T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, RAvirani said:

I think it would be great if Sprint could pick some spectrum in the CBRS band—I could definitely see their NR network being primarily 2.5/3.5 GHz. Additionally, if CBRS spectrum were used for NR with massive MIMO, it would be a good overlay for the L1900 grid as it would have comparable coverage/range. 

Your point about roaming is definitely true too. It would be nice for us to roam in other countries on the same band as back home; additionally, with spectrum that lines up with international providers, Sprint may be able to break into the US international roaming market (which AT&T and T-Mobile primarily dominate today). 

 

1 hour ago, Fraydog said:

As it is, it’s time for Sprint to be active in spectrum auctions again. mmWave and CBRS are all needed.

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In the interview that Sprint's new CFO did today, he said that Sprint is content with what it has right now and doesn't see itself buying mmWave but if spectrum comes up for auction (non mmWave), Sprint will consider it. I think that's good news!

[RAvirani]

23 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

 

In the interview that Sprint's new CFO did today, he said that Sprint is content with what it has right now and doesn't see itself buying mmWave but if spectrum comes up for auction (non mmWave), Sprint will consider it. I think that's good news!

Hmm...spectrum that could come up for auction that isn’t mmWave...wonder what that could be ?…

[RedSpark]

17 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Hmm...spectrum that could come up for auction that isn’t mmWave...wonder what that could be ?…

Sorry... what would it be?

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Sorry... what would it be?

According to FierceWireless Ajit Pai mentioned earlier this year that he is trying to auction off 28Ghz spectrum this November and that in the coming months he "intends to propose the next steps needed to make the 3.7 to 4.2 GHz band available for commercial terrestrial use"

[bigsnake49]

23 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Sorry... what would it be?

cmWave of course .

[Arysyn]

On ‎3‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 2:18 PM, Fraydog said:

 

Isn’t Sprint faster in Chicago? I have friends up there and they seem to be saying Sprint has been faster there for a while.


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Sorry about my late reply. My online reading S4GRU has been very limited the past few months.

Sprint has been advertising using Schaumburg in their Chicago speed test examples. While I'm sure Sprint service in Schaumburg has improved throughout the past few years since I had Sprint, I was very impressed by it in Schaumburg back then, just not so much in some other areas. By now it looks like Sprint is doing really well around here, which is good.

[danlodish345]

Sorry about my late reply. My online reading S4GRU has been very limited the past few months.
Sprint has been advertising using Schaumburg in their Chicago speed test examples. While I'm sure Sprint service in Schaumburg has improved throughout the past few years since I had Sprint, I was very impressed by it in Schaumburg back then, just not so much in some other areas. By now it looks like Sprint is doing really well around here, which is good.

T-Mobile has some Wicked speeds.

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[bigsnake49]

All of these speedtests by all of these carriers are great. What I am looking for is consistent coverage and consistent speeds. It does not help me if in one spot it's 150Mbits and then in another 3G. I would be perfectly happy if it was consistently between 10-20Mbits throughout the coverage area.

[danlodish345]

On 3/20/2018 at 11:33 AM, bigsnake49 said:

All of these speedtests by all of these carriers are great. What I am looking for is consistent coverage and consistent speeds. It does not help me if in one spot it's 150Mbits and then in another 3G. I would be perfectly happy if it was consistently between 10-20Mbits throughout the coverage area.

T-Mobile just upgraded the only stealth site in town and gave it tri band lte...4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM...the signal at the coverage edge is a bit dirty but it works none the less.

[afazel]

Big expansion of 600 and 700 MHz on Wednesday. https://www.tmonews.com/2018/03/t-mobile-low-band-lte-upgrades-hundreds-cell-sites/

[danlodish345]

On 3/23/2018 at 1:18 PM, afazel said:

Big expansion of 600 and 700 MHz on Wednesday. https://www.tmonews.com/2018/03/t-mobile-low-band-lte-upgrades-hundreds-cell-sites/

TMobile has a gotten good..

[RAvirani]

10 hours ago, danlodish345 said:

TMobile has a gotten good..

I like that ping. 

[danlodish345]

I like that ping. 

Yeah the thing is really low which is amazing. It used to be in the mid-forties about a year ago. So they've gotten better.

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[Jesito473]

Sigh...

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[danlodish345]

Sigh...

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What's the problem?

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[Jesito473]

What's the problem?

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Those speeds are making me envious lol. We are still waiting on a site they've been meaning to build for quite sometime, till then we can't expect those nice speeds.

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[danlodish345]

Those speeds are making me envious lol. We are still waiting on a site they've been meaning to build for quite sometime, till then we can't expect those nice speeds.

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Well the speeds aren't like that all over town and it's really only at night when the network is unloaded

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[Jesito473]

Well at times we can reach 20 between midnight and 6am. Other areas do pretty good despite the spectrum constraints in the Cincinnati market.

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[danlodish345]

Well at times we can reach 20 between midnight and 6am. Other areas do pretty good despite the spectrum constraints in the Cincinnati market.

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Yes I understand where you're coming from is only 55 mega Hertz total over here

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[Jesito473]

Yes I understand where you're coming from is only 55 mega Hertz total over here

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Once they flip the switch on our 5mhz of B66 here in the area(which I hope it's soon) it should help.

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[danlodish345]

Once they flip the switch on our 5mhz of B66 here in the area(which I hope it's soon) it should help.

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TMobile has come a very long way here but they still have a long way to go and terms of coverage and actual overall signal strength.

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[RedSpark]

https://www.pcmag.com/news/360673/t-mobile-5g-wont-start-out-much-faster-than-4g

This sums up T-Mobile’s 5G Deployment Issue:

According to Karri Kuoppamaki, T-Mobile's VP of radio network technology development and strategy, higher-frequency millimeter wave spectrum only has cells about 900 feet wide, though Verizon's chief network officer Nicola Palmer said last year that they can get gigabit speeds at 2,000 feet from a cell.

_______

So that’s a 900 foot cell radius which comes out to 0.1 square miles. The continental US is over 3 million square miles. T-Mobile’s 600MHz network doesn’t have the carrying capacity for true 5G speeds so it will need to supplement with millimeter wave in high-speed hotspots.... and the economics for a wide deployment of that are hard to justify.

VS.

Dr. Saw previously said this about Millimeter Wave:

https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/sprint-says-no-to-mmwave-yes-to-mobile-5g/d/d-id/739592

Sprint's CTO said Wednesday that he is not sure that using millimeter waves to deliver 5G services is a practical economic use of the high-band spectrum and that Sprint will be focusing on using its existing bandwidth to deploy 5G, at least initially.

_________

Dr. Saw’s specific quotes:

"What is the cost to deliver a bit over millimeter waves? Where is the business case on that?" John Saw asked at the Citi conference in Las Vegas.

and

"We need to solve the cost challenges before you can scale millimeter wave," Saw said.

He did say that mmWave could be useful as a hotspot "overlay" to a lower band 5G network, but he added that "the laws of physics say it won't propagate very far."

[Paynefanbro]

Another interesting bit from that PCMag article is this;

Quote

But the value in low-band 5G isn't its initial state; it's the ramp-up. 5G technology has a lot more room to grow than 4G, even if it's starting out just a bit ahead of current speeds.

"Initially, we didn't see gigabit speeds on LTE; we saw very low speeds. But today we see much higher than that. It's kind of irrelevant what [the speed] number is going to be on day one, as it will improve over time," Kuoppamaki said.

T-Mobile can't provide gigabit speeds on 600MHz alone whereas they can on LTE through CA and numerous technologies. Sprint can achieve gigabit speeds on both 5G-NR and LTE at the same time using Band 41. That's a huge advantage and Sprint should focus on playing up that advantage and increasing density quickly so that most cities, suburbs, and even some exurbs are blanketed in Band 41.

[RedSpark]

15 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Another interesting bit from that PCMag article is this;

T-Mobile can't provide gigabit speeds on 600MHz alone whereas they can on LTE through CA and numerous technologies. Sprint can achieve gigabit speeds on both 5G-NR and LTE at the same time using Band 41. That's a huge advantage and Sprint should focus on playing up that advantage and increasing density quickly so that most cities, suburbs, and even some exurbs are blanketed in Band 41.

That’s a huge advantage for Sprint.

Sprint’s PR/Comms shop needs to be on the ball here.

[Arysyn]

T-Mobile has become better around here since the initial introduction of BingeOn and the all-unlimited plans. However still not excellent quite yet. I've had some issues at an outdoor mall I've gone to a few times recently, but I'm not sure its necessarily the network. I definitely need a new phone - waiting for the Sony XZ2 Premium, so it may be the limitations of the Microsoft Lumia 950xl I'm still using, grudgingly.