz band, but we diverge greatly in our perspectives on other band plans.  If honest, Neal would not disavow his advocacy for Sprint's band 41 TDD deployment to be rolled back to a clean slate -- in favor of a much smaller bandwidth band 38 TDD deployment to allow the BRS/EBS 2600 MHz band to be realigned for band 7 FDD employed in some other countries.  Furthermore, Lower 700 MHz and Upper 700 MHz would be scrapped and rejiggered to conform to the APT 700 MHz band plan.

 

Sure, different band plans elsewhere can have advantages.  But they may be years behind what is already in place here in the US.  And, in the end, why is it important to be in sync with other countries?  I cannot answer that, but as I stated, it is a "Eurasian centric" mindset.

 

Now, some of you can unbunch your panties...

 

AJ

Similarly, I do respect A.J.'s intelligence and his analytical ability. Our points of view differ due to how we examine the same type of business. I wouldn't necessarily classify it as "Eurasian-centric", but rather "global centric", but take it for what you wish.

 

For what it's worth, we have worked together (and continue to do so) on ideas and proposals regarding the future of spectrum in the United States. Despite our differences, we do get along well and manage to resolve them into something useful and interesting.

 

Now, onto the Band 41 comment of his...

 

Let me predicate this on the simple fact that I don't "hate"/"dislike"/etc. Band 41. It's a perfectly suitable band. However, I will acknowledge that Band 38 (the subset of it) has much larger scale, being used across Europe and the Middle East. Does that mean I necessarily prefer Band 38 over Band 41? No.

 

However, I would prefer that the U.S. band plan for 2.6GHz be reorganized to something that is more useful and usable for a wider number of parties. It goes without saying that the band plan for 2496-2690 MHz is incredibly screwed up. I would like to see it fixed up so that it would be more attractive to use by more companies, enabling more competition in the high-capacity wireless system market. I'd like to see a band plan that preserves Sprint's ability to launch up to three 20MHz TDD carriers with the remainder being auctioned for FDD and TDD operations by other parties. That would be a Band 7+41 band plan, with Sprint and others having some blocks that also fit in the Band 38 range so that they can take advantage of economic scale and inbound roaming opportunities there. Band 7 is used all over the world to offer high capacity FDD operations, and enabling other players in the market to be able to go after that opportunity would be good for competition.

 

And as for 700MHz, it is pretty screwed up in its own right. The 698-806 MHz band has had a long and storied history of being released piecemeal, which led to the convoluted and spectrally inefficient band plan we have today. It's very clear that no one really thought about the consequences of releasing frequencies the way it was done, which led to the issues we have today.

 

Because of this, the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT, the frequency regulator for Asia and Oceania) worked very hard with CITEL (the frequency regulator for the Americas) and CEPT (the one for Europe and Africa) to design a better band plan to be used by countries all over the world. At the end of 2012, APT submitted the band plan to 3GPP to be designated as an official band for E-UTRA, and it received the designation as band 28. Shortly after that, the APT band plan was selected for 700MHz across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. In fact, only the US and Canada have not chosen the APT plan. Sprint's parent, SoftBank Mobile, has a band 28 license and will be rolling out its 700MHz "platinum band" LTE network when the frequencies are released in January. While it is true that there are more devices for US 700MHz now, this will not remain true in the next two years.

 

With the APT band plan, the 700MHz band can support nine 5MHz FDD blocks. Depending on how the reconfiguration is structured, it could enable another auction of some 700MHz blocks on a national basis. And with the new band plan, all interoperability issues and DTV interference issues go away.

 

As for being in sync with other countries, it offers major economic advantages to consumers and to operators. Smaller scale businesses are more sustainable, because they can rely on the indirect scale available from the total market, rather than having to create its own scale by some other means. And with telecom being a business of scale, this is hugely beneficial.

 

Say A.J., Robert, and I wanted to build an operation together. If our frequencies conform to the design used by larger players all over the world, we can simply request those designs to use for our systems and take advantage of the design and cost advantages of buying something already available and well-scaled. For our customers, it would mean that our devices and systems would be cheaper, allowing our lower costs to enable savings to them. Perhaps what might cost us hundreds of millions of dollars for a unique system would only be tens of millions of dollars instead. Still big numbers, but substantially cheaper.

 

This is what makes GSM so successful. That global scale enables certain advantages to even new entrants, provided they are able to work within the framework that others have dug into. We see this in the U.S. on a smaller scale with operators like Bluegrass Cellular and Pioneer Cellular firmly sunk into the Verizon ecosystem as part of the LTE in Rural America program, or Piedmont Telephone Cellular and AT&T (prior to Piedmont selling its systems to AT&T and moving to be a "managing partner" like how King Street is to USCC).

 

As it gets more and more expensive to provide high-quality service, the "global scale" part of the equation matters more and more. Verizon's aggressive moves to kill its reliance on CDMA for its B2C and B2B operations are very much indicative of this.

[MarshieZ]

Makes me feel a little less guilty!

 

I think as well the previous average included all phone users including feature phones and dumb phones which likely drove down the average. Looking solely at smart phones or even just as the smart phone penetration grows quickly that average will jump up a lot. Plus for two of the carriers it is tough to look at how their pricing suppressed usage. Only being able to afford 2GB a month and not wanting to pay overages probably held back a lot of people from fully using their phones when off wifi. A certain two providers probably wanted to keep the average low as well as it allowed them to infer that people wanting to use their smartphones more should pay exponentially more, allowing them to rake in more profits. To illustrate the point, go on verizon.com (after sprinkling yourself with holy water) and try the build a plan. They label 1GB as average use and 2GB as heavy use. Seriously? Yet they offer plans all the way to 100GB. It's just marketing spin to position the products to gain the maximum revenue. They get you in thinking it will only be X per month for 1GB then when you find yourself using 6 GB they can make out you are just using more than should be expected but will happily sell you the extra for <insert silly number> so what you thought was cheap is in reality a lot more expensive. 

Personally I would think 1GB per line is low, 3-4 is medium, somewhere around 5-10 is average and you'd have to be in the 15-20GB for actual heavy usage. And yes, I'm sure theres people out there who only use 1.44MB a month who will chime in that the rest of us are data hogs that are causing global warming etc.

 

 Global warming! That's funny!

[Hurrcayne_dre]

[joshnys8913]

Kinda of odd timing I came across this topic and in the same night about CDMA carriers using more LTE then GSM. I am not happy about the recent article I found in the city I live in about Big red VZW going up on the tower right near me. The thing that makes me the most mad about this is that there was no problem getting VZW to go on the tower but when it was about AT&T getting new antennas and same with Sprint, recently T-mobile too. They (city and residents) had a fit about them being up there working on the antennas and so on being too noisy and complaining about too much radiation from the antennas being new more powerful equipment with add ons. But when it comes to VZW going to this site as a new site, new everything, no one had an issue with this at all. They are just starting this now, and all residents the went to this meeting said they only want VZW and they could care less about the others. So it really seems like VZW can ALWAYS get their way and I CAN'T STAND THAT!! (When businesses like that seem to try and come in all the sudden and try and take out the others. AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile have been at this site for years.... One of the main reasons this was brought up is because VZW said they need to be on this tower because of LTE when it was brought up in the meeting. 

 

Anyways this may not be the best place to voice my anger at this but I still think its not right and it goes to show that the small ones like Sprint and maybe T-mobile (that dont have tons and tons of money to just put up antenna on towers everywhere) it hurts!!

[htcguy]

I am going to agree with you on this, yes it does seem like VZW does does priority from most cities and towns. Probably because it seems like the majority of people have them and they are #1 and people seem to think they are perfect. Thoughts?

[maxsilver]

 The thing that makes me the most mad about this is that there was no problem getting VZW to go on the tower but when it was about AT&T getting new antennas and same with Sprint, recently T-mobile too, they (city and residents) had a fit about them being up

 

all residents the went to this meeting said they only want VZW and they could care less about the others. So it really seems like VZW can ALWAYS get their way and I CAN'T STAND THAT!! 

 

 

I suspect your right on Verizon getting their way most of the time. But for what it's worth, the opposite does occasionally happen.

 

For instance, we have a local rural town that is (probably illegally) blocking Verizon, even though AT&T was allowed. - http://boycottverizonwexford.com

[joshnys8913]

I suspect your right on Verizon getting their way most of the time. But for what it's worth, the opposite does occasionally happen.

 

For instance, we have a local rural town that is (probably illegally) blocking Verizon, even though AT&T was allowed. - http://boycottverizonwexford.com

I read most of it, interesting at least. I am glad you agree with me that VZW seems to get their way. I just found out about VZW getting on the tower close to me the other day through a friend who goes to meetings for ordinances. The tower is already over crowded!! hell Cricket CDMA had to put their antennas on the side of the tower instead of on the top back a couple of years ago but now AT&T is taking them down soon. However the town wont let AT&T build a tower near the college for better coverage where the college already suffers coverage from all the carriers as it is (basically no coverage at all inside, I know this I went to college there lol).

[BenChase7]

I suspect your right on Verizon getting their way most of the time. But for what it's worth, the opposite does occasionally happen.

 

For instance, we have a local rural town that is (probably illegally) blocking Verizon, even though AT&T was allowed. - http://boycottverizonwexford.com

I think so, too. I didn't realize (until recently) how big Verizon is in comparison to the largest companies in the world.  Far larger than even ATT and SoftBank.  I suspect their influence goes far beyond the greater good.  Corporate America, US Govt, nuff said.  Certainly a concern (IMO) if Sprint/Softbank decide to participate in the 600MHZ auction.  If there has ever been a time to root for the underdog....

[cortney]

I read most of it, interesting at least. I am glad you agree with me that VZW seems to get their way. I just found out about VZW getting on the tower close to me the other day through a friend who goes to meetings for ordinances. The tower is already over crowded!! hell Cricket CDMA had to put their antennas on the side of the tower instead of on the top back a couple of years ago but now AT&T is taking them down soon. However the town wont let AT&T build a tower near the college for better coverage where the college already suffers coverage from all the carriers as it is (basically no coverage at all inside, I know this I went to college there lol).

I also have to chime in and agree with you that VZW gets preferential treatment the majority of the time, and people gladly allow it. 

[kg4icg]

Don't want to be a spoil sport especially on the 700 MHz but I will be. Primary users for the 700 MHz band at first was for public safety, until Verizon and AT&T started throwing there weight around and saying let's share in which the FCC said ok  but under certain conditions. For example, here are some users in the 700 MHz space with frequencies they are licensed for

 

 

 

 

These are just some examples. People have to think about the other users in the space of frequencies. It is not just CellPhones.

[lou99/maximus1987]

I suspect your right on Verizon getting their way most of the time. But for what it's worth, the opposite does occasionally happen.

 

For instance, we have a local rural town that is (probably illegally) blocking Verizon, even though AT&T was allowed. - http://boycottverizonwexford.com

"Detract from the rural nature of the area"?

Wtf

 

I hope verizon crushes them.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[joshnys8913]

"Detract from the rural nature of the area"?

Wtf

 

I hope verizon crushes them.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sounds like your a VZW fan then a Sprint fan if you "hope vzw crushes them"....

[lou99/maximus1987]

Sounds like your a VZW fan then a Sprint fan if you "hope vzw crushes them"....

 

When a cell co is willing to put up a tower in Nowheresville but Nowheresville likes their empty sky too much . . . I hope Nowheresville gets crushed.

[joshnys8913]

When a cell co is willing to put up a tower in Nowheresville but Nowheresville likes their empty sky too much . . . I hope Nowheresville gets crushed.

ok.... Some people who live in RUAL areas choose to live in RUAL areas for a reason, they like nature and dont want to see steel in the air out their back door....