S4GRU

You cannot punish existing license holders over protection sites. They were just meeting the guidelines that the FCC set forth. They agreed to meet the service requirements when they bid. If the requirements were more stringent, the amount paid would be less. However, I do believe the current FCC requirements for build out are woefully inadequate, and should be much more stringent. And after 10 years, on existing licenses, the FCC should increase the build out requirements further to something more reasonable, or allow that spectrum to be put back out there to be used by someone else. But this would likely require congressional action. EDIT: Another thought that comes to mind is to make a formula that highest price does not win, but bidders have to bid not only on price but POP percentage covered. So if carrier wants to bid $1 Billion, but 90% POP's covered in 5 years, that would beat out a $3 Billion bid with 30% POPs covered in 5 years. Robert

I agree with this philosophy. But your post did not say this. You were basically saying that AT&T and Verizon shouldn't have to meet this type of requirement if they are allowed to participate in the 600MHz auction without restriction. Because AT&T and VZW are sitting on boatloads of unused spectrum, especially in secondary, tertiary and rural markets. I agree they should lose it too. This is something AJ has been advocating for a long, long time. Robert

I know what you mean. However, I claim their LTE network! It's in my market, after all... Robert

We have a General Topics section for off topic conversation. People are free to post what they want here...within reason. Robert

There about 3 dozen sites converted all the way across the island past the Hamptons. However, LI is an Alcatel Lucent market. A/L starts their market upgrades with the 3G side first, and after they get about 30% of the market complete, they start bringing online the LTE side too. It is probably another 30-45 days until the first LTE sites start firing up on LI. Ericsson and Samsung markets are handled differently. Robert

Never!!!

It's bleedover from Manhattan. There are still no LTE sites accepted complete in the Northern Jersey market as of yesterday. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

That's S4GRU Yellow. I have Forum Runner set default with that color when using S4GRU. It's that color for any user, unless they manually override a color in the settings. But if they go to another site in FR, it defaults back to the periwinkle blue color. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

I read this morning that El Paso is now on the Sprint LTE Coming Soon list. So this means the Albuquerque market full build sites are starting. A happy day for us here in New Mexico. And yes, New Mexicans consider El Paso ours. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Your hypocrisy has not been forgotten with this post. I have seen several posts from you where you complain about Sprint not deploying low frequency spectrum in rural West Washington. And now you think Sprint shouldn't have access to new low frequency spectrum? Meanwhile, AT&T and VZW have low frequency spectrum to cover nearly the entire United States with one CDMA/GSM carrier, one EVDO/HSPA carrier and one LTE carrier, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Yet, they haven't. Why not? And you want them to have more? AT&T and VZW do not need more low frequency spectrum. They need more capacity. And high frequency spectrum will fit that bill just fine. Sprint has very little low frequency spectrum and Tmo has none. This disparity causes a reduction in competition. Even if you want to go to VZW or AT&T for their better rural coverage, it's in your interest to make sure the competition has ample access to spectrum to remain viable competitors. We all gain from a competitive market, no matter who you subscribe to. In reality, AT&T and VZW have enough rural spectrum for 30-50 years, nationwide. This is all about urban spectrum. AT&T and VZW want low frequency spectrum because it allows them to more cheaply deploy spectrum over a broader area. They have wide tower spacing in places they have Cellular and 700 spectrum. Adding additional carriers on just these towers is very cheap. They want that, and pocket the difference. Meanwhile, their competitors don't have this luxury. And have higher deployment, network upgrade and operational costs per subscriber. It's unfair, especially when you consider it's a public resource. And if AT&T or VZW were value carriers and thus giving the public a benefit of their reduced network costs with wider tower spacing with low frequency spectrum, then it could almost be a defendable position. However, they pocket all those savings, and charge a premium for those services. All with a public resource. It's disgraceful, and attitudes like yours will only contribute further to this problem and harm fair competition. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

All new cabinets at every site, regardless of legacy vendor. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

naughty list Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

The first LTE signals will probably start going live in June. The first sites to get LTE will be sites already accepted with the 3G NV upgrades. After LTE sites start going live, coverage will grow more and more every week until the whole market is completed. It will likely take 6-9 months to complete the whole market once LTE starts to go live. Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Wounded Knee Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Work did indeed start in Winter, just as was stated. It didn't say it would be complete in Winter. ALU mobilized in the Tucson Yuma market in January, just a few weeks after Winter started. They started getting sites accepted in March, before the first day of Spring. *sigh* Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Unfortunately (or fortunately), you are not aware of the long ongoing discussion on this topic that appears in many threads on our site. You would need to read all of that history to be able to make that claim against AJ. AJ has explained, defended and used reasonable points in hundreds of posts on this topic. AJ and I agree on many things, but we have disagreed in the past on some subjects. AJ also has disagreements with other staff members about this subject and many others. He has no problem discussing in detail his opinion and he offers very good counter arguments. AJ, and many of our members, do not appreciate people who abuse the Sprint network and hide behind the unlimited banner. They confront these abusers and people who defend them. However, when it comes to jamessinclair and dedub, I don't think there is much love between them and AJ either way. They have very opposing view points when it comes to data usage and spectrum utilization. AJ is certainly able to say he dislikes someone after months and months of banter. And jamessinclair and dedub will be able to make their counter points. We do not sensor posts unless they violate our posting guidelines, whether from staff, sponsors or members. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Yes indeed. 93 updates in the Nashville market from the previous update. The Sponsor maps updated last night around Midnight. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

It was in Waco. Yes, I did report that. However, it was not scientific. I was parked on CDMA 800 Channel 476. I initiated a phone call and went back to the Engineering screen. It changed to a PCS channel. I assumed at some point during the call, it handed off from SMR to PCS. But it's possible that it changed when I went into my dialer before the call was placed. I wished I had done more testing back then. But I jumped to a conclusion that hand off had occurred. I haven't had CDMA 800 since. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

OMG. Entner came down wrong on every single point. *sigh* Also, he fails to mention that most of the combined company's spectrum is high frequency. This new spectrum coming open that AT&T and VZW would be limited to is low frequency spectrum. Something the duopoly is flush with. He is in bed with AT&T and has proven it with his slanted writing for years. The purpose of his hit piece here is to make a DISH deal seem like a good thing and paint the picture that the new company would have too much spectrum and that his beloved AT&T will need all the new low frequency spectrum that comes up so it can compete with those big bad asses over at Sprint/Dish. I get sick of his writing. It's worse in some ways, because Entner is much better regarded than Moffet in the industry. AT&T would love for Sprint to go to DISH over Softbank. Softbank will be a virulent competitor to the duopoly that will go for the jugular. Softbank will also do anything and everything to shore up it's network and keep it operating well in order to compete. DISH will not try to compete with AT&T or VZW, but rather use Sprint to compete with DirecTV. Sprint is an end to its means of having a ready to go network for the lowest price possible. But likely this whole DISH ploy is still just to either get ridiculously cheap network hosting or to get Sprint to hand over the Clearwire network and appropriate spectrum to Dish for their own evil spectrum wasting schemes. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

drunk hobo Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

That would have been my next guess. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Punch Bug! Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

You're a good daddy! Teaching him the ways of the Force. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

I finally got caught up on this thread. AJ and Ryan handled all the points well. I just wanted to add that even though T-Mobile has nearly the same coverage in square mileage as Sprint, if you just look at 3G/4G coverage, Sprint has double the coverage. So much of Tmo coverage is EDGE only, which offers the same performance as Sprint 1x Roaming. For anyone who cares about rural data coverage, Tmo is not an option in most places. Sprint's rural 3G coverage is at least quadruple Tmo. And Sprint's 1x roaming is greater coverage than Tmo EDGE. Tmo is basically good for people who live in urban cities and only occasionally travel through rural areas. Sprint offers us rural customers an opportunity to have a decent 3G experience along rural highways and medium sized rural towns, and roam all other places. This is a good thing for approximately 75% of rural customers, and gives us a choice to not be beholden to the AT&T/Verizon duopoly. I would love for Sprint to expand rural native coverage in the places I go. But I have realistic expectations too. To plan and deploy a brand new site costs around $300-$400k on an existing tower, and can be over a million on a brand new site. Also, operationally, will cost between $20k to $50k. That's a lot of money just to break even in a rural area with few customers. Most rural sites won't recover the costs for an operator like Sprint. It takes a much larger piece of the pie, like 40 percent market share. You can't pull 40 in a new market where you have no presence and no stores. The math just doesn't work out. Sprint closely watches where roaming occurs. If an area starts to receive enough roaming that it pays to build a site, that's what they do. This is the best they can do with the resources it has. What they could do, and something I'd advocate, is to put back 3G roaming. They removed 3G roaming a few years ago. Now with the prevalence of LTE, I think it's time to put back in place EVDO roaming. It would allow a lot of people a better rural off network data experience and maybe keep a few more rural customers from choosing VZW or ATT. Additionally, I would like to see the data roaming cap raised to 500MB (from 300MB now). Or at least have an option to purchase more roaming data for the cost the buy it, plus a reasonable markup. Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Donkey Show Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD