JThorson

Great article. It's good to see the carriers actually somewhat work with each other. 

That is one of the ? With relay setups. Speeds will vary depending on signal quality and the load on the donor lte signal. But in almost all cases really, relays aren't meant for speed. They're meant for coverage. Areas wheree b41 are OK to half decent outdoors but get zero b41 and congested 25/26 indoors. The thing to remember is relay sites are not considered their own unique cell sites. They broadcast the same exact lte carrier information as the donor site giving the relay site the bandwidth. If massive data speed increase is required then traditional backhaul and configuration of the eNB as a unique site with its own identifiable information is needed instead of a relay.

Okay, that makes perfect sense. It will be good to boost the coverage since that is one of the weaker parts of their network. Thanks Tim.

Tim, got a question for you. I understand the concept of having a relay but if the relay doesn't have a very strong signal to the donor site, would it still have sufficient speeds?

By the way, great article.

I am glad to see this happening, though many people (magentans *cough* *cough*) won't see through the rosy glasses and pink fog and still say Sprint blah blah. All I can say is..

Hashtag is out in the wild:

@sprintnews @marceloclaure We are concerned this plan will hurt Sprint. Please read http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-387-editorial-marcelo-thats-not-quite-what-we-were-thinking-all-in-would-look-like-allindoa/ … #AllInDOA

Hopefully Marcelo and his marketing team reads this and does something quick. Excellent writeup.

And that is exactly why I tweeted it to him.

Good article Robert. I agree with your points. I can see why they are trying this but they aren't going about it the right way. I hope you don't mind but I tweeted this to Marcelo letting him know we are concerned how this new plan could hurt Sprint.

Marcelo is definitely what Sprint needed at this point. I liked Dan Hesse but Marcelo reacts a lot better in this fast paced market. I am glad to see some changes happening. Thanks for the article.

That's one thing I was thinking about. It could even be used to get the rest of the Sprint WiMax phone users over to LTE like they've been talking about for the last 6 months or so.

That would be a good way to do it. I told my mom about it and if it is the same price as the GS3 or even cheaper, that is a heck of a deal, especially for a tri-band device.

This is very interesting. Would be good for a cheap tri-band phone for anyone who can't afford the latest and greatest. Would be a good incentive for people to upgrade their old phone for something that isn't as expensive.