WiWavelength

And what if those moves are not financially sustainable long term but just T-Mobile making itself "look pretty" for a sale in the near term? Wireless service should be less expensive, but it is never going to be as cheap as people want it to be. Face it, these corporations are in business to make money. They need sufficient ROI. T-Mobile's current strategies are basically cutting its own ROI. And I do not believe that those strategies are going to "revolutionize" the industry enough for T-Mobile to gain tremendous market share and be a truly viable competitor to the duopoly. AJ

The immediate histrionics from T-Mobile fanboys and the magenta loving tech press are downright annoying. A few thoughts... Sprint-Nextel merger. The negative allusions to an eight year old merger under different leadership are misplaced. If any wireless operator has learned from the mistakes of a poorly executed, drawn out integration strategy, it is Sprint. That learning will serve Sprint well in any future mergers. Additionally, Sprint and Nextel were on different planets both spectrally and technologically. Times have changed. Sprint and T-Mobile are now more similar than many seem to realize. 600 MHz auction. Sprint and T-Mobile do not want to bid against one another should the auction actually happen in 2015. That would just inflate bidding and practically ensure that one or the other would come away empty handed in many markets, as there will not be enough spectrum to go around for four national operators plus regional operators. Site redundancy. Running four national networks basically in parallel is a great deal for tower companies but a bad deal for wireless operators. So many Sprint sites are redundant to T-Mobile sites and vice versa that major cost savings could be had by consolidating site locations. Decommission redundant sites, add new spectrum to remaining sites, maintain similar coverage footprint with increased capacity for combined subscriber base. Sprint knows this. 3GPP conversion. For harmonization and economy of scale, Neal Gompa thinks that Sprint needs to go full 3GPP by adding W-CDMA for voice fallback until VoLTE becomes the de facto standard. Some of us disagree with his sentiments against CDMA2000 as reactionary and premature. Moreover, Sprint does not have sufficient PCS spectrum to deploy a W-CDMA 1900 carrier in many markets. A combined Sprint-T-Mobile, however, would provide more than enough PCS spectrum for such a conversion/overlay. Legere elimination. A merged Sprint-T-Mobile would send buffoonish CEO John Legere off into the sunset. Enough said. AJ

I would not be so certain. There is a world of difference between AT&T-T-Mobile and Sprint-T-Mobile. One creates an anti competitive behemoth; the other just helps level the playing field. AJ

Doubtful. From the Sprint network, the call almost undoubtedly hit the POTS network for transfer to the VoIP provider's network. If so, that middle leg would be at POTS quality. AJ

He should have it made into a quilt. AJ

Orange County's problem is not the IBEZ. Rather, 800 MHz rebanding is the issue. AJ

Did you get Phil, Chris, or Matt? I could understand, though, why they might be careful before giving you one of the Simms. AJ

Did you make a run to Baja California and back? AJ

Your battery is not very ”Baja Fresh." AJ

The situation varies from store to store, even employee to employee. Free floating SIM cards are a new experience for Sprint. Go in, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. AJ

My mom is a doctor. I take it she signed a prescription for your eHERPIES. AJ

Yes, you need a permission slip from your mom. AJ

You may have band 41 TD-LTE 2600 enabled, and you have live sites around you, but you are blocked from connecting to them. That could help to explain your experience. AJ

Well, I might be interested if the SIM card comes with a 10 cent per litre fuel discount and a free pine scent car air freshener. AJ

Uh, we already have a thread. You will be packing up and relocating there shortly... http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/5161-sprint-announces-private-placement-offering-of-notes/ AJ

VZW seems ready to divest its Lower 700 MHz A block licenses in as many markets as possible. Meanwhile, in exchange, T-Mobile might be willing to shed some AWS spectrum across numerous secondary and tertiary markets. After all, let us be honest -- T-Mobile for years has shown tepid interest in updating those markets. It seems more than content to be the new "MetroPCS." And VZW has a much higher proportion of its subs outside of the top 100 markets, so it may need the smaller market AWS spectrum far more than T-Mobile does. AJ

Yep. Excellent catch and diagnosis. Looking back at Anthony's screenshots, I see carrier channel assignment 1019, which is Cellular 850 MHz. It is not SMR 800 MHz. So, that is roaming service. And 476 is the PN offset, just coincidence, since PNs run 1-512. AJ

No. We have reached the end of the 2013 flagship handset cycle. The 2014 cycle will not pick up in earnest until roughly March-June. AJ

That may have been your CDMA1X 800 RSSI from a distant site, not your eHRPD/EV-DO 1900 RSSI from a proximate site. AJ

No, we are not going to merge a 60 page thread with a 36 page thread. The in thread flow would be thrown way off. We may close this thread, though. AJ

How what happened? Please be more specific. AJ

T-Mobile is adding/replacing antennas and RRUs for selected sites that already have advanced backhaul. For GSM only sites, T-Mobile has not obtained advanced backhaul. Backhaul is the choke point. W-CDMA and/or LTE speeds on those sites would be incredibly slow. AJ

Be clear that the piece is an editorial, not a news article. And, honestly, I am disappointed that Phil makes an unflattering comparison to T-Mobile progress but fails to acknowledge that T-Mobile is overlaying LTE only where it already has advanced backhaul -- leaving out much of its geographic network, just as it has done with W-CDMA. AJ

But, hey, you got knock on. Knock on...knock off...knock on, knock off...the knocker! AJ

Oh, I have the best start ever to a Google Voice transcription: AJ