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Yes. But we didn't live in a bubble. There were two other vendors. Ericsson was clearly the worst of the three in Network Vision deployment (in some ways they had to do it twice). Also, when it comes to network management, a third party will almost NEVER do as good of a job yourself, because they don't take ownership of the issues the way you would yourself. And so there is not the sense of urgency when an issue or roadblock comes up. And you're much more likely to accept no as an answer. I see it all day long in my line of work. Robert

How about that...

If I were in charge of Sprint and the merger fell through today, here are the changes I would make: Day 1 changes: Drop the L800 Qrxlevmin to -128. I don’t want users falling off L800 at -120 or -122 because: L800 will almost always offer better speeds than CDMA at those signal levels. This will reduce the reconnect time to usable LTE. The pocket 3G problem will be eliminated. VoLTE reliability will skyrocket. Remove the per-site “VoLTE enabled” flag (which by the way is a big part of the reason Sprint is struggling to support older devices) and allow it on all sites and Magic Boxes. This will allow software updates enabling VoLTE to be pushed to ISIM devices in a matter of weeks. Revert L2500 to Config 1 to both increase L2500 upload speeds and effective range. In markets where spectrum allows, split 8T8Rs into two 4T4R transmit chains and run 6 L2500 carriers. Some markets such as Seattle already have this. Short-term changes (within the first 12 months): Contact high-traffic venues (casinos, airports, stadiums, arenas, concert venues, underground train systems, convention centers, etc) and sign onto DAS systems. Begin buildout in high-roaming high-traffic areas such as ski resorts (e.g. Big Sky, MT and Sugarloaf, ME), rural tourist attractions (e.g. Mount Rushmore, SD and Yellowstone National Park) and large cities (e.g. Billings, MT and Chyenne, WY). Identify and begin to close in-city coverage gaps by means of: Implementing a verified coverage map to identify areas without LTE. Allow T-Mobile roaming and possibly even AT&T roaming everywhere and focus on high-roaming in-city areas. Expedite the Massive MIMO rollout to stay at the front of the 5G race. Expedite the tribanding of any remaining single-band/dual-band/non-redundant Clear sites. Look to increase backhaul to high-usage sites. Prioritize interband CA deployment. Prioritize the implementation of dynamic NR UL and move NR to the PCC. Begin talks with Dish to host their 600 and AWS-4 spectrum. This will at least double Sprint’s lowband capacity nationwide and give them greenfield lowband to deploy NR on. Long-term changes (after the first 12 months): Cut EVDO completely ASAP. Run a 1x1900 carrier in L1900 guard bands and maintain the 1x800 carrier. Begin to replace 800 radios with NR/LTE/1x DSS-capable radios. Begin a rural highway buildout in areas where the most T-Mobile and AT&T roaming occurs. The deployment will primarily be lowband. This task is not as daunting as it seems for sites already exist that cover effectively every major highway in the United States. The only thing to do will be to negotiate a reasonable lease. Open up an NR test drive program similar to the one T-Mobile ran for LTE and advertise it heavily.

An interesting note here in this slide which shows best and worst download speeds in some key markets (during peak congestion times). Sprint was #1 in Seattle and Boston. But even more noteworthy, Sprint is only last place in one market...Denver. T-Mobile was often the slowest in this selection. Even Verizon and AT&T all had at least one too.

I believe your understanding is incorrect. Correct and it is 85%. If Softbank exceeds 85% ownership in Sprint a tender offer for the remaining 15% of the company is triggered. But what does this have to do with Softbank injecting money into Sprint? Softbank's initial acquisition of 70% Sprint was a $20.1 billion deal. $8 billion of that was a one time capital contribution to Sprint, the remaining $12.1 billion went to acquire 70% of the shares of Sprint. That $12.1 billion didn't go to Sprint at all, it went to institutional and individual shareholders. The $8 billion in capital isn't typical outside of an initial acquisition either... Subsequently they've raised their stake to somewhere in the 84% range. All of these subsequent transactions to increase their ownership stake have occurred on the open market as far as I know. Equity capital for the offering corporation only typically occurs once at the time of the initial offering i.e. Sprint went public offered stock on the market and got a one time payment at the time of the initial public offering. Any subsequent transactions on the stock market at that point are between the shareholder selling and the new potential shareholder wanting to buy. Softbank in and of itself buying 70% and now 84% of the company gave no money to Sprint. It went directly to the shareholder they bought it from. The "issue" that has apparently limited Softbank's ability to invest in Sprint is in the debt they took out to finance the deal, their Japanese banks included debt covenants restricting Softbank from infusing Sprint with any more capital than the initial $8 billion in the deal to acquire the majority of the company. https://www.wsj.com/articles/doubts-grow-about-whether-softbank-can-save-sprint-1439346616 Without actually seeing the covenants it is hard to know how restrictive they actually are and how much if it is simply unwillingness. Softbank has shown some creativity in the past in getting money to Sprint when they absolutely needed it. But again just to reiterate, the 85% ownership ceiling is a completely separate thing from investing money into the subsidiary.

VoLTE live throughout Bellevue and Seattle this morning.

A new SignalCheck Pro release is rolling out today on Google Play! Version 4.54 is not a major update, but includes the following changes: Added in-app purchase functionality for voluntary contributions. This will allow users to make one-time or automatically recurring donations using their Google Play accounts directly from within the app. There's a silly easter egg if you donate, but it's nothing terriwnality at all. This is a stepping stone to combining Lite and Pro into one app, with Pro becoming an in-app purchase upgrade. This will help keep both versions up-to-date (the free version is embarassingly out of date). I sincerely appreciate everyone's support! Changed imperial LTE TA distance units to display miles instead of feet. This was a nice visual change suggested by a couple of users. If you prefer meters, that can be selected under the Preferences menu. Resolved issue with invalid CDMA sites being displayed/logged. Some invalid connections with BID 0 started appearing when Airave 4 support was added. This is now fixed. Resolved force closes related to the Location Service on some Android 8+ devices. Resolved various force closes related to installing, starting, and exiting the app. Bugfixes are wonderful! Any feedback, positive or negative, is always welcome.. as usual, more improvements are still in progress! -Mike

All this news about 5G is great, but I was on Amtrak yesterday for a day trip between Washington DC (Union Station) and Iselin, NJ (Metropark Station), and Sprint’s coverage while on the trip was atrocious. It repeatedly dropped to no 1x, 1x, 1 bar of LTE, or unusable LTE with more than one bar. (I have a fully updated iPhone XS and I reported the network issues where/when I could.) It makes me wonder if any of Sprint’s Network Team has tested/ridden the Amtrak Northeast Corridor and tried using their device(s). How can they expect anyone to get work done (or other personal usage) while on the trip with this level of network performance? Hopefully Sprint addresses this, because 5G only goes so far in acquiring new and keeping customers. Sprint needs to address these fundamentals.

5G uploads Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sprint is really giving the other carriers a run for there money this year https://www.speedtest.net/reports/united-states/

This merger and the resulting DOJ circus is turning into a house party where everyone brings a booze to throw into the 32 gallon pale for the Party Punch! LOL.... How many more players/ companies will the DOJ entertain before getting this done? This is the most bizarre regulatory approval process!

I think that will work, I'll give that approach a try. New beta rolling out within the hour, mostly bugfixes. No changes to the Sprint LTE offset issue mentioned above, haven't started working on that yet. Trip, it should hopefully resolve your CDMA BID 0 log entries moving forward, sorry it took awhile for that. Changed imperial LTE TA distance units to display miles instead of feet. Improved in-app purchase functionality. Resolved force closes related to the Location Service on some Android 8+ devices. Resolved internal exception thrown on installation(???). Resolved issue with invalid CDMA sites being displayed/logged. -Mike

In terms of radios, Ericsson actually has the most modern radios for 1.9 as the NV RRUS11s were ripped out literally right after they were installed. Penalties for doing a shit job in NV.... It's the same generation as the RRUS32s the other three are still deploying to this day which are very good designs. Antenna wise you do have a point. I've seen ATT and VZW swap out their antennas for newer high gain and performance ones thrice already (LTE B12/13 --> B2/4 --> B5/14/29/66/71 etc) At the bright side they're being very proactive in many regions and going back and changing them to brand new RFS / KMW / etc 8 port antennas that add 4T4R 800 MHz capability while increasing 1.9 coverage patterns / range. My home Clear NV site 800/1.9 antenna was turned on a few days ago and I've been very impressed at its coverage pattern at a 40' elevation. Newer antennas can make a lot of difference! (10-20% perf improvements in same cases) Edit: I've seen pics of those new T-mobile low band antennas. They're the same octoport low band model series from RFS that Sprint is now using.

You can under promise and overdeliver with or without money. You just need to make the right promises.

Finally here!

The LG G7, G8, V40, V50, Pixel 3A, 3A XL, 3, 3XL, S9, S9+, Note 9, S10e, S10, S10 Plus, S10 5G, iPhone XR, XS and XS Max all support it. That's plenty of "device ecosystem " and way more than just three 5G devices yet that is being rolled out. Sent from my SM-G977P using Tapatalk

Sprint calls in Ericsson for site work ==> Ericsson assigns available local peons of varying quality to work ==> some time later ==> Ericsson worker arrives on site ==> worker connects to Ericsson employees in India to do the actual work ==> worker verifies work is "done" and calls it a day ==> tells sprint all good. TLDR of Ericssons network management work. TLDR2: Remember the 65 MHz PCS project? Ericsson completely ripped out the entire PCS NV ERC network in 2014+ for brand new radios for basically free while ALU and Samsung NV era PCS radios are still in use. Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

I just want this all to be completed one way or another... I don't care anymore. Just want all the uncertainty done with. Time for Sprint and T Mobile to get back to business with or without each other... Time to get it done!

I was in Atlanta and Sprints 5G coverage was impressive but most of the time it felt like LTE speeds with a 5G icon. Kinda of like AT&T's 5GE. When band b41 LTE didnt work good then neither did N41. The highest speed I managed was around 450 which is great but it was not common. Also the fact that it was using LTE at the same time makes it even more obvious that Sprint is not putting the backhaul as a high priority. I went inside the Atlanta aquarium and had full bars of 5G but speeds at best was around 15mbps. Meanwhile Verizons LTE was doing around 75mbps and 40-60 upload too. All and all I gotta say I was left fairly disappointed and now see why Sprint needs T-mobile. Sent from my SM-G977P using Tapatalk

Very nice!

New SCP beta 4.54b rolling out now.. minor bugfixes behind the scenes, primarily this is to align with the public app update also going out today. Goal of the next round of testing will be to add some features for Android Q including 5G support. Thanks for all of your support! -Mike

Yes SA NR deployment with ENDC on the downlink. UL NR+LTE ENDC will likely be deployed in the future although I'm not sure the exact forecast on that.

I just replied to his tweet asking about my home site. - Trip

Blue dots are outdoor DAS facilities, I believe. And I hate to say it but that map appears to have some errors in it. There are definitely sites that have been upgraded that are missing, though I suppose they could have been done at the end of last year. But more concerning are a handful of red dots that reflect Clear sites awaiting upgrades that have not yet actually happened. My home site is marked in red on that map--it was still running Clear gear this morning. - Trip

EXACTLY. Give my good 4G. I have no need for 5G at all. Most people do not. All the hype about 5G is just the marketing dept trying to get users for 5g when there really is not much demand.

Glad to see this!

It wasn’t a hard concept: “hey, let’s add band 41 to all sites and see what happens. Lol a bit sarcastic, but that’s what it took Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah so Speedconnect and Sprint initially did some swaps back in middle of 2017 - mostly Sprint got SC's E, F, and H block for their BRS2 (and probably some money). Last year, it looks like SpeedConnect let their Blackhawk College lease expire for the C and D block, and Sprint picked those 2 up, so now they are sitting pretty well with 100MHz+. At their current configuration, it seems like they are only using the F, H, and G-blocks. I haven't seen any C, D or E spectrum used around here yet. Almost all the sites are using 3 B41 carriers, but only a couple sites I've seen have really great speeds (Southpark Mall site I've got 100+). They must still have limited site backhaul for most of them. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cHdOzM5i-Jy5HtqGrqvukOSDlbfFPbLhVWfxcgR4Ljw/edit?usp=sharing

Happy 4th everyone! 🇺🇸💥🍺 Hoping Sprint’s network does well on the National Mall for the 4th of July crowds in DC. I didn’t see any announcements about COWs. Perhaps Massive MIMO is covering the Mall better now?

The way LTE is optimized in my market, I often fall from L800 straight to 1x800. There is no gain in data speeds when this happens. Additionally, I've never experienced usable EVDO when I fall off L800. I think this is the rule, not the exception, as only either one or two EVDO carriers are left in all major metros today. Lastly, falling to CDMA severely delays the reconnect time to LTE. If your data is going to be useless regardless of which network you're on in that location, it's wiser to leave you connected to LTE so you reconnect to something usable sooner. SRLTE will ensure that voice reliability is not impacted. Good QoS can take care of this, especially with lowband 4x2/4x4 MIMO, which Sprint is aggressively deploying (via RFS 8-port dualband antennas and KMW 16-port triband antennas). Recall that AMR-WB only requires 12.65 kbps and that AMR-NB doesn't even require that (as little as just 5-6 kbps depending on configuration). If you ever have the chance to use the TELUS network in British Colombia, you should note their TM parameters. They run 5x5 L800 with a Qrxlevmin of -128 alongside 15x15 L1900 and 20x20 L2100 (note the similarity to Sprint's network in many markets). VoLTE calls work comfortably at -126 on their 800 LTE because their QoS is well configured and the network moves users up to midband quite aggressively.

Do not just zoom in on one device. Sprint stopped the volte updates for ALL older devices in mid December after the iphones and LG v30. They will start releasing those after the full national launch which is not far from now. Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

No. If Softbank attempts to acquire more than 84% equity in Sprint a tender offer is triggered (this means they must buy the remainder of Sprint stock).

Sprint FDD/TDD spotted in Nokia market! B26+B41+B41 and B25+B25+B41 Sent from my SM-G977P using Tapatalk

T-Mobile is launching 5G in 6 cities on June 28th alongside the Galaxy S10 5G. The cities are NYC, LA, Las Vegas, Dallas, Cleveland, and Atlanta. If you’re in one of these cities, you’ll be able to purchase the phone, though T-Mobile makes it clear that its 5G coverage is currently extremely limited and will only reliably work outdoors. They even kinda have coverage maps. NYC has the largest deployment out of all of them and it's because their macro site density is insane here. The rest of the cities don't look too good.

I hope they go court personally. It will help clarify the limits of DOJ's powers to force a settlement and whether they have standing to sue under the antitrust laws in this instance. I am totally against spectrum concessions and I am also against any concessions that can come back to hurt T-Mobile.

This is amazing. In an homage to the warrior-poets Warren G, Nate Dogg; I'm so thoroughly pleased by the regulators for once, they appear to have mounted up successfully.

Debt Ceiling

Deep Thoughts

Interesting stuff. I'm excited to hear how performance is, especially latency.

Flompholop, you need to take a trip into Shentel territory. Lots of B-41. Not on every site, but it is on sites that need it. In my area, we have a 10x10 and a 15X15 on B-25. Also 2Xca on b-41 and also one B-41 channel at 10 wide. also the standard 800 channel. This is what we have in what is considered a small town. Nearby small towns mostly have the same thing. You can find rural sites with much less capacity but they are adequate for now. Only occasionally do I see any issue. Right now I am in Tucson, Az which is considered a big city and I see multiple issues. When I travel outside Shentel territory is when I have issues. Shentel is not perfect, but they are doing a great job is a very tough area to cover. Miles and miles of rural territory with big mountains and smaller towns.

This is now possible with eSIM phones (Pixel 3 and 3a and XL). You just sign in with your Sprint account during setup and that's it. Presumably we'll see eSIM on more phones going forward, now that the next (unreleased) Qualcomm chip is certified for doing eSIM without a separate chip. Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

I worry that they're going to lose all the good PR that they've been getting. It'll now become "Sprint said they would have nine cities up and running with 5G by the end of 1H 2019 and they've failed to do that".

Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Renton and Woodinville are live too. The launch is market-wide.

VoLTE live throughout Bellevue and Seattle, WA this morning.

I see PCS CDMA mostly going away soon. With Verizon CDMA roaming going away at the end of this year and the nationwide VoLTE launch coming soon, they will likely thin PCS CDMA down to a single 1x carrier (for old CDMA-only voice devices) and run it in an LTE guard band. 1x800 is likely here to stay for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if they require OEMs to manufacture custom radios in the next few years that support LTE/NR DSS and 1x800.

Marriage Advice

FDD-TDD limitations due to different radio technologies. Samsung phones has the most advanced radio configs and thus supports the most carriers but have limitations on MIMO streams as in no 4x4 MIMO on any component carriers. Most other devices are FDD+TDD and some are FDD+TDD+TDD but again there are limitations on MIMO streams. Most of Sprints 1.9 network has 4x4 or 2x4 now live and a large portion on 2.5 is 4x4 so that's a chunk of downlink capacity being traded off. It's a large balancing act and with the turnaround inside of Sprint and with the rudderless leadership, we can see why many projects do not come to fruition. FWIW, FDD+TDD was identified early in the industry on as one potential solution to slow uplink speeds years ago alongside uplink CA using higher order MIMO. It is not the end all solution but a very useful tool in the toolkit if they can figure out how to use it.

I like it but their LTE is still the least reliable thanks to FDD/TDD not being a thing. Sent from my SM-G977P using Tapatalk

Another M-MIMO.. On 43rd and Sixth Ave.. Beautiful shot! Courtesy of WSJ, they wrote an article about 5G deployments use of Chinese hardware. Link to article.. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-considers-requiring-5g-equipment-for-domestic-use-be-made-outside-china-11561313072