Sprint Q4 2014 earnings report

[lou99/maximus1987]

75 percent of Sprint postpaid phone subscriber base who have phones with 800 MHz voice capabilities.

[joshuam]

We still have one line on our account with a iphone 4S (3G only)

 

Make me an offer, Marcelo!

[cdk]

 might use 1.9 for uplink, 2.5 for downlink

 

 

I had to think about this for a while....

 

This would make sense if the TDD ratios can be adjusted to allowing 100% of the time for the downlink side. Unless the FCC changes something (and you want to require everyone to buy new devices), you are still going to have 5 MHz of 1.9 for the download though.

 

So, it would appear that you would have at a minimum of 5Mhz up (1.9) & 5Mhz (1.9) + 20 Mhz (2.5) down... 25 MHz on the downlink assuming additional carriers are not included

Edited February 5, 2015 by cdk

[lou99/maximus1987]

We still have one line on our account with a iphone 4S (3G only)

 

Make me an offer, Marcelo!

What speeds you getting?

[lilotimz]

I had to think about this for a while....

 

This would make sense if the TDD ratios can be adjusted to allowing 100% of the time for the downlink side. Unless the FCC changes something (and you want to require everyone to buy new devices), you are still going to have 5 MHz of 1.9 for the download though.

 

So, it would appear that you would have at a minimum of 5Mhz up (1.9) & 5Mhz (1.9) + 20 Mhz (2.5) down... 25 MHz on the downlink assuming additional carriers are not included

No no and no. Nothing said will be implemented anytime soon™, planned to be implemented soon™, or even in active development.

 

FDD TDD carrier aggregation will not be implemented anytime soon™ and that's a guarantee.

[joshuam]

What speeds you getting?

 

Generally over 1Mbps...it's actually pretty darn good nowadays. The more people that move to LTE, the less congested it is!

[chamb]

I had to think about this for a while....

 

This would make sense if the TDD ratios can be adjusted to allowing 100% of the time for the downlink side. Unless the FCC changes something (and you want to require everyone to buy new devices), you are still going to have 5 MHz of 1.9 for the download though.

 

So, it would appear that you would have at a minimum of 5Mhz up (1.9) & 5Mhz (1.9) + 20 Mhz (2.5) down... 25 MHz on the downlink assuming additional carriers are not included

Another question,   Can it be done on a phone with only one radio active?

[jamisonshaw125]

Generally over 1Mbps...it's actually pretty darn good nowadays. The more people that move to LTE, the less congested it is!

I often find this as well. In my gym I have pretty low coverage, but I find I have better 3g than LTE most of the time. I am perfectly fine with switching over to 3g to stream spotify while I work out. It's nice to have 2 options.

[lou99/maximus1987]

Generally over 1Mbps...it's actually pretty darn good nowadays. The more people that move to LTE, the less congested it is!

With 1xA 800 having 4x capacity of a single pcs 1xrtt carrier and sprint offering uber cheap tribands, can't imagine it will take long to clear out pcs CDMA.

Thoughts?

[WiWavelength]

I had to think about this for a while....

 

This would make sense if the TDD ratios can be adjusted to allowing 100% of the time for the downlink side. Unless the FCC changes something (and you want to require everyone to buy new devices), you are still going to have 5 MHz of 1.9 for the download though.

 

So, it would appear that you would have at a minimum of 5Mhz up (1.9) & 5Mhz (1.9) + 20 Mhz (2.5) down... 25 MHz on the downlink assuming additional carriers are not included

No no and no. Nothing said will be implemented anytime soon™, planned to be implemented soon™, or even in active development.

 

FDD TDD carrier aggregation will not be implemented anytime soon™ and that's a guarantee.

 

No, Tim, cdk is theoretically correct.  The previous posters are incorrect -- or, at least, ambiguous in their description.

 

There will be no carrier aggregation with just the uplink in PCS 1900 MHz and just the downlink in BRS/EBS 2500 MHz.  That is not how carrier aggregation works.

 

This theoretical carrier aggregation scenario would place the PCC in band 25 -- so both uplink and downlink in PCS 1900 MHz -- and the SCC in band 41.

 

AJ

[lilotimz]

No, Tim, cdk is theoretically correct. The previous posters are incorrect -- or, at least, ambiguous in their description.

 

There will be no carrier aggregation with just the uplink in PCS 1900 MHz and just the downlink in BRS/EBS 2500 MHz. That is not how carrier aggregation works.

 

This theoretical carrier aggregation scenario would place the PCC in band 25 -- so both uplink and downlink in PCS 1900 MHz -- and the SCC in band 41.

 

AJ

Technologically, yes it's possible.

 

But for sprint it's just another marketing ploy to have people believe the next big thing is just around the corner.

 

It will not happen for sprint anytime soon™ like how they advertised 8x8 mimo in the past.

[cdk]

With 1xA 800 having 4x capacity of a single pcs 1xrtt carrier and sprint offering uber cheap tribands, can't imagine it will take long to clear out pcs CDMA.

Thoughts?

 

 It does? I never recall seeing that before...

[lou99/maximus1987]

 It does? I never recall seeing that before...

 

https://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/files/wireless-networks-1x-advanced-four-fold-increase-in-voice-capacity.pdf

 

slide 4

[cdk]

https://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/files/wireless-networks-1x-advanced-four-fold-increase-in-voice-capacity.pdf

 

slide 4

 

Nice to know, thanks!

[WiWavelength]

With 1xA 800 having 4x capacity of a single pcs 1xrtt carrier...

 It does? I never recall seeing that before...

 

No, it does not.  That is what is possible, not what is actually implemented.  Plus, maximus is conveniently disregarding the "Up to 4x increase" qualified language.

 

AJ

[cdk]

.It will not happen for sprint anytime soon™ like how they advertised 8x8 mimo in the past.

 

I certainly wasn't claiming it would be soon™, and wouldn't expect it to be soon™. I just had to rap my head around how it might work, and the previous post didn't seem to explain it in my mind. 

[lou99/maximus1987]

No, it does not.  That is what is possible, not what is actually implemented.  Plus, maximus is conveniently disregarding the "Up to 4x increase" qualified language.

 

AJ

 

What's implemented?

[cdk]

Another question,   Can it be done on a phone with only one radio active?

 

No idea...

[milan03]

No no and no. Nothing said will be implemented anytime soon™, planned to be implemented soon™, or even in active development.

 

FDD TDD carrier aggregation will not be implemented anytime soon™ and that's a guarantee.

Well considering that Nokia literally just ran a public lab test of their FDD TDD CA solution, it's fair to assume that the commercial deployment will take a while. FDD TDD CA is defined in Release 12, and no commercial UE solution is available at the moment. My guess is that FDD TDD CA UE may be codified as Category 11/12, and we will see it at some point within 2016-17 timeframe.

 

But as far as the actual aggregation, it definitely sounds like a standard supplemental downlink (1900MHz uplink + 1900/2500MHz downlink). 

[lou99/maximus1987]

Well considering that Nokia literally just ran a public lab test of their FDD TDD CA solution, it's fair to assume that the commercial deployment will take a while. FDD TDD CA is defined in Release 12, and no commercial UE solution is available at the moment. My guess is that FDD TDD CA UE may be codified as Category 11/12, and we will see it at some point within 2016-17 timeframe.

 

But as far as the actual aggregation, it definitely sounds like 1900MHz uplink + 1900/2500MHz downlink. 

If you're gonna aggregate something with b41 why not b26? 

[WiWavelength]

Another question,   Can it be done on a phone with only one radio active?

 

Yes.  Separate RF paths are needed for simultaneous transmission, not simultaneous reception.  All carrier aggregation thus far is downlink only -- that is presently true for AT&T LTE and goes all the way back to T-Mobile DC-HSPA+.

 

AJ

[lilotimz]

Well considering that Nokia literally just ran a public lab test of their FDD TDD CA solution, it's fair to assume that the commercial deployment will take a while. FDD TDD CA is defined in Release 12, and no commercial UE solution is available at the moment. My guess is that FDD TDD CA UE may be codified as Category 11/12, and we will see it at some point within 2016-17 timeframe.

 

But as far as the actual aggregation, it definitely sounds like 1900MHz uplink + 1900/2500MHz downlink. 

 

That was in response to Sprint deploying it.

 

Follow up post already clarifies that I said its technologically possible. 

[milan03]

That was in response to Sprint deploying it.

 

Follow up post already clarifies that I said its technologically possible. 

And you're absolutely correct in that follow up post.

[boiker]

I think the massive improvement we've seen via Rootmetrics is proof the network has come a long way. I am expecting further big improvements and moves up in rankings over this 1st half of 2015.

 

Sidebar on rootmetrics.  I hate their reports because in both 1Q and 2Q 2014 they completely ignored the SW portion of my metro area.  They didn't consider the level of service for a big chunk of the SW portion of the metro

[S4GRU]

Based on an interesting email I just received, Sprint is intending to just use B41 downlink TDD to use B25 uplink only when it cannot communicate back with B41 uplink.

 

The purpose of this new TDD FDD CA is just to extend the range of B41. That's what Sprint is trying to do. They want a cohesive nationwide B41 network.

 

This is easy to achieve increased B41 coverage on the downlink (transmission from the site) because they can simply increase broadcast strength with beamforming to match the same propagation as B25. The problem is the devices on the outer part of B41 coverage in this increased power scenario cannot get their signal back to the site. As devices cannot just increase their broadcast strength to match. So, their solution is to carry the uplink back by another frequency...ala B25.

 

So in this scenario, Sprint would deploy B25/B41 CA at sites where both frequencies are deployed. All devices would prefer to use B41 exclusively until the B41 uplink is too weak or non existent then would switch to CA and use B25 uplink. In some ways similar to the CA ATT uses with B29, except B29 is incapable of an uplink at all and must always be paired via CA.

 

The source said that in the end Sprint may have to pair B41 with B25 all the time with CA on the up and down link. But that is not preferred. They are trying to do the pairing on uplink only when out of range. They have proven the concept as possible, now they just need to arrange lab trials to see if it is both physically possible and economically and commercially viable. Then on to FITs and implementation.

 

Sprint is focusing this to be done as soon as possible. Working toward an FIT before year end. There is no way for devices to start including this capability soon. No guidance docs can be given to OEM's for quite some time.