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Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread


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42 minutes ago, red_dog007 said:

If you read the internet, for the last 7 years I have been a Sprint customer, every quarter I have been told that Sprint was going to go under and file for bankruptcy. 

Their position isn't pretty, but it isn't like Sprint is in some unique position.  People like to be like, debt, debt, debt, but having more debt than revenue is pretty common.  Look at Charter.  $40billion in revenue but they have $70billion in long term debts.  A company like AMD couldn't make any money for like a decade before their recent turn around.  They sold, leveraged and won some key lawsuits that helped them stay afloat.  Now they are kicking ass and taking names.

This idea that Sprint needs to be at the same coverage level as AT&T or VZW to survive I think is a fallacy as well.  They have great roaming agreements.  This is how the dozens of regional carriers survive.

 

They do need to add it where VZW and att are the only option. 

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Neville's latest thoughts on Millimeter Wave.... and why the merger needs to happen....

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/the-5g-status-quo-is-clearly-not-good-enough

Here's what Dr. Saw has said about Millimeter Wave previously:

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

"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.

I guess this is the new Merger strategy now?

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Neville's latest thoughts on Millimeter Wave.... and why the merger needs to happen....
https://www.t-mobile.com/news/the-5g-status-quo-is-clearly-not-good-enough
Here's what Dr. Saw has said about Millimeter Wave previously:
https://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/sprint-says-no-to-mmwave-yes-to-mobile-5g/d/d-id/739592
"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.
I guess this is the new Merger strategy now?
If Sprint ends up a stand alone, they will need more spectrum at some point,I do understand not using mm wave accept for malls and stadiums. They should use it there tho

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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I agree with his statement, what am I supposed to do with 5GHz of capacity at 70 or 90GHz the FCC is working on next week. If I needed that kind of capacity at feasible distance, I would run a jumper or strand to it. Need to work out that mid band mess some more. Still a lot of legacy out there for the couple years in many existing licenses. Dish has all the spare the market could handle a couple years ago, and that took substantial time to get worked through the system that gave us AWS-4. I see why he wants that 2.5 more everyday.

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19 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

If Sprint ends up a stand alone, they will need more spectrum at some point,I do understand not using mm wave accept for malls and stadiums. They should use it there tho

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 

Back in May 2018, Sprint said this about Millimeter Wave: https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/sprint-millimeter-wave-spectrum-important-part-our-strategy-going-forward

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Yeah they said the same thing about LAA

 

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, nexgencpu said:

This Gif though..

mmWave :dazed:

Maybe in a world without walls mmWave would be a thing.

5G-mmWave-door.gif

Yet Neville Ray says, "T-Mobile also has mmWave spectrum that provides massive capacity over a very small footprint. It holds big promise for speed and capacity in dense urban areas and venues where large numbers of people gather."  I guess TMUS has special mmWave spectrum that is some how superior to VZ mmWave spectrum.

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8 minutes ago, SuzieTuesday said:

Yet Neville Ray says, "T-Mobile also has mmWave spectrum that provides massive capacity over a very small footprint. It holds big promise for speed and capacity in dense urban areas and venues where large numbers of people gather."  I guess TMUS has special mmWave spectrum that is some how superior to VZ mmWave spectrum.

Well to be fair, he didn't say anything about coverage or how the spectrum penetrates walls.  🙂  It's worded very well.

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Not sure how mmWave being blocked is surprising. 60 Ghz wifi is blocked by human hand. That does not mean there is not a place for mmWave. Cars, fixed internet, large open spaces (like stadiums, parking, or parks), or indoor das (like airports or expos).

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15 minutes ago, clbowens said:

Well to be fair, he didn't say anything about coverage or how the spectrum penetrates walls.  🙂  It's worded very well.

Ah yes worded like some one who just completed John Legere's short course, "Technical Writing for Snake Oil Salesmen". 😀

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9 minutes ago, Flompholph said:

Not sure how mmWave being blocked is surprising. 60 Ghz wifi is blocked by human hand. That does not mean there is not a place for mmWave. Cars, fixed internet, large open spaces (like stadiums, parking, or parks), or indoor das (like airports or expos).

Not to get to far off topic but I agree 100%, mmWave certainly has a place. Who knows how well it will ultimately perform but the short wave lengths make massive MIMO and beam forming/steering a reality. The next several years will be interesting.

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13 hours ago, SuzieTuesday said:

Yet Neville Ray says, "T-Mobile also has mmWave spectrum that provides massive capacity over a very small footprint. It holds big promise for speed and capacity in dense urban areas and venues where large numbers of people gather."  I guess TMUS has special mmWave spectrum that is some how superior to VZ mmWave spectrum.

Here’s what Verizon had to say about Millimeter Wave: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-isnt-for-widespread-coverage-verizon-admits/

Given all these shortcomings, Sprint should be in the driver’s seat with 2.5 GHz if it could make the appropriate capex happen.

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11 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Here’s what Verizon had to say about Millimeter Wave: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-isnt-for-widespread-coverage-verizon-admits/

Given all these shortcomings, Sprint should be in the driver’s seat with 2.5 GHz if it could make the appropriate capex happen.

The intent of my post was simply to point out the "two voices" of N Ray. For Verizon mmWave is bad, for TMUS it's good.

Not sure how often it needs to be repeated until people are no longer surprised by the characteristics of mmW spectrum.

Certainly Sprints 2.5 GHz spectrum is enviable at the moment. C-Band and/or CBRS if and when available will certainly tend to reduce or even eliminate Sprints advantage.

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9 hours ago, SuzieTuesday said:

Certainly Sprints 2.5 GHz spectrum is enviable at the moment. C-Band and/or CBRS if and when available will certainly tend to reduce or even eliminate Sprints advantage.

The more sub 6GHz spectrum the other carriers pick up, the less advantage Sprint has. That advantage holds a bit tighter though for anything above 2.5GHz for realistic urban full on coverage.  

However, it's a long ways to get there.  CBRS is 150MHz right now, that will get split up once it goes up for auction. And it's a full 1GHz spread from 2.5GHz.

Then C-Band that is being looked into like 6GHz, you are looking at similar limitations that are on existing 5GHz.  Unlicensed, low power output of 1w or 250mW. With current considerations there will be at least 850MHz for 1w output, but that is still just 1w.  

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10 hours ago, SuzieTuesday said:

The intent of my post was simply to point out the "two voices" of N Ray. For Verizon mmWave is bad, for TMUS it's good.

Not sure how often it needs to be repeated until people are no longer surprised by the characteristics of mmW spectrum.

Certainly Sprints 2.5 GHz spectrum is enviable at the moment. C-Band and/or CBRS if and when available will certainly tend to reduce or even eliminate Sprints advantage.

C-band is further from becoming a reality than CBRS is right now considering there still hasn't been a decision made about if satellite operators should be able to sell it or if it should be auctioned off. And even then, it'll probably cost an arm and a leg to acquire. CBRS is shared spectrum that will likely be split up into a ton of chunks which doesn't exactly make it pristine mid-band spectrum.

Sprint's advantage is that 2.5GHz not only has better propagation characteristics, but that the whole 120MHz+ is available to them virtually nationwide. The main advantage of CBRS is that it will likely be the first "global" 5G band and will be useful for roaming purposes. For that reason, I could see Sprint along with every other carrier and cable co trying to get some of it.

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On 4/18/2019 at 9:25 PM, Brad The Beast said:

I think the investor reports would be more accurate since they can't lie to investors unless they want to end up like AT&T with a lawsuit. 

 

On 4/19/2019 at 1:09 PM, RedSpark said:

You're referring to this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/04/lawsuit-atts-directv-now-is-a-flop-and-att-lied-to-investors-about-it/

That's not beyond the realm of possibility for Sprint... especially given how any lawsuit would occur subsequent to the alleged "lying".

Sprint's FCC Filing is supported by empirical and highly confidential data on its adds/losses, churn, etc. throughout the report. I believe it shows a serious situation. Even more so, Sprint says in the Filing that its investor statements noting certain accomplishments shouldn't detract from the seriousness of its current predicament.

See Pages 36-42 of the FCC Filing, which includes this:

"The recent improvements in some financial metrics simply cannot, and do not, overcome these fundamental challenges:"

On balance, I'm more willing to believe the information in the FCC Filing which specifically references and dismisses the investor statements than in the investor statements alone. If the redacted "highly confidential" information in the Filing was made available to investors, I believe Sprint stock would be substantially impacted... as that information reflects the ground truth of what's happening with Sprint.

Multiple securities class action lawsuits have now been filed against Sprint Corporation for lying about total postpaid net additions.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sprint-class-action-alert-hagens-001500130.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sprint-corporation-investor-alert-wolf-203509948.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investigation-alert-schall-law-firm-203400191.html

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1 minute ago, JimBob said:

Wow. Thanks for sharing these links. This seemed inevitable given the disparity between the financial statements/comments and the FCC filings.

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46 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

C-band is further from becoming a reality than CBRS is right now considering there still hasn't been a decision made about if satellite operators should be able to sell it or if it should be auctioned off. And even then, it'll probably cost an arm and a leg to acquire.

Yep certainly neither is going to happen tomorrow, and yeah valuable spectrum is expensive. However these are just details that will get hammered out.

53 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

CBRS is shared spectrum that will likely be split up into a ton of chunks which doesn't exactly make it pristine mid-band spectrum.

Well yeah CBRS is a different animal, and although there is an existing structure for 3 levels of access, Incumbents, PALS, and GAA there is certainly lobbying going on to make PALS more favorable for LTE/5G usage. However "a ton of chunks" obviously just my opinion but highly doubt it.

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

Sprint's advantage is that 2.5GHz not only has better propagation characteristics, but that the whole 120MHz+ is available to them virtually nationwide. The main advantage of CBRS is that it will likely be the first "global" 5G band and will be useful for roaming purposes. For that reason, I could see Sprint along with every other carrier and cable co trying to get some of it.

Again there is NO question regarding the value of Sprint's B41 holdings. While global roaming is a convenience I don't see it as the main advantage of CBRS. Today global roaming is enabled by vendors ability to shoe horn many bands into a phone. I suspect this will happen for 5G too.

Finally lets not forget the mid-band spectrum Dish is essentially sitting on. This expires in roughly 10 months, 11 days...😀

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1 hour ago, SuzieTuesday said:

Nope. C-Band: 3.7 to 4.2 GHz

Oh, that.  C Band is 4-8GHz.  That 3.7-4GHz portion is in the S Band.  I know that 3.7-4.2 is being called C Band atm (maybe cause they are looking at making the 200MHz free from 4-4.2GHz?), but with the recent FCC wanting to make open 1.2GHz in C Band (5925-7125MHz), that is what I was thinking.

That would make things interesting.  Finding a quick article, sat companies said it would take 18-36months to move though. This will happen after the FCC makes a decision, holds an auction and then tells the sat companies to move.  So if this spectrum does go through, it'll be a long time before it can be used. 

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1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

Sprint's advantage is that 2.5GHz not only has better propagation characteristics, but that the whole 120MHz+ is available to them virtually nationwide. The main advantage of CBRS is that it will likely be the first "global" 5G band and will be useful for roaming purposes. For that reason, I could see Sprint along with every other carrier and cable co trying to get some of it.

That advantage of having so much BRS/EBS, they can turn large amounts of 5G without refarming spectrum. 

AT&T isn't in a horrible state because they can refarm spectrum a bit easier.  Even though TMobile is saving a chunk for 5G on 600MHz, it isn't really anything to talk about other than for coverage map coverage.  TMobile and VZW I think will have the roughest time refarming their spectrum.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them wait until the iPhone has 5G.  Do something like 10x10 lowband and 10x10 in PCS/AWS at that time, minimum for 5G. Makes it rough on VZW/TMobile because 40MHz is 30~50% of their spectrum in any given market.  We know mmWave isn't an answer for a macro solution, and there isn't any other midband coming up.  Gotta make due with what you got. 

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16 minutes ago, red_dog007 said:

That advantage of having so much BRS/EBS, they can turn large amounts of 5G without refarming spectrum.

Presumably refarming is a thing of the past due to Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.

"This technology essentially will allow 4G and 5G users to take turns using the exact same chunk of spectrum. Initially, the line of 4G users will be much longer, so they'll take most of the turns. But as the number of 5G users grows, they'll take an increasing number of turns using a given chunk of spectrum."

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