mozamcrew

Long term it's going to be an all LTE ecosystem anyhow. Why waste money deploying GSM/WCDMA now on prime spectrum (PCS/AWS/700Mhz) for LTE. In the long term, CDMA can survive as legacy in the 800 Mhz bands simply because it makes more efficient use of the leftover scraps of spectrum you have when you deploy LTE in band 26. Sprint will have room for a 5x5 and a single 1x800 carrier in their spectrum (in most areas). If you have Cell A or B block, you have room for 10x10 LTE and 1x or a 5x5 LTE and 4 1x carriers. Long term, the 1x800 carrier will be the last thing Sprint turns off, simply because it doesn't cost them anything to leave it. MAYBE you get a 1.4 Mhz LTE carrier, but it gains you very little speed/capacity, whereas your PCS holdings are all in 5Mhz increments, so they will all be converted to LTE eventually.

Are you saying the Husker fans still don't like Bo ....

Well, there are rumors that Wyoming wants to move to the Big 12 long term, but first they need a competitive team. Also, I think he likes the area/culture and thinks it's a good fit for him.

I was posting from my phone, and I was going to try to include a picture, but I couldn't get it resized.

I was at the North Dakota State vs. Costal Carolina Quarter final playoff game yesterday. It was on ESPN, and it turned into a beatdown.

March Is On! Beatdown On ESPN!

Yup, that's because of eCSFB. There is a good article about this on The Wall. This is why the focus has shifted to getting sites 3G completed in Minneapolis. They want to get this fixed. This is only an issue for those with newer triband phones, since they don't do SVLTE.

Any sites still with eCSFB issues won't let you connect to them over LTE, as a result of that, and the ongoing NV work in MPLS, you might be seeing some issues.

I think Grand Forks is 3G upgraded. So all the antennas and RRUs are up already. They just need to get backhaul connected so they can turn on LTE.

They should put some christmas lights on that thing! I mean they have to run power to it anyhow.

I'm paying $75 for DSL that is 25 down/3 up. I will say it doesn't seem to suffer from the peak congestion issues that I used to see with cable. I care more that those advertised speeds are sustainable than the supposed "burst" speed they offer.

It's not JUST that it's triband, it's that the third band is using TD-LTE.

Maybe if you have "voice enhancement" off, instead of using the aux microphone pickup for noise cancelation like it would with voice enhancement on, it actually picks up sounds on it instead of shutting it off. Depending on how you are holding the handset, it might produce a "crackling" sound.

If you look at post #367 on this thread, AJ explains why. Bascially, the CDMA version of the iPhone drops back to CDMA manually every few seconds to make sure it doesn't have any incoming calls/texts (only for fractions of a second though, so you don't notice), rather than relying on CSFB/eCSFB telling the phone to drop back. Did I get that right AJ?

Looks to me like the entire Dakotas market is now 3G complete. Now they just need to get LTE and 1x800 completed!

I think Sprint's strategy with 1x800 is to have phones try to "Park" on that frequency (to avoid roaming and save your battery) but shunt you over to 1XRTT/PCS when you are on a call (assuming you have acceptable signal on PCS). Triband phones will park on LTE carriers, instead of CDMA carriers, of course (while SVLTE phones are parked on both simultaneously). 1x is a digital system, so having 5 bars instead of 2 bars isn't going to make your phone call any better, what IS important is being able to maintain a minimum signal level at all times. With digital you don't have a gradual degredation, you either have "enough", or not enough signal at any given moment in time.

Well they may not have a choice, but it does limit who can recieve their broadcast over the air.

Like any other lower frequency spectrum, the advantage of VHF is that it has better range in theory, and the trouble is that it has better range in theory.

USCC still owns a ton of 700Mhz A spectrum. I don't think that they've given up on it, they just decided to move first on their Cell spectrum because it doesn't have any issues with channel 51 and they don't have to deal with the lack of band 12 equipment. Those two issues will soon be solved though. Sprint and ATT have both committed to support band 12 on devices, and channel 51 will have to be cleared before you have even have a 600Mhz auction.

If stations are willing to MOVE from the top of the UHF band down into VHF then that's fine by me. I realize it's not ideal in the northeast since you don't WANT that added range, but those of us living in the boonies appreciate the range of VHF stations.

ATT has a pretty solid stranglehold on the B block.

According to the spectrum map, ATT has the E block in the NY/Boston area and the LA/SF area. I take your meaning though, the vast majority is Echostar.

Here's another map that might be helpful, but I like yours too. http://specmap.sequence-omega.net/ Here's what I think are the advantages of buying up the 700Mhz A block from VZW/ATT/TMUS vs the 600 Mhz auction. - The 600Mhz is unstandardized for LTE by 3GPP (The IBEZ for 800 will be fixed long before 600Mhz is ready to deploy) - No guarantee that the broadcasters will move, thus in some markets you might have very little spectrum to bid on and will be in a bidding war with TMUS (who is more desperate for the spectrum than you are). Thus you wind up paying WAY too much or risk not getting any spectrum in some markets. The broadcasters already HAVE to move off of the 700 lower A block. (A bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush) - You don't have to deploy equipment or buy licenses (lower initial spend) for the areas controlled by USCC and Cspire. You already have LTE and CDMA roaming deals with these carriers that are better than what you have from VZW. - VZW wants to get rid of their lower 700 A licenses because of their AWS purchase agreements, TMUS because they only hold a single license and probably could use the cash in the 600 Mhz auction, ATT/LEAP because they only have two licenses and they have so much other spectrum (Cell, 700 Lower BCDE, AWS, PCS, and WCS). Given that these sellers are motivated, you'd hope that Sprint can get these licenses for a lot less that what it was planning to spend in the 600 Mhz auction. Especially if they know that is will help keep Sprint out of the 600 Mhz auction and maybe free up some cap space for the AWS3 1755-1780/2155-2180 auction. - Sprint has already committed to devices that allow band 12 roaming in the future. http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20130418/carriers/cca-spring-2013-sprint-nextel-moves-enable-lte-roaming/ If you can avoid 600Mhz, that's one less band to pack into your phones.

With a device like the One (SVLTE) it's possible for your LTE to be coming from one tower while your 3G is coming from another.

I'd be in favor of Sprint skipping the 600 Mhz auction, buying Verizon's 700Mhz A block spectrum, and then signing LTE roaming agreements/deployment agreements with the small regional carriers that own the rest of it. Who knows how much spectrum will actually be available for the 600Mhz auction.