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Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread


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4 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

The more meaningful number will be how many will be forced to upgrade because their phone will not be given a VoLTE update at all.  It's possible they will not support even newer Sprint phones that are certainly VoLTE capable with little to no firmware changes.  They may require ALL Sprint customers to upgrade in order to use to new combined network.  That precedent has occurred in the past in other mergers.  We just have no idea at this point how far they will be willing to go back for Sprint customers with existing devices capable of running on what the new network architecture will be.  They may not go backward at all.  Only forward.  We'll see as we start to hear details instead of rumors.

That's a very good point. I've been on Sprint with an iPhone 6/6s/7 and soon an 8 (once my screen protectors arrive).... all of which support VoLTE.

As you said, Sprint has these numbers. I imagine there will be a set deadline for folks to get a new VoLTE-capable device if this goes through. Perhaps there will be "upgrade incentives".

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1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

VOLTE is not a hardware feature. It's a software or firmware update. Heck it just might be a carrier settings update. Between voice over WiFi and VoLTE with graceful handover over, CDMA and WCDMA will be forgotten really soon.

Eh, VoLTE is a hardware feature in that it requires FCC OET authorization.  If a handset has not been lab tested and authorized for VoLTE in the FCC OET, then it ain't getting VoLTE.  Bar none.

And if the CDMA1X 800 carrier were shut down prematurely because of a merger with pink poop, that would be a damn shame.  It would favor "No Service" over fallback reliability.  And rebanded SMR 800 MHz spectrum that practically is made for a band class 10 carrier would go to waste, not useful for anything else.

AJ

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Not advocating shutting down 1x800 prematurely. But at some point VOLTE particularly on the 600, 700 and 800MHz will have to make up for it. LTE supports a 1.4MHz channel size so the spectrum won't go to waste. Now at some point or another I would like to see the whole 800Mhz bandplan get revisited.

Isn't the only reason that VOLTE get's tested by the FCC  the hearing aid compatibility? And once it passes, it is a simple software or settings upgrade?

 

Edited by bigsnake49
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Not advocating shutting down 1x800 prematurely. But at some point VOLTE particularly on the 600, 700 and 800MHz will have to make up for it. LTE supports a 1.4MHz channel size so the spectrum won't go to waste.
Isn't the only reason that VOLTE get's tested by the FCC  the hearing aid compatibility? And once it passes, it is a simple software or settings upgrade?
I hope this Merger doesn't happen. Rather see Sprint do something with Dish or even USCC. It looks like USCC even holds Nationwide licenses.

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7 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

I hope this Merger doesn't happen. Rather see Sprint do something with Dish or even USCC. It looks like USCC even holds Nationwide licenses.

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If Sprint was a financially healthy company and had its network ducks in a row, I would agree with you. But even then the Big 2 would always have a built in advantage. Their Capex would be spread over twice as many customers.

Edited by bigsnake49
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If Sprint was a financially healthy company and had its network duck in a row, I would agree with you. But even then the Big 2 would always have a built in advantage. Their Capex would be spread over twice as many customers.
http://bgr.com/2017/10/10/sprint-t-mobile-merger-regulators-donald-trump/

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I have a question for the hardware gurus in this group. Which RRHs and panels would need to be replaced because they don't have enough ports? How about antenna panels? Or will they just add the other company's RRHs and panels onto the rack.

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4 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Well Softbank could then say, remember those 50,000 jobs that we promised? You can kiss those goodbye! BTW, T-Mobile is not failing. 

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Well Softbank could then say, remember those 50,000 jobs that we promised? You can kiss those goodbye! BTW, T-Mobile is not failing. 
Well Trump is. Well crazy. You are right. Neither is failing.

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Just now, cletus said:

Welp. Hope we all enjoy a defacto duopoly for the next 10-20 years.

Or T-mobile can keep on bleeding Sprint dry, siphoning off their customers. Failing an actual merger, I think that creating a company that will own and operate a merged network and leases spectrum from both companies will be the way to go.

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3 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

Or T-mobile can keep on bleeding Sprint dry, siphoning off their customers. Failing an actual merger, I think that creating a company that will own and operate a merged network and leases spectrum from both companies will be the way to go.

Again, It will only take them about a decade or two to get near AT&T and even if they chew up every Sprint customer (doubtful) they will still be millions of subs behind AT&T (the 2nd biggest). So then what? Instead of a Sprint-T-Mobile merger now, we wait 10+ years until we have 3 carriers except the lowest place carrier spent a A LOT more money, has a less competitive network spectrum wise, while the 4th place carrier (Sprint) probably ends up leasing/selling spectrum to the big two because no one else can afford it. Perfect.

This is the only way I can see T-Mobile growing to challenge the big two.

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Well Softbank could then say, remember those 50,000 jobs that we promised? You can kiss those goodbye! BTW, T-Mobile is not failing. 
I just found out this tweet is fake. The writer of the article made it up.

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34 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

Not advocating shutting down 1x800 prematurely. But at some point VOLTE particularly on the 600, 700 and 800MHz will have to make up for it. LTE supports a 1.4MHz channel size so the spectrum won't go to waste.

Nobody wants the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier.  Nobody, not users, not operators.  On its own, the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier is too small bandwidth.  In carrier aggregation, it is a waste of a limited number of carriers.  No, 1.4 MHz FDD was a token, stopgap measure for 2010, not 2020.

34 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

Isn't the only reason that VOLTE get's tested by the FCC  the hearing aid compatibility? And once it passes, it is a simple software or settings upgrade?

Too often, people erroneously seem to think that the FCC OET does RF testing.  Nope.  The FCC OET is a clearinghouse.  OEMs and certified labs do the RF testing.  Unless VoLTE testing already is in the bank but not submitted, additional rounds of RF testing are required.  And if OEMs -- on their own or at the behest of providers -- do not decide that going back and getting authorizations for older devices is worth the time and money, then those devices will not do VoLTE.

AJ

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22 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

I just found out this tweet is fake.

Did you also just find out that the Tooth Fairy is not real and the Moon is not made of green cheese?

AJ

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Did you also just find out that the Tooth Fairy is not real and the Moon is not made of green cheese? AJ

 

lol Smarty pants 

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58 minutes ago, WiWavelength said:

Nobody wants the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier.  Nobody, not users, not operators.  On its own, the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier is too small bandwidth.  In carrier aggregation, it is a waste of a limited number of carriers.  No, 1.4 MHz FDD was a token, stopgap measure for 2010, not 2020.

Too often, people erroneously seem to think that the FCC OET does RF testing.  Nope.  The FCC OET is a clearinghouse.  OEMs and certified labs do the RF testing.  Unless VoLTE testing already is in the bank but not submitted, additional rounds of RF testing are required.  And if OEMs -- on their own or at the behest of providers -- do not decide that going back and getting authorizations for older devices is worth the time and money, then those devices will not do VoLTE.

AJ

I still don't understand why you would need to do RF testing for VOLTE unless it is for hearing aid compliance. There is nothing different about VOLTE unless you increase the power during transmission beyond limits. As long as you stay within the power envelope,  it will be like any other data stream.

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39 minutes ago, WiWavelength said:

Did you also just find out that the Tooth Fairy is not real and the Moon is not made of green cheese?

AJ

Wait a minute, I thought the moon was made of Swiss cheese ;).

 

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15 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

I still don't understand why you would need to do RF testing for VOLTE unless it is for hearing aid compliance.

That is part of it.  VoLTE is a telephone voice service, just like the circuit switched voice that it supplements or replaces.  No amount of misunderstanding or hoping is going to change that telephone voice services rightly have to jump through regulatory hoops that data services do not.

AJ

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26 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Smarty pants

Correct on the first count.  But, no, I am not wearing pants.

AJ

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4 hours ago, S4GRU said:

Yes.  And post merger there will be even more pressure to raise the pricing.  It might be the right thing for the eventual health of the market.  I'm not sure if I am prepared to discuss the merits of that currently.  However, pricing will be under reduced pressure to go up without a 4th carrier to pressure them.  Right or wrong, that's where we are headed.

Maybe. That argument doesn't take into account returns to scale. The industry is still relatively competitive and with the push to 5g, MIMO, IoT, the rising cost of handsets etc... Who knows what prices are going to do. 

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8 minutes ago, Mr.Nuke said:

Pretty much everybody.

Well, I would have expected AT&T to have raised prices after both Verizon and T-Mobile did, yet they did not. A combined T-Mobile/sprint would have the spectrum resources to offer unlimited data for a long time to come as well as being a home ISP. Price is going to depend of where profit maximizations occurs. Upward pressure in this formula would come from less competition but downward pressure is going to come from scale, synergies and spectrum resources being more highly concentrated.

 

 

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