S4GRU

Sprint is afraid to discuss Clearwire in association with investors. Definitely spooked!

iPhone numbers beat my expectations. I was expecting 1M to 1.2M. 1.8M was a much bigger number than I thought possible.

I heard that the LTE chipsets that Sprint will need to use are going to be 3x the cost of comparable 700 only sets like in the Nexus. At least initially. Then they will come down with economies of scale.

I think that the iPhone is definitely a double edged sword. It's apparent that Dan Hesse is aware of that too based on the flavor of the conference call today. But he sure played up the positive part of their relationship with Apple. He makes it sound symbiotic.

But we all know Apple is the real winner here. But hopefully, Sprint can find some way to win somewhat out of the deal. If they do, it's more in public perception and marketing, not in the financials.

Furthermore, all have been Ericsson cities, except for Baltimore (which is A/L). So there must be several more A/L and Samsung cities to be announced for NV/LTE deployment for 1st half of 2012. I think we must have heard all the Ericsson cities by now.

I think Sprint is trying to play the, under promise, over deliver card.

We need to come up with new terms for the various meanings of Unlimited. Unlimited should only mean the purest meaning...no caps, no throttling...in all circumstances.

Maybe we can call usually unlimited, but may be throttled on busy cell sites at peak times something else? Like Mega Data?

I have no idea. But I'm sick of carriers trying to redefine unlimited data, when in reality what they are offering is nothing like unlimited.

Additionally, I'm tired off all the buffoons on Verizon and AT&T that smirk and say they are "Grandfathered." In reality, their unlimited data keeps changing daily, and the grandfather term they keep throwing around doesn't mean squat. AT&T's throttling of grandfathered unlimited proves that their plans are neither grandfathered nor unlimited. DOH!

fever blister

I have high hopes for CM9. However, I'm starting to get impatient. It's February now. It must be much more entailed than originally thought.

My wife is loving her 7" cheap chinese tablet with ICS.

Thanks for your first post Fraydog. Welcome to S4GRU.

- Robert

Frank is in duh haus!!!

Welcome. And I'm glad you're loving the new site. I am too!!!

- Robert

Big Easy

S4GRU is now mobile...posted via Forum Runner

Just waiting for the dam to burst and all the ICS ROM's hit the streets

Must not include WiMax as part of the deal like the recently announced Simplicity MVNO deal.

I'm waiting for the fluorescent chartreuse model, myself.

- Robert

Big Kahuna

I was surprised by all the additional band-aid capex they are spending just months in advance of Network Vision. Especially in markets where NV is already under way. But I guess they figure they have to do something about the network, especially with all these new iPhone users staring at them, asking "WTH???"

I was definitely shocked about the thought of forced WiMax offload. If I hadn't seen the Sprint documentation with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

This is so egregious! I'm sure billionaires would say it would be better for the economy if they had all of our assets, too.

AT&T sits on so much unused spectrum all around the country. We don't have a spectrum problem for the big carriers. They can divide their cells up smaller and smaller. But that costs money they don't wanna spend.

It's the smaller carriers who need more spectrum, so they can install larger EVDO and LTE carriers for faster data performance.

When I think about all of the spectrum AT&T owns and has never deployed on, it makes me really pissed off!!!

When I say additional T1 lines, I'm using the term very loosely. I'm using the term to mean all subscriber based all-copper backhaul solutions. Sprint mostly uses bundled T1 lines for its backhaul to date at cell sites. But they use several different backhaul solutions.

This was a good and very scalable solution for sites for years. But when everyone else started switching to enhanced backhaul methods a few years ago, Sprint stayed with bundled T1's just adding a few more lines each time additional backhaul capacity is needed. The enhancements shown on the network.sprint.com website where it denotes "Speed Upgrades" usually means additional subscriber line based backhaul was added to the tower to get additional backhaul capacity. This has resulted in highly variable results from tower to tower.

Fortunately, these are all going by the wayside as they move to fiber and microwave-bridge-to-fiber backhaul solutions.

Some more details on Shentel's Network Vision rollout: http://seekingalpha....ment-transcript

 

They reveal a fair amount in their presentation and the Q&A, worth a read.

Posted an article about it. Thanks for the lead. I was going to put the call on my "To Do List" last week, but I forgot. I was very busy working with forum migration.

I was under the impression that NetworkVision isn't directly going to help speeds in Sprints current "troubled" areas. the whole NetworkVision thing is mainly about Sprint being able to cover more area with less towers since they will be able to switch between all freq seamlessly.

It will help speeds in areas where if you currently get 2 bars of signal, and then after the upgrade you are getting stronger better signal, but areas that are troubled and over capacity greatly I understand it wont help them as much.

 

Example my tower I'm within .5mi to my home and it is extremely over capacity which in turn has absolutely destroyed my 3G speeds here. Full signal and I along with everyone else pull speeds way below Sprints posted Average's(600kbps). 6am I can pull about 500kbps, and then by 11am speeds drop already off to 300kbps average for me and never get better.

 

So for people like me in my situation, which is a ton of people, speeds wont improve until they add the backhaul to the tower to handle the capacity. In my case thats set to be done by 3/30 according to the last chat I had where the Advance Tech rep screenshot me the orders for that tower exactly.

It's going to be very different, depending on the dynamics of each individual cell. Backhaul will be upgraded to microwave bridge or fiber at all NV sites. So this will dramatically improve 3G speeds. For most users, it will result in speeds from 1.4MB to 2.5MB speeds, with a good signal. And good signals are going to be more plentiful with radios being installed up high behind antennas.

However, if after an NV system upgrade the cell site is over carrier capacity, Sprint may still need to add additional EVDO carriers to create these types of 3G speeds. Performance could falter if there are not enough EVDO carriers installed at the new NV tower to handle the needs of the users within the cell.

But beyond additional carriers, Sprint has many Capacity Constrained Markets. Places where all the licensed spectrum they have is used up. This is the case on many cell sites in Chicago. We did a write up about Sprint's challenges with Network Vision and limited spectrum last Friday.

In the cases where CCM's are an issue, there is no quick and easy fix for Sprint to keep 3G speeds up for users within the spectrum maxed out cell. Sprint will need to split the cell and add towers in these instances. And Sprint hasn't said whether they will do the cell splitting with Network Vision, or in some future capex.

The people in CCM's within a cell that needs to be split will be the folks who will not get as much relief from Network Vision as everyone else. I do believe that 80% or more of the Sprint 3G network will have speeds above 1.4MB when NV is complete.

You should wait and see the results of Qualcomm's new S4 based chips when they start being put in devices later this year. They have been able to embed the LTE modem directly on the die of the chip which according to them will help greatly with both battery life and also performance.

Currently no one else is offering this nor from what i've read has even planned to do this.

 

MWC coming up at the end of this month and then CTIA a little later after should have some devices with these chips in them and be able to give some better specs on battery life and such.

 

Signal is everything though too, esp with phones these days. lower signal typically results in lower speeds, which will also in turn make your device work longer to get the same amount of data/information.

I must be a major dork. Reading this got me really excited! Thanks for the post.

sugar free

I have been waiting a long time for someone to start this game!!!

The new site is nice. It is lot more responsive now... I do have to start learning my way around again. I loved the "Dashboard" on the old site but "View New Content" is even better. Good choice on the move.

I'm going to try to recreate the dashboard at the new site. My first attempt failed.

I was going to try and get everything complete before moving you all over, but the new site runs so much better, and the new content and notifications system are so awesome.

I just couldn't in good conscience leave you over in the old forums suffering. This new site is 10x better. So I did a mad rush this past weekend to get the forum migration completed.

I appreciate all the feedback. I'm going to treat this like a "honey-do" list and try to tackle one issue at a time. My goal is to build the best forums possible with the tools and expertise that I've got.

Thanks to you all.

Sent from Tapatalk App

I was able to get Forum Runner working tonight. Although, I personally prefer Tapatalk over Forum Runner. But that's just me.

I also got a lot of emoticons installed...check these out...

:jester:

TS - I fear that you are right.

We are glad to see you around S4GRU. And no matter what name you go by, I hope we see you around often. Our new forums are compatible with the Tapatalk app, and soon Forum Runner too. You can also use our Mobile HTML5 site on the go in your mobile device browser.