WiWavelength

I have no clear idea. It could be Configuration 2. Or the cited 110 Mbps figure could be Configuration 1 -- but with 256 QAM. The difference between 256 QAM and 64 QAM is eight bits per symbol vs six bits per symbol. 8 ÷ 6 = 1.33 × 82.3 = 109.7 AJ

We will continue to add new EARFCNs. But we no longer will track cities for band 41 EARFCNs. That was news in 2014 when a band 41 second carrier popped up in a few markets. Now, it is commonplace. However, we still will track markets/cities for band 25 EARFCNs to help identify second carriers and 10 MHz FDD bandwidth expansions. AJ

There is no such thing as "single CA." That would be 1x CA, which is not CA. AJ

Well, during your "crossing" of Montana, do not try to deliver a condemned female criminal, do not pick up any stranded bounty hunters, and definitely do not stop at a place called Minnie's Haberdashery. AJ

It comes from the Nexus 6P thread. That is not my screenshot. You know my policy on ginormous screenshots. AJ

Revel in all of its glory... AJ

Nope. Not on the engineering screen. For the Nexus 6P, the "P" stands for pathetic paucity of particulars. AJ

Sheesh, you can go down the rabbit hole in so many different ways. Maybe we instead should consider volume × speed ÷ deployment cost ÷ deployment time. Ooh, we even could factor into the equation monthly plan price, ARPU, and Net Neutrality. Is that the objective measure you want? That, again, is my point. This discussion largely, ironically is a pointless exercise. The results can be qualified ad nauseam. The problem I have is that when T-Mobile gets a positive consumer facing network measurement result, most accept it -- because the end user experience is all that really matters. But when Sprint gets a positive consumer facing network measurement result, so many dismiss it -- because Sprint has become unpopular and lost so many subs, Sprint has so much more spectrum, Sprint carries less data volume, etc. AJ

Yes, I am looking at this objectively. And, no, I am not. Many of you are missing my intelligently constructed point. Your hammer throwing analogy does not fly -- pun intended -- because other people do not really care about the weight of the hammers. The competitors care, but other people do not really care about the competitors either. Here, try another analogy. You can shop at Walmart. Or you can shop at Target across the street. Both carry the same products at the same prices. Walmart does twice the volume of Target, but because of that volume and greater car/foot traffic, it takes 10 minutes longer to complete the same shopping trip. So, you say, "Well, Walmart still is pretty fast, and it does so much more volume. Color me impressed. Volume × speed is more important to me than pure speed. I am shopping at Walmart." Would you or any rational consumer say that? Hell no. You let the business worry about the volume -- whether it is hundreds served or billions served. You care about the service, which you want to be good, better, or even best at any volume level. Think about that for a while. Then, try again to explain why not just pure data speeds but data volume each network transferred should matter -- other than to wireless network hammer throw jock sniffers. AJ

And those three sites may be all she wrote. With the site placements, RF projections should show that they cover central, south, and north Rapid City. That should be adequate to satisfy the Substantial Service requirement. Real world signal will not be adequate in parts of those areas, but that is beside the point. AJ

Levi's Stadium is only two seasons into its existence. The DAS is new, brand spanking new -- because the DAS already was significantly overhauled after the first season. I thought that was incredibly poor planning. But the DAS must possess substantial diagnostic capabilities in order for the vendor and operators to determine that the originally installed 2014 DAS was in way over its head after just one season. So, I do not buy your premise. With a state of the art DAS, it should not be that difficult to measure both throughput and total traffic at the radio, at the base station, at the backhaul router, etc. The problem is with the peanut gallery analysis here and elsewhere. For Sprint, they frequently are moving the goalposts -- football pun all too apropos. For example, if Sprint posted that it carried greater total traffic than T-Mobile at the Super Bowl, they would retort that mattered only to network engineer types. Actual users should not care how much total traffic an operator carries, only about individual end user speeds. And they would say that T-Mobile was faster. On the other hand, if Sprint claimed that it had faster speeds than T-Mobile at the Super Bowl -- and by objective measure, Sprint did -- many of the same people would say that overlooked the total data transfer. All of a sudden, they turn into network engineer types. And they would say that T-Mobile traffic was greater. That is why I discourage Average Joes from trying to dissect these statistics. Their biases are as bad as or worse than any statistical biases. AJ

We need not overcomplicate this. For MIMO, forget about uplink. Uplink MIMO may not happen for a good while. So, it is downlink MIMO. And 2x2 downlink MIMO means two separate downlink Tx antennas at the base station and two separate downlink Rx antennas at the handset. Simple as that. AJ

Nah, that is not how the game is played. The amount of data transferred by the others is irrelevant to Sprint users, who did have the fastest data speeds in the stadium. That is an objectively tested fact. Trying to pass it off as a lesser achievement because non Sprint users transferred more data is irrelevant to those non Sprint users, who had slower speeds -- again, an objectively tested fact. Why should any of them care how much data their operators transferred? For an analogy, a car repair shop might have the fastest service because it is not very popular. So, its service is fast, though it does not serve a lot of cars in volume. But then it grows in popularity for its fast service, inevitably causing that fast service to slow down. And another car shop down the street then surpasses the other in speed. Thus, customers shift their business accordingly. Yeah, that generally is how entropic systems work. Do not worry so much about it. Seriously, some of the navel gazing in this thread and the T-Mobile thread is beyond the pale. But that dissection mostly is directed at Sprint. Yes, we must take anything positive about Sprint with a grain of salt -- Sprint probably is skewing the stats. Oh, but the other operators, they tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Look, T-Mobile staked a big part of an ad campaign on it having greater bandwidth per user than VZW. That primarily was because T-Mobile had the fewest subs of any of the majors. Yet, T-Mobile gets a free pass on that. AJ

Technically, you can call the FDD in band 66 "asymmetric." But I doubt it will be utilized that way. The upper block of AWS-4 spectrum that got rolled into the mix as supplemental downlink will require at least 2x CA -- pretty much just like unpaired Lower 700 MHz in band 29. And with the additional hardware requirements put on handsets for 2x CA, the supplemental downlink might as well be thought of as a separate band. AJ

All signs in the FCC OET authorizations are they do not. The Samsung Galaxy S7 is more of the same from last year -- 2x2 downlink MIMO with switchable diversity antennas -- but only for low band and no uplink MIMO. AJ

Yes, that is the upside down T-Mobile network once again rearing its head in both objective testing and real world usage. AJ

And until several 4x4 downlink MIMO handsets are announced, we should not anticipate many, if any. At the handset level, 4x4 downlink MIMO basically is vaporware. AJ

No. As an affiliate, iPCS did not control any spectrum licenses. Sprint did -- but contracted with iPCS to provide service to secondary and tertiary markets. The issue is not loss of spectrum. It is lack of site density. More or less, iPCS and some other affiliates built on the cheap. Site density was okay but not great for cdmaOne/CDMA2000 services on flip phones with extensible antennas. That does not fly today in the world of smartphones and LTE. Sprint may or may not fix that via site densification. I know that this is eastern Iowa, so I hope that you will excuse the well fitting "Field of Dreams" reference. The idea that "If you build it, they will come" does not always hold. Sprint could have the best data speeds in the Quad Cities -- yet still be an afterthought. If Sprint is behind VZW, AT&T, USCC, even i Wireless in market share, Sprint may consider the area low priority, almost a lost cause. AJ

Guys, this is navel gazing. We never will get to the bottom of it. What time did data traffic measurements start/stop? Where was the stadium perimeter defined? The four major operators do not employ the same standards in their assessments. There are no standards. All we can conclude reliably is that VZW and AT&T carried several times more data than did T-Mobile and Sprint. Hardly shocking news, since each is the size of T-Mobile and Sprint combined. AJ

The problem is that Iowa City was an affiliate market. That iPCS legacy hinders the market and may not go away anytime soon. AJ

There is no evidence that Sprint pays exorbitant upfront fees for VZW roaming. But there is evidence that Sprint pays usage based fees for VZW roaming. Unless someone produces evidence to the contrary, we should not assume otherwise. As for limited location roaming, Sprint already limits roaming by location -- to an extent. On CDMA2000, that is defined by SID/NID pairings in the PRL. SID/NID pairings are not granular enough to narrow down in market roaming to just a few selected sites or certain areas of the market. SID/NID pairings typically cover hundreds of square miles. Within each SID/NID pairing, roaming is all or nothing. AJ

That does not make sense. If people are not using in market roaming -- because the low band additions to Network Vision have put Sprint on par with or ahead of VZW in areas of overlapping coverage -- then in market roaming is costing Sprint very little. Why eliminate it? Operators like T-Mobile eliminate or limit in market roaming precisely because they could use it but do not want to pay for it. AJ

A few thoughts on the matter... We do know that the hardware in the "US" variant will be centralized across all domestic operators. S4GRU staff even has discovered more recently in the FCC OET a "KOR" variant -- ostensibly intended for South Korean operators. Samsung seems to be standardizing its handset hardware platforms across all operators within certain countries/regions. What we do not know is how Samsung will handle separate firmware per operator. Though I doubt it, the customized firmware could be temporary and tied to the SIM card in use. Pop in an AT&T SIM, that activates the "A" firmware. Pop in a Sprint SIM, that activates the "P" firmware. More likely, barring hacker intervention, the firmware locks could be permanent. A Sprint "P" variant, for example, always may be set up for Sprint, thus not particularly usable on VZW. From a sales volume standpoint, Samsung benefits more if those who are switching providers have to obtain new handsets. AJ

Not the end of story. Not S4GRU, not anyone, not anything should grant all discussion equal credibility. Some evidence carries more weight. That is what the older, wiser, and more educated among us are here to sort out. AJ

Yeah, and so what? The point is that not many people care. A few years ago on Ars Technica, I read a comment from an urbanite hipster, probably Millenial T-Mobile user who said that he did not want to pay for T-Mobile rural network expansion. He self absorbedly said that he would be more likely to spend a year working in Beijing than ever to travel to North Dakota. He did not want to subsidize infrastructure investment in rural areas that he probably would never visit. When someone brought up the point about quality of life for rural food producers on which he relies, he said that he would just import food. And there you have it... AJ