WiWavelength

It is witchcraft. Ooh eeh ooh ah aah ting tang walla walla bing bang... AJ

SVLTE, yes. SVDO, no. AJ

I have updated the LG Eclipse/Optimus G article with the new name and a few LTE EIRP figures that were absent from the initial FCC OET application. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-317-updated-lg-eclipse-4g-casts-an-early-shadow/ AJ

Another couple of interesting factoids: assuming that this spectrum transfer goes through unimpeded, Chicago will go from being Sprint's most spectrum challenged top 10 market to Sprint's most spectrum rich top 10 market. And Champaign will become Sprint's most spectrum rich market in the entire country. AJ

In Chicago, Ft. Wayne, South Bend, Springfield, and Champaign, where Sprint's PCS D block 10 MHz license is directly adjacent to USCC's PCS B block 20 MHz license as I detail in the article, Sprint and USCC may very soon be able to drop the guard bands between their two respective licenses, freeing up a conditional CDMA2000 carrier channel assignment -- PCS 0400 -- which could be used to provide additional EV-DO capacity, for example. AJ

Sprint and USCC already have a reciprocal roaming agreement. I know that Sprint PRLs typically place USCC SIDs higher than VZW SIDs in priority. And I believe that USCC does likewise. So, for at least Sprint subs, they can already roam in most, if not all USCC markets in the country. That roaming behavior is not apt to change at all, since 1) USCC is already at high priority and 2) Sprint is not absorbing the USCC network in the affected markets. AJ

Yep, this is ordinary, everyday PCS 1900 MHz A-F block spectrum -- the very same kind of spectrum that Sprint has been using for the past 15 years. AJ

An interesting aside: when USCC bought PrimeCo's Chicago assets from a private equity firm in 2002, USCC paid $610 million. Now, Sprint is buying effectively all of that and more for $480 million. Missing from this deal, of course, is any network infrastructure, but Sprint does not need a redundant network. In the end, entering its home market looks to have been a bad financial proposition for USCC. AJ

My article is up on The Wall. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-334-sprint-uscc-spectrum-deal-sprint-gets-20-mhz-broader-in-the-city-of-broad-shoulders/ AJ

Is this in Inglewood? Because in South Central, "The Wood" means Inglewood. AJ

by Andrew J. Shepherd Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 1:10 PM MST Update: Six weeks later, Sprint and U.S. Cellular have finally filed their PCS 1900 MHz license assignment applications in the FCC ULS database. From the filing, we have learned that USCC will not relinquish all of its PCS spectrum in Springfield and Champaign, so the primary market spectrum table below has been updated to reflect that clarification. In a nutshell, Sprint will acquire a consistent PCS B block 20 MHz partition and disaggregation in all affected counties in the Chicago MTA and a consistent PCS A block 10 MHz partition and disaggregation in all affected counties in the St. Louis MTA. For a complete list of the counties included in the spectrum transaction, see this spreadsheet from the FCC filing. Yesterday, Sprint and U.S. Cellular announced an agreement to transfer PCS 1900 MHz spectrum and subscribers in several midwestern markets -- notably, Chicago, St. Louis, Ft. Wayne, South Bend, Springfield (IL), and Champaign -- from USCC to Sprint. While this transaction does entail that USCC will exit its largest and home market, Chicago, it is not a merger. Overall, USCC will give up 585,000 subs but will retain over 5 million current subs, and the deal involves no transfer of wireless infrastructure. Rather, the existing USCC CDMA2000 infrastructure in the affected markets will be retired within approximately two years, as subs are transitioned to the Sprint network. The exact boundaries of the PCS licenses and subs to be transferred from USCC to Sprint have not yet been revealed on a county by county basis. So, this article will be updated once the FCC assignment applications are filed or any other further info arises. In the meantime, know that this is a spectrum transaction, bar none. Chicago is Sprint's largest market in which it holds only 20 MHz of PCS A-F block spectrum. In nearly all other top 10 markets, Sprint holds 30 MHz of PCS A-F block spectrum. And Ft. Wayne is a proverbial red headed stepchild market -- Sprint's only top 100 market with only 10 MHz of PCS A-F block spectrum. So, most importantly, this transaction provides a 20 MHz PCS injection into Sprint's spectrum holdings in both Chicago and Ft. Wayne. For a look at the five largest markets included in the deal, see the spectrum table below: Moreover, Sprint's existing PCS D block 10 MHz and PCS E block 10 MHz licenses in Chicago are non adjacent. As such, Sprint has to run an extra set of guard bands -- one set of guard bands for each license. Those extra guard bands take up valuable spectrum, limiting Sprint to only six instead of seven CDMA2000 carriers in its 20 MHz of spectrum and leaving more sites in Chicago spectrum constrained than in any other big market. Synergistically, though, the PCS B block 20 MHz license that Sprint will acquire in Chicago is directly adjacent to its existing PCS D block 10 MHz license, giving Sprint a fully 30 MHz contiguous swath of PCS spectrum, which will allow Sprint to deploy additional CDMA2000 carriers and larger LTE bandwidth (10-15 MHz FDD) when the time comes to add LTE capacity. See the license contiguity in the band plan diagram below: Speaking of LTE, that is one of the key reasons why USCC is willing to part with its Chicago market. In most of its markets, USCC holds some combination of Cellular 850 MHz, PCS 1900 MHz, AWS 2100+1700 MHz, and Lower 700 MHz spectrum. But in Chicago, USCC controls only the aforementioned 20 MHz block of PCS spectrum. USCC entered the Chicago market just 10 years ago when it acquired PrimeCo, which had been divested as part of the merger that created Verizon Wireless. Since then, USCC has been unable to acquire additional spectrum in Chicago, leaving it effectively incapable of deploying LTE in its largest market while continuing its CDMA2000 operations. So, the deal with Sprint provides an exit strategy for Chicago in what was otherwise a dead end market for USCC. In the other five of the six markets detailed above, USCC likely could roll out LTE, as it holds additional AWS 2100+1700 MHz and/or Lower 700 MHz licenses in those markets. It should be noted, however, that those non PCS licenses are not being transferred to Sprint in this deal. But as it exits those markets, USCC will almost surely look to sell the other licenses, too, with VZW and T-Mobile being likely buyers for the AWS spectrum, AT&T a strong possibility for some of the 700 MHz spectrum. Sources: FCC, USCC, Sprint

Eric... I think that Robert posted an infrastructure vendor list, though I do not recall the thread. Also, you can view the Sprint PCS spectrum catalog that I collated many years ago. It is not the most readable resource ever, but I did track infrastructure vendors per MTA -- separately for corporate and affiliate markets. http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/spcs.html AJ

Very true. But in indecipherable pronunciation, even Dylan cannot top Van Morrison...or Jimmy Fallon doing Van Morrison. I do admire the quantity of beer, though... AJ

I was just thinking that Dylan's brain is probably already fried... AJ

Hmm, maybe, deep fried Dylan? AJ

Are you trying to lay claim to the accomplishments of your great neighbor state of Wisconsin? AJ

Hey, let's cook a bunch of fat...in hot fat. Genius! AJ

If you are trying to turn this welcome thread into some sort of ham fisted political statement, you will be sorry. Consider yourself warned... AJ

Mmm, is that yet another Minnesota "delicacy"? AJ

The Galaxy Note 2 has no backlight. AMOLED screens -- for better and for worse -- are self illuminating. They employ additive, rather than subtractive color. AJ

If the customer service rep on the other end of the line says in an Apu like voice, "Oh, yes, I will do the necessary," then you might be calling India. AJ

I started a bit of video game talk in one of the staff threads a month or so ago. I am a thirty-something retro Nintendo gamer. I had a brief dalliance with the original PlayStation about 15 years ago over a new "Final Fantasy" game. Otherwise, I have owned only Nintendo consoles -- NES, Super NES, Super Famicom (Japanese Super NES), NIntendo 64, GameCube, Wii. And I have a pre-order for the Wii U. I have zero interest in ultra realistic first person shooters and sports games that seem to define hardcore gamers these days. I am a casual retro gamer, mainly for nostalgia, very little for realism or innovation. AJ

No can do on the single modem chipset (MSM8960) based EVO LTE. I forced it to CDMA1X only mode. With Wi-Fi disabled and a voice call initiated, the "3G" indicator disappears, and data is inaccessible. AJ

Was it the Viper? To add a second thought to my clarification, a dual modem chipset SVDO capable handset should be able to pull off (at least, from a hardware standpoint) the simultaneous CDMA1X voice and CDMA1X data trick. But the dual modem chipset "Fusion" designs are on the way out. And I am doubtful that a single modem chipset (e.g. Qualcomm MSM8960 or MDM9615) design could do the same. AJ

Hmm, has this been tested and verified on any SVDO capable handsets? I would be willing to bet that some, maybe even all SVDO capable handsets cannot do simultaneous CDMA1X voice and CDMA1X data. CDMA1X Rx diversity does not include fully separate transmission paths, and seemingly not all SVDO capable handsets implement CDMA1X Rx diversity. On the other hand, simultaneous CDMA1X voice and EV-DO data is possible because those two airlinks do not share a transmission path; rather, EV-DO typically shares a transmission path with LTE, since EV-DO and LTE need not be active simultaneously. AJ