WiWavelength

The acquired USCC PCS B block spectrum is 20 MHz -- also expressed as 10 MHz FDD. That will not be used in full for LTE with two additional 5 MHz FDD carriers. No, it will be one additional LTE carrier, the rest left for CDMA2000 for now. AJ

Luis has clearly been listening to too much Coldplay through his Nexus 5... He needs to play more Eiffel 65 to even out the color tone to white... AJ

Per FCC OET authorizations, yes, just one does: the Nexus 5. AJ

That is an interesting setup you have there. But do understand that you are talking about a fixed installation on a mobile wireless network. That is different from a fixed installation on a fixed wireless network. The link budgets are calculated differently. And fixed wireless, like wired broadband, may not be available at some addresses. However, that does not indicate that if no mobile LTE 1900 is usable, then no fixed TD-LTE 2600 will be usable at that location. AJ

Exactly right. Since some people in this thread need this explained to them, this is not an endorsement of Sprint-T-Mobile. But if it were to happen, the networks should remain separate for a time -- à la Cingular "orange" and "blue" almost a decade ago. During the transition period, subs could choose between CDMA1X voice and GSM/W-CDMA voice. That should cause relatively little discord because voice has become such a secondary function by now. Only LTE should be consolidated as soon as possible, opening PCS, SMR, BRS/EBS, and AWS LTE to all subs with compatible devices, and running all LTE traffic through Sprint's 4G cores, since T-Mobile does not have a fiber backbone. AJ

No, there is a difference. I am contributing thousands of hours and thousands of dollars of my own money toward this non profit educational site. So, what are you doing? And who are you? But you neglect to answer those questions... AJ

Au contraire. Fixed wireless is a much different animal. Antenna gain and uplink power can be greatly increased. Comparison to mobile handset reception is spurious. AJ

Consider it done. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/files/file/29-clearwire-wimaxtd-lte-carrier-band-plan/ AJ

Actually, I sit here at my keyboard and just twitch my nose to link and unlink Nickel's URLs. I like to mess with his head. AJ

Something that may have been lost in the fray the past few weeks is that we have documented two more TD-LTE EARFCNs, bringing the total to three. The first is the one that Robert encountered via tri band hotspot in Denver last summer. Additionally, I verified it by spectrum analyzer in Kansas City, and others have found it with tri band hotspots elsewhere, too. EARFCN 40978 is located toward the lower end of the contiguous BRS spectrum blocks. That initially seemed to be the national TD-LTE carrier, but recent reports have shown the existence of EARFCNs 39826 and 39991. These have not been in the same locations, nor in the presence of EARFCN 40978. So, do not mistake these for added capacity TD-LTE carriers already. Instead, they appear to be alternate center frequencies for markets where Sprint may be constrained within BRS. The big takeaway is that they are located in EBS, meaning that divesting EBS could have negative ramifications for TD-LTE in some markets. See a snapshot from my spreadsheet: AJ

I know you mean Federal Way. Is this some local joke? AJ

Can we come down to the office and cheer you on? Go, thread reader, go! AJ

I will have a soy latte with two shots of deuterium, please. AJ

Two things... First, power is integrated over bandwidth. A 1.25 MHz CDMA1X carrier at 20 W and a 5 MHz W-CDMA carrier at 80 W have basically the same power in W/Hz (e.g. 0.000016 W or -18 dBm). So, I am not surprised by some of the figures you cite. Next, downlink power may be the key factor in broadcast communications but not in two way communications. The latter uses a link budget to balance the downlink and uplink. Throwing more power at the downlink does nothing if the mobile device lacks sufficient power to respond in kind. To use some hyperbole, a site can increase its transmitter power to send a signal to the Moon, but that does not mean a typically power limited mobile device can maintain a connection. That increased downlink power is wasted and just adds to interference elsewhere. AJ

Way to go, you just distracted Robert. Now, he has to go out and get some fried chicken. AJ

Sorry, I did not address this question a month ago. In their original FCC auctions, the PCS C and F block bidding rules were set up to empower entrepreneurial businesses and disadvantaged groups. This led to a lot of PCS C and F block licenses being won by under capitalized licensees that went bankrupt or by Native American groups that acted as fronts for national providers. http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_factsheet&id=5 http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_factsheet&id=11 AJ

Yes, Happy Festivus. And, now, it is time for the Airing of Grievances. I got a lot of problems with you S4GRU people... AJ

Thanks for sharing my sentiments. AJ

Just admit it. You accidentally dropped it in the toilet. AJ

I do not get the impression that GinaDee is pro T-Mobile as much as "she" is anti Sprint. If anything, "she" comes across as a shill/troll for AT&T. AJ

Oh come on, Neal. You know that I have the upper hand in matters of RF knowledge. And this one is relatively simple. It comes down to differences in the physical layers between the two airlinks. For both CDMA1X and LTE, the base modulation scheme is QPSK, so that puts them roughly at parity. However, CDMA1X is spreading low bit rate voice data across an entire 1.25 MHz broadband carrier, while VoLTE is putting low bit rate voice data in 15 kHz narrowband subcarriers. CDMA1X benefits from spreading gain; LTE does not. Now, that spreading gain is not always efficient, since it trades off high data rates for spreading gain, but it allows CDMA1X to operate at negative SINR. LTE, on the other hand, effectively requires positive SINR. This is fundamental communications theory, Neal. Do you need a refresher on Shannon-Hartley? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon–Hartley_theorem Moreover, empirical research bears this out. Ask hundreds of experienced wireless users here at S4GRU, "Which airlink falters first -- CDMA1X or LTE?" That is practically a rhetorical question. The answer is almost unequivocally "LTE." And I can demonstrate this time after time by hopping in my car and intentionally driving away from Sprint native coverage. Yes, in the end, VoLTE provides some QoS protections. But those protections are still limited by the physical layer of the LTE airlink itself. LTE is very efficient, approaching the Shannon bound, but it does so by trading off robustness for high data rates. AJ

Uh, no. LTE coverage is more limited and fragile compared to that of CDMA1X. You have some learning to do. But you are in the right place to get the correct info. AJ

No thanks. LTE 800 + CDMA1X 800 trumps W-CDMA 1900 or W-CDMA 2100+1700. So, if you want HSPA+, you are giving up on SMR 800 MHz. AJ

Prior to the current version, T-Mobile had a nice coverage tool that actually showed signal strength gradients for both W-CDMA and GSM. Now, the GSM gradients are gone. We get just an amorphous single color for "2G." Yuck. That is on the level of the lowly VZW coverage tool. Well, the app is wrong. It is showing native GSM coverage that T-Mobile does not have. AJ

Do not use a phone app to compare coverage. Use the actual operators' coverage tools on a full size device. If you do, you will see that T-Mobile does not have even close to the "2G" native coverage breadth that unverified source displays. AJ