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mozamcrew

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Everything posted by mozamcrew

  1. mozamcrew
    Ok, this is my understanding, Feel free to correct me here AJ. The reason that lower frequencies are percieved as having longer range is because they are attenuated less by obstructions than higher frequencies as a general rule. Thus they are able to achieve greater coverage (distance and building penetration) from a single site compared to higher frequencies. The downside to lower frequency spectrum is that in dense urban areas, since it has such low attenuation, it creates more interferance issues with neighboring cell sites than higher frequency spectrum. As far as technologies and coverage go, my understanding is that the LTE signal is more "complex" than CDMA/EV-DO. This allows LTE to pack more data into a given slice of spectrum than EV-DO. It also allows LTE to handle cell edge interferance issues better than CDMA. The downside is that the signal is more "fragile" than CMDA/EV-DO, and thus requires greater signal strength to achive a working connection. Thus there will be places where you have a working CDMA connection where you won't be able to get a working LTE signal from the same cell site on the same frequency.
  2. mozamcrew
    But what would be the point?! It would be a tremendous additional expenditure both for its customers and for Sprint. You are already moving to an all LTE network. Why add additional costly intermediate steps? In the areas where Sprint has a full 7x7 of 800 spectrum, which is most of the US outside the SE (SoLinc) and the IBEZ, I suppose you could go from one 5x5 of LTE to a pair of 3x3 LTE channels, You would get a negligible gain of capacity though. I imagine the 1xA channels of CDMA on 800 will be the last part of the CDMA network Sprint shutters. To take advantage of the spectral efficiencies of FD-LTE, you really want to have spectrum allocations that are 5x5, 10x10, 15x15, or 20x20. Since the PCS spectrum was all auctioned as 5x5, 10x10 or 15x15, this fits perfectly. Sprint's 800 and the CLR 850 band allocations aren't nice contiguous 5Mhz paired allocations. Thus you might as well use the leftover slivers to continue to run a few channels of CDMA right up until the bitter end.
  3. mozamcrew
    Why should Sprint and VZW bother converting to UMTS? By the time option arrived they had both decided to be early adopters of LTE. I know it feels like Sprint is "behind" on LTE, and that may be true compared to VZW, but compared to most of the world the big US carriers tend to be earlier adopters of new technology. If you already know you are converting to LTE, why waste money converting to UMTS first. There is a lot of UE you'd have to junk and replace too. Why not just add LTE and slowly push CDMA out of the UE over the next 10 years. Hopefully by that time your LTE network is very robust.
  4. mozamcrew
    I guess it depends on how impressed you are with the LG G2 (or some other triband phone) and if you really want to leave for T-Mobile. How good is TMO coverage in the areas you live, work and travel? If you are leaving for data speed I think you are better off staying. Think how much progress Sprint will make between now and May. Hopefully most sites will have backhaul by then and thus most will have LTE of some kind.
  5. mozamcrew
    Maybe, but I'd rather have 3x3 LTE800 with 1x800 than 5x5 LTE800 with no 1x800. 800 is important for fallback coverage on sites that have to cover a lot of territory or for in building penetration. EVDO will disappear long before 1x due 1x having superior coverage properties and LTE is a far more efficient use of spectrum than EVDO. 1xA will still have advantage in usable coverage. Even with the move to VoLTE, I'd expect to see Sprint keep a channel of 1x800 in most places for quite a long time.
  6. mozamcrew
    I think all the NV gear is installed, but I don't think all the performance tuning is done, and I don't think all the towers are broadcasting 1x800. For example, I'm getting 1x800 signals from the tower to the east of me in Underwood MN and from the tower south of Fergus Falls (in fact my 1x signal is parked on there currently). I'm not getting 1x800 from the site in the middle of town, or the one north of town that seems to be the source of my current 3G signal. Maybe the one in the middle of town won't get 1x800 due to coverage overlap, but I can't imagine that the north tower won't get it eventually given the large area it covers. So I presume that though these are all 3G accepted, I'd wager that some of them will be getting 1x800 in the future that don't have it already.
  7. mozamcrew
    I think it started a couple years before that, basically right after the Nextel acquisition was complete. Outsourcing to Ericsson was a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Sprint was stuck trying to operate and maintain two different networks and two different pools of customers while getting Nextel's spectrum rebanded so that it could be used on a modern network (Wider channels and moving public safety). This was expensive and didn't leave a lot of money for investing in it's existing network. Hence why Sprint "gave" its 2.6 Ghz spectrum to Clearwire to roll out and outsourced its legacy maintenace to Ericsson. They didn't have the cash to build out Wimax themselves and maintain both of the legacy networks. Ericsson and Clearwire were the answer to that dilema. The problem for Sprint was that Clearwire proved unable to roll out wimax on the scale Sprint needed, thus the legacy network slowly went down the tubes.
  8. mozamcrew
    That makes sense since it looks like they started out by Jamestown in the Dakota's market and have been working their way west. They just finished Fergus Falls last week and a bunch of areas to our NE (Perham, Pelican Rapids, Park Rapids Wadena, etc). Looks like it's just you guys and Grand Forks left mostly. (No one in this market has LTE though. I think they are all waiting on backhaul)
  9. mozamcrew
    In Fargo I think all the NV equipment has been installed as pretty much everything there is 3G complete. I think the holdup on LTE is they are still waiting for the backhaul to be installed. I've noticed some weirdness with texts and data though. They may have some tweaking to do before everything settles back to normal.
  10. mozamcrew
    I think ntelos has said they plan to start rolling out LTE late this year, the question is what spectrum they plan on using. Their current agreement with Sprint is limited to Sprint's original PCS spectrum IIRC, so they can't be doing LTE on PCS G, 800, or 2.6 without a new agreement. Ntelos does have some spectrum of their own I think. I'm not sure what all they have though (850/AWS/700), but I'm assuming they will be using that for LTE. Otherwise they'd have to canabalize their existing PCS spectrum which is hosting their current 3G CDMA network in order to add LTE. Only the 850 spectrum would be compatible with upcomming triband phones and iPhones since band 26 LTE includes both 800 and 850. I'm very curious to see how this shakes out.
  11. mozamcrew
    I thought the deal was only about a reimbursement dispute under their existing agreement. I hadn't heard that Sprint and Ntelos had signed a new agreement where Ntelos agrees to do Network Vision. Did I miss that?
  12. mozamcrew
    ATT and VZW have a mixture of 800 Celluar (the original cellular spectrum) and PCS in most markets. In some markets one of the two blocks of 800 cellular is owned by a regional or small carrier (USCC owns it in a few markets for example). In those markets either ATT or VZW ends up with a PCS only network, just like Sprint had before acquiring the 800 SMR spectrum and clearwire spectrum. ATT and VZW also own some AWS spectrum, but that is pretty much exclusively for LTE also.
  13. mozamcrew
    I hope you get your power back soon! I guess a snowblower will be on the list of items that need to be purchased. I myself am a fan of shoveling, but if you have significant amounts of pavement to clear sometimes you just don't have 5 hours to do it all. buy a gas powered one, for obvious reasons. The most reliable by reputation seem to be Snapper or Toro.
  14. mozamcrew
    I assume since the issue is specific to the law in those states, it should be unaffected. Employees of the states shouldn't be impacted directly by this. Unless there is some federal hoop I'm not aware of.
  15. mozamcrew
    Well, you got the market right I believe. Well, if you check this map, http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4186-network-vision-site-map-minnesota-dakotas-milwaukee-and-north-wisconsin-markets/ you will see a list of sites expected to get NV upgrades, the nearest one I see is to the east in Belgrade. Are you sure the tower in Brooten is/was Sprint and not Nextel or some other carrier?
  16. mozamcrew
    Getting 1x800 from the tower farthest from me in Fergus Falls!
  17. mozamcrew
    Looks like there is work happening at the tower near Rothsay, MN. Right next to the interstate. I've driven by a couple times the last few days and there are trucks and equipment in area around the tower.
  18. mozamcrew
    Maybe you are in the IBEZ and Sprint can't put 800 up there yet?
  19. mozamcrew
    Verizon did have some lower A block licenses, any idea who those went to?
  20. mozamcrew
    I thought Verizon sold a bunch of them to ATT when it divested all of it's lower 700Mhz licenses as part of it's deal to acquire the AWS spectrum from the Spectrum Co? I know most of block A is owned by US Cell or other regionals, but I thought Verizon did have some and sold them to ATT.
  21. mozamcrew
    Sprint really has two choices: They can participate in the 600 Mhz auction, or they can try to cobble together some 700 Mhz spectrum. If they can acquire enough 700 Mhz spectrum at a reasonable cost, they don't need to participate in the 600 Mhz auction. If I were Sprint, I might cut a deal with ATT. I'd offer to take all their 700Mhz A block licenses off of their hands for a reasonable price. ATT would get $$$, eliminate a bidder in the 600 Mhz auction, and gain roaming customers on their band 12 LTE network. In areas where ATT doesn't own the A block currently, it is usually owned by a regional carrier, thus meaning Sprint should have two different roaming choices in the markets where it DOESN'T have A Block licenses. Hopefully this will mean lower roaming costs for Sprint. Since most of the regional carriers have settled on band 12, this would be a good way for Sprint to cozy up to them and give them roaming options beyond ATT and VZW.
  22. mozamcrew
    On Samsung sites with both SMR and PCS, you usally see 2 RRU's per antenna, one for PCS and one for SMR. In the IBEZ you won't have any SMR RRUs of course, so on those sites you won't see a 2nd RRU. You also see SMR skipped on some sites in dense urban areas.
  23. mozamcrew
    By mixed/dual mode they mean the RRU can do both CDMA and LTE (or WiMax and LTE in the case of 2.6 Ghz RRUs). So in Sprint's case, you have RRUs for PCS, 800SMR, and eventually BRS/EBS.
  24. mozamcrew
    Maybe when they say "800" they mean CLR, not ESMR? How old is the phone?
  25. mozamcrew
    My guess is that NV voice and 3G are still on the old backhaul so we won't be seeing much in the way of speed increases until the backhaul is installed and LTE begins to light up.
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