WiWavelength

These carriers who participate in the LTE in Rural America program are nuts...or just looking for a way to sell out. I think back to Pioneer Wireless and a poster on HowardForums, "ggore." Man, that guy irked me. He lives in rural Oklahoma in Pioneer territory but signed up with Sprint because he has an unhealthy attachment to the freaking iPhone. Then, when Pioneer stabbed Sprint in the back, he complained to high heaven because he lost EV-DO and could no longer permanently roam on Pioneer. So, what did he do? Last I heard, he defected to VZW and got an iPhone. He is permanently roaming on Pioneer with his VZW account. That is highly inappropriate, but some people just do not care. And he is likely not alone in that regard. LTE in Rural America lets out of market users sign up with VZW. VZW gets the revenue, while the rural carriers provide the service. Insidious. And many rubes are going right along with it. AJ

MIMO does not boost signal strength nor range, per se. Are you instead referring to beam forming? Beam forming is more of a capacity multiplier. It targets traffic channels in more specific directions and reduces interference, thereby increasing overall capacity. AJ

Pardon my soapbox for a moment, but some of these complaints rub me the wrong way. I think it rather sad that wireless data and the resultant "spectrum crunch" have come to be defined by teens' and twenty-somethings' need to stream vapid pop music and YouTube or Slingbox incessantly. All credit to the United Negro College Fund: "A mind is a terrible thing to waste..." AJ

You are playing conspiracy theorist too much. USCC has churn issues in its weaker urban markets, namely Chicago and St. Louis. And USCC lacks additional spectrum to deploy LTE in Chicago. Those are the reasons why USCC divested several markets to Sprint. See my article on The Wall: http://s4gru.com/ind...road-shoulders/ AJ

That does not make any sense. VZW LTE handsets do not support anything other than LTE 750 (band 13), for which VZW controls all of the US licenses. The only handset exception that comes to mind is iPhone 5. AJ

Maybe you are a Vanderbilt or Kentucky fan... AJ

My riff on "Rocky Top" was very clever, but you seemed to take it literally. That, I do not get. AJ

You need to learn to take a joke. You live in Knoxville, but do you even know the lyrics to or significance of "Rocky Top"? I would hardly crow about T-Mobile. As of a few years ago, T-Mobile maintained a skeleton presence in Knoxville, operating only license protection sites. That is still true of Omaha today, but I do not know if that is still true of Knoxville. Maybe there is no reason to stay with Sprint. I could not care less if you do or do not. Knoxville is not exactly a crucial market, and Sprint is somewhat spectrum constrained. So, Knoxville is not going to receive the priority that more viable markets do. Regardless, this is not a Sprint complaint board. If you want to complain, you need to take it elsewhere. AJ

Maybe if you would pay your bills, Sprint would be more interested... AJ

This is also the reason for the odd, inverted duplex of the Upper 700 MHz band. In nearly all mobile spectrum bands, the uplink is lower in frequency than the downlink. The inverse is true of the Upper 700 MHz band (e.g. VZW's Upper 700 MHz C block licenses). The reason for the inversion is that it places the Lower 700 MHz band downlink and the Upper 700 MHz band downlink directly adjacent to one another, and that mitigates interference concerns. AJ

"I wanna stick my SIM in it!" AJ

If these were two downlinks next to one another, there would be no great cause for concern. But the PCS/AWS-2 H block downlink is directly adjacent to the S-band/AWS-4 uplink. Any out of band emissions (and there are always some out of band emissions) from a Dish handset transmission could negatively affect H block handset reception nearby because the Dish handset could be transmitting its uplink at upwards of 20 dBm, while the H block downlink signal could easily be -100 dBm. The problem would be somewhat similar to that of LightSquared vs GPS. Just the other day, Sprint filed an interesting ex parte presentation with the FCC. See the following figures that I extracted from that filing: AJ

Yes, it does. AJ

Ding, ding, ding. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. AJ

Your request is timely. Yesterday, I uncovered FCC OET documentation of the first wireless data device to support LTE on VZW (band 13), AT&T (band 17), and Sprint (band 25). https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=493609&fcc_id='N7NMC7355 AJ

Yes. Any building that is on the electrical grid gets fiber. Fiber to "every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse." The project would costs tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. But if we would just stop the war mongering, the needless spreading of "Americanism," we could easily pay for the deployment of fiber as public works. And the investment would be good for decades, would pay for itself many times over in enhanced productivity. (Now, extra credit for anyone who recognizes the source of my movie quote.) AJ

Shocking, just shocking... AJ

Touché. But do you really think that the two situations are analogous? Commission is the same as omission? AJ

Damn, Scott has been paying attention, and pretty soon, I may be out of a "job" as RF guru. AJ

"Let them eat cake..." AJ

Chai??? Randall drinks nothing less than 18 year old single malt. Just look at the guy -- the blood that courses through his veins is clearly 80 proof. AJ

The "information superhighway" is a cliché dating back to the 1990s, but it really is an all too appropriate term. The Internet is the Interstate Highway System of today -- both economic engines. But we did not allow the private sector to construct the Interstate Highway System, then restrict access to it in order to maximize private sector profits. That we do so with broadband Internet access is shameful and shows a decided lack of foresight. I think that we will eventually see the error in our ways and take back public control from the telecom oligopolists. But it could take decades of regulation and litigation -- and that is just sad for this country. AJ

Oh, come on. You make the same claim in regards to the wireless market, but it is not as if this is a mysterious fifth law of thermodynamics: the number of competitors in a mature market shall be less than or equal to three. So, let us at least be honest. Shareholders do not want greater than three competitors in a mature market because that allows the few remaining competitors to impose rent seeking on the market. But shareholders do not always get what they want, especially when their businesses are dependent upon use of publicly controlled resources. AJ

Well, some people are beyond help. Forget the Joneses. There is no keeping up with the Herrons. AJ

T-Mobile's Value plans certainly benefit those people who keep their handsets for longer than two years or procure them from outside sources, especially those who buy used phones. But I am not sure that those benefits would extend to typical S4GRU members, who tend to upgrade to the latest and greatest devices right on schedule. AJ