WiWavelength

2b or not 2b, that is the question 43... AJ

I refuse to give parent company and corporate asshat VZ any money, so I cannot confirm this. But VZW is reportedly using EVRC-B, which allows the network dynamically to swap voice quality for network capacity. That could explain your varied experience. AJ

What is "Decnet"? Is that like Skynet? Are you a Terminator? AJ

Hatch green chile, though, yum. But Chimayo red chile still has the upper hand. AJ

He will chime in with a Twitter pic soon to show which way he is hanging...er, leaning. AJ

Wait, another site likes S4GRU? This sounds like some good gossip. AJ

Yes, Philip Falcone does look a bit like a foppish character out of an Anne Rice novel... AJ

LTE as a single technology? Yes. LTE as a single roaming footprint? Not bloody likely -- unless the FCC mandates it. AJ

Recently, Robert has been conducting a tour of Asia -- all from within the confines of New Mexico. AJ

Big deal. Wireless service always has and always will be "uneven." That is the nature of the beast due to such variables as loading, fading, and interference. So, data rates will likely be fastest in the interior of cells that have TD-LTE deployment. Alternatively, data rates may be more consistent than expected because TD-LTE deployment will prioritize the most heavily loaded sites. AJ

He said "20X20" in reference to T-Mobile, not Sprint. AJ

"[N]ot use it at all" means that AT&T would sell it off. AT&T is not likely to build out thousands of additional new sites. Any AWS (and PCS or WCS, for that matter) deployment would be overlay on existing sites. AT&T is using both Cellular 850 MHz and PCS 1900 MHz in most markets for W-CDMA and/or GSM. But that does not mean there is no room for LTE as W-CDMA and GSM use declines. AJ

None of the above. 20 MHz TDD. It is unpaired spectrum. AJ

As a suggestion, do not use the "2xY" format. That runs into problems as asymmetric pairing and carrier aggregation come into play. Instead, refer to paired spectrum as "A MHz x B MHz," or if it is symmetric, as "A MHz FDD." You can also use just the total sum of the uplink and downlink, e.g. 14 MHz. As for your questions, Sprint may never have a total of 14 MHz of licensed and usable rebanded SMR 800 MHz spectrum nationwide. Take the IBEZ along the Canadian and Mexican borders, for example. Sprint may be licensed all 14 MHz, but Sprint is unable to use any of it for broadband operations because of international channel coordination. So, nationwide SMR is desirable but not top priority. To paraphrase a well known saying, Sprint cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And SMR is definitely a sow's ear. But it will still make a fine prize in most (but not all) markets across the country. AJ

¬Like. Now, look up what that means in symbolic logic. AJ

Hey, Sprint never offered the HP Veer, so that is off topic. But the Veer, while 3GPP only, did use a Qualcomm SoC. AJ

Why not truly vote with your wallet? Man up, and drop your wireless subscription service altogether. I am thinking that is what I may end up doing in the next several years. This industry used to be interesting. Now, more and more, it is just dysfunctional and distasteful. AJ

Sprint may never have 20 MHz FDD LTE. He is referring to one or more 20 MHz TDD LTE carriers. AJ

That varies somewhat from BEA to BEA. For SouthernLINC, its max contiguous, rebanded spectrum that I am aware of is 9 MHz (4.5 MHz FDD). But its major market Atlanta is limited to 7.5 MHz (3.75 MHz FDD). AJ

Qualcomm's revolutionary development of IS-95 is what got me interested in airlink tech and spectrum in the first place about 15 years ago. So, I no doubt exhibit some genetic bias. AJ

Then, who does "make the best 3GPP modems"? Since W-CDMA is basically 3GPP's spin on cdmaOne/CDMA2000, it contains a lot of Qualcomm intellectual property. That potentially gives Qualcomm a leg up. And my take is that if you invented something truly unique (e.g. iPhone does not count), then you should have significant advantages. So, I have long admired Qualcomm and give it some leeway that I do not extend to other companies (e.g. VZW, AT&T, and Apple) that have dominated their markets. Plus, many AT&T and T-Mobile devices have gone with a 3GPP only Snapdragon SoC. Since they require no 3GPP2 compatibility, they could have gone with a 3GPP only, non Qualcomm solution, yet they still utilized Qualcomm. AJ

If you want to bring marketing into the argument, go right ahead. But I will not engage it. I do not give a rat's ass about Sprint marketing. That plays on little more than psychology. Instead, I am interested in spectrum utilization and infrastructure deployment. And here at S4GRU, we do a bang up job of gathering the real facts behind Network Vision and educating basically anyone who is interested in following along. However, we have users, in this thread and elsewhere, running speed tests and complaining about data rates in markets that are far from completion, even if they are dubbed "launched" (and many are not). Heck, we have users worrying about speeds in markets that Sprint has not even officially acknowledged yet. That is foolish and produces potentially spurious results due to the signal quality and site density issues that I described previously. It just does not make sense when they have access to the wealth of deployment progress tracking that S4GRU provides. AJ

One, VZW LTE is 10 MHz FDD bandwidth -- twice Sprint's LTE 5 MHz FDD -- so peak speeds are going to be twice as fast. And, two, I guarantee that you are not always averaging 65 Mbps down, 17 Mbps up on VZW. Those are near theoretical peak speeds for VZW's LTE configuration, and like many users, you are just cherry picking results that show what you want to think. Moreover, VZW LTE average speeds are on a consistent decline across the country. VZW has twice as many subs as Sprint does, and VZW has already maxed out its Upper 700 MHz C block spectrum with its initial LTE deployment. The only room for additional bandwidth is in VZW's AWS 2100+1700 MHz spectrum, and your handset does not support that band. So, with VZW and your current handset, you are already on the downslope. AJ

Get distracted, hit a curb, fly over the handlebars, and do a face plant? AJ

Voice quality largely boils down to codec and bit error rates. One of the drawbacks of CDMA1X is that as loading increases, so do error rates. As such, VZW's anecdotally poor voice quality could be due to loading -- not surprising, since VZW is the nation's largest operator. And it may also be due to codec choice because VZW reportedly uses primarily EVRC-B, while Sprint still sticks with the original EVRC. Newer is not necessarily better, as newer codecs often sacrifice quality for greater data reduction. AJ