WiWavelength

The inter band handoffs will be fine, practically seamless. I am quite confident of that. Because LTE is a partly TDMA airlink, LTE UEs inevitably have dormant time slots that they can use to gauge channel conditions in the other band(s). Moreover, standard voice will remain on CDMA1X for a long time to come. So, even if an inter band handoff got botched, a data user would not notice the 1-2 second interruption. AJ

What is that saying? You can wish in one hand... AJ

Would you still feel the same way if that small cell were deployed on the backs of ants? AJ

I agree to an extent. But I will give the wireless carriers some leeway. Small cell technology has not taken off until recently. (Now, you can certainly view that as a "chicken or the egg" dilemma." Fair enough.) But moreover, our broadband infrastructure is broken. It is focused on making copious amounts of money for a few oligopolists, not on providing the proverbial "information superhighway" to commerce and society. If fiber were cheap and ubiquitous by now, as it should be, then carriers would have little excuse for not deploying countless small cells. In fact, many businesses, organizations, and even residential customers would love to host such small cells on their premises. AJ

Meanwhile, our Lousiana members, digiblur and bigzeto, are saying, "Blackened...mmm..." AJ

Oh, are we talking about the Ford Pinto, the car? In that case, it makes food only blackened. AJ

I take it "Pinto" is the name of the Mexican illegal immigrant smuggled up I-35 to cook and clean for you. AJ

That is still relevant to my point. I just did not do a very effective job of making it. Unlike chipset consolidation or process shrink, I am not aware of any technological developments that could make specifically carrier aggregation more power efficient. But I am not so worried that carrier aggregation will cause much greater power drain. To illustrate, T-Mobile already uses a form of adjacent channel carrier aggregation with DC-HSPA+. However, that carrier aggregation applies only to the downlink. On the uplink, the mobile remains connected to only one of the two aggregated carriers. I would not be surprised to see LTE carrier aggregation implemented the same way because 1) uplink transmission consumes far more power than does downlink reception and 2) uplink speeds are less crucial than are downlink speeds. AJ

I believe it has been shown that LG handsets are outliers. They display the signal strength of the highest connected airlink protocol. AJ

No, definitely not. Software defined radio gives people the idea that anything can be fixed/changed through software, but it is not that simple. So, please, let us not get any members thinking again that RF capabilities can be added via software update. We went through that mess in the spring with some members insisting that WiMAX devices could be updated to LTE. AJ

If Sprint has 50-150 MHz of BRS/EBS spectrum acquired from Clearwire, why does the 10 MHz PCS/AWS-2 H block matter so much, if at all? AJ

The Thunderbolt may not be the most meaningful basis for comparison. The biggest power management problem with the Thunderbolt is that it is a dual baseband modem design. In other words, it has one baseband for CDMA1X and another for EV-DO/LTE, and both chipsets are always active. That dual baseband design is now a vestige of the past. The only two handsets on Sprint affected are the Galaxy Nexus and Viper, neither of which are befitting of the first LTE handsets on Sprint. The relevant baseline going forward is probably the EVO LTE or Galaxy S3, both of which are single baseband modem designs. Moreover, they use a single SoC that incorporates processor and baseband in a single chipset. One chipset is as low as it goes, so that aspect cannot be improved. If anything, recent designs have already taken a few steps backward in power consumption. The Optimus G is a good example. Not only does it use separate processor and baseband chipsets but also the processor is unnecessarily quad core. And battery life suffers as a result. So, I would not be surprised if we have seen a local maximum in effective power management, and it will be a few years again before high end handsets meet or exceed the standard set by the EVO LTE and Galaxy S3. AJ

Okay, sure, I have no reason to doubt you, as ham radio is your area of expertise, not mine. But now the discussion is really veering off topic to ham radio, which you have not shown to have any particular relevance to mobile handsets. AJ

Okay, sure, I am not very familiar with ham radio equipment. But I doubt that ham concerns about the above properties are as great as they are for handsets. The size of the equipment is just very different. Just curious, do you have any idea what typical ERP/EIRP is for a mobile handset? AJ

I am confused. When/where did I say anything contrary to the above? AJ

Better yet, use Any Cut to create a home screen shortcut directly to the native Testing.apk. That obviates the need to use the dialer code each time. You can see that I have also done so for the FieldTrial.apk, as ready access to good engineering screens is my #1 requirement in any handset that I use. AJ

No, probably not. I am guessing that ham radio is not all too concerned about antenna size, varied antenna gain at different frequencies, and power consumption. All of those are major concerns in mobile handsets, which most commonly use microstrip antennas (PIFA) and need to keep consistent antenna gain (within a few dBi) in each operating band. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstrip_antenna AJ

This is akin to saying, "I'll switch to my other car to make a better omelet," if you catch my drift... AJ

No, not nationwide. Most notably, Sprint has less spectrum in the Southeast where SouthernLINC is the nation's second largest ESMR incumbent. And even in markets where Sprint holds a full 14 MHz complement of SMR 800 MHz spectrum, Sprint may not be able to utilize its entire holdings because of international boundary channel coordination. AJ

I think that is an overstatement. If Sprint "desperately needs" the PCS/AWS-2 H block, then Sprint is in real trouble because the H block will not be commercially viable for another three years. AJ

I would not be surprised if Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz) and LTE 2600 ultimately share an antenna. Since 2x2 MIMO is a given for LTE, that could also enable 2x2 MIMO for 802.11n Wi-Fi. AJ

That sounds like a constipation remedy. AJ

Those who obstinately refuse to see the overall network benefits of offloading are best summed up by this selfish attitude: "I'll do what I want..." AJ

I feel honored yet also shortchanged. AJ

Sprint generally uses one SID per MTA. Washington-Baltimore are the two titular cities for MTA010, which includes much of Maryland and Virginia. AJ