WiWavelength

Galaxy Nexus owners with LTE coverage, does the handset display signal strength as RSSI or RSRP? The OTA update stands to switch from one metric to the other, but the article is unclear which metric is currently used. AJ

That's what Clearwire said. AJ

Yes, and that is the point. A healthy market has an abundance of both buyers and sellers. If not, then we may need to realize that the wireless industry is not healthy -- or is simply not a market, hence requires regulation as a necessary utility. AJ

When it comes time to take your wife's upgrade, just give her your old phone, wave your hand, and tell her, "My old Epic will do fine." AJ

No, do not generalize like that. Higher order modulation and wider bandwidth for faster data throughput (hence shorter Tx/Rx time) often require greater power. AJ

In the Cingular-AT&TWS merger FCC consent agreement in 2004, Cingular (which is the current AT&T) was required to divest assets in certain markets to satisfy competition concerns. In several markets in Arkansas, Cingular divested PCS 1900 MHz spectrum to NEATT. In the interim eight years, NEATT tried to make a go of it but failed. So, for the past two years, NEATT has been shopping its spectrum licenses to potential buyers. The only buyer that stepped up was AT&T. http://transition.fc...FCC-12-84A1.pdf Folks, this situation is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. The domestic wireless industry is snowballing toward both duopoly and duopsony. VZW and AT&T may end up not just the only sellers of wireless service but also the only buyers of wireless capacity. If so, our only hope as consumers may be strict regulation. AJ

The hardware/software does not support 802.11n 40 MHz channels at 2.4 GHz, only 5 GHz. Maximum supported MCS index is 7 (150 Mbps in 40 MHz, 72 Mbps in 20 MHz). AJ

The contract-subsidy model is broken. But it is reality. So, keep this in mind: Every month, you are paying ~$15 of your wireless bill toward your subsidy. Every month that you are eligible for a fully subsidized upgrade but do not take advantage is ~$15 paid with no benefit to you. Every month that you further postpone upgrading just pushes back your subsequent upgrade date by another month. My recommendation is to do as Robert has done. Get married and have several children so that you can use their fully subsidized upgrades, staggered about one every six months. AJ

I honestly do not expect much capacity increase from CDMA1X Advanced. Current Sprint LTE handsets do not appear to support CDMA1X antenna diversity, so that eliminates one of Advanced's capacity multipliers. However, I am not the least bit worried. Voice traffic congestion seems to be largely a thing of the past. The primary concern now is data. AJ

Were you imagining me running around like a madman, running RF sweeps at every site in LA, KC, etc.? No way, I attract enough police attention as it is. AJ

Yes, some of the spectrum utilization data may be up to a year old. But the carrier upgrades affect primarily those sites that currently have (or previously had) only two, three, four total CDMA1X/EV-DO carriers. So, an additional carrier or two on those sites will push up the market average but will not likely push those sites over the top. In other words, most/all of those sites in 30 MHz markets will still have ≧10 MHz of fallow spectrum for potentially a second LTE 1900 carrier. AJ

I do have a spectrum analyzer, using it for various tests and spot checks. But I could not possibly survey several hundred sites per market unless that was my full time job. So, let us just say that S4GRU has sources, the same sources that have enabled Robert to create the Network Vision site maps. AJ

Today, I pulled out the spreadsheets and ran the numbers for fallow and available PCS A-F block spectrum in the Kansas City market. In the KC CMA (Johnson and Wyandotte Counties, KS; Cass, Clay, Jackson, Platte, and Ray Counties, MO), Sprint has the PCS A block 30 MHz license and has deployed just shy of 300 sites. Those sites average CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum deployment of 12.18 MHz per site. Vice versa, those sites average 17.82 MHz of spectrum unused and available per site. As in Los Angeles, that is well above the 10 MHz minimum of available spectrum required to deploy a second LTE 1900 carrier. As for the outliers -- those sites that greatly exceed the average -- seven sites (i.e. ~2.3 percent) in the market have deployed greater than 20 MHz of spectrum, hence have less than 10 MHz of remaining spectrum available. However, two of those sites are specifically intended as CDMA1X DAS at the Kansas Speedway. And four of the other five outliers have 7.5 MHz of spectrum available, so they need only one CDMA1X/EV-DO carrier to be refarmed in order to have sufficient spectrum available for a second LTE 1900 carrier. AJ

Since the cost of electricity usage has come up in this thread, here is a potential frame of reference. An AT&T cell site atop Samuel L. Jackson's apartment building in NYC has been stealing electricity to the tune of $40,000 per year. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/residents-upper-east-side-building-home-samuel-jackson-t-pay-750-000-refund-electric-bill-charges-article-1.1120523 AJ

S4GRU is not advertiser supported. The site costs considerable money to run and must maintain itself through donations. Would you rather that S4GRU not exist at all? AJ

Nah, danielholt is already waging an all out publicity campaign for that award. AJ

I got your corporate shorts right here... AJ

Yes and no. That depends on airlink technology and frequency planning. For AMPS, TDMA, and GSM, frequencies have to be divided among nearby sectors/sites. But CDMA1X, EV-DO, W-CDMA, and LTE are typically deployed as single frequency networks. Also known as unity frequency reuse, the same frequencies are deployed on all sectors/sites, and this greatly enhances network spectral efficiency. Simultaneous Tx/Rx is a different issue. That is FDD vs TDD. CDMA2000 uses PN codes and Walsh codes to separate different sectors/sites and users. AJ

Consider this a substantive, data focused counterpoint to the WSJ article and Sanford Bernstein claims of insufficient spectrum. I laid out some spreadsheets and ran some numbers today. I focused, admittedly, on only one market, Los Angeles. But it is a PCS A-F block 30 MHz market, and it is a big one. So, what Sprint can pull off in LA, Sprint should be able to pull off in many smaller markets. In the LA Metro market (i.e. Los Angeles County), Sprint holds the PCS A block 30 MHz license and has just under 1000 sites. Of those sites, average CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum deployment is only 11.65 MHz per site. In other words, Sprint has an average of 18.35 MHz unused and available PCS spectrum per site, and that is comfortably greater than the minimum 10 MHz of spare spectrum that Sprint needs to slide in a second 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE 1900 carrier. Now, averages can be misleading, so I counted up the outliers. Of all the Sprint sites in the market, only five sites out of nearly 1000 have deployed greater than 20 MHz of spectrum. Those five (i.e. ~0.5 percent) are the only sites in the market that could not presently accommodate a second LTE 1900 carrier. But, as data traffic shifts from EV-DO to LTE, not to mention voice traffic declines, Sprint could relatively easily refarm CDMA1X/EV-DO spectrum in order to deploy a second LTE 1900 carrier on those five sites, too. In conclusion, the naysayers may know how to crunch the financial numbers, but they do not seem to know how to crunch the spectrum numbers. In actuality, Sprint already has ample spare PCS spectrum for LTE in Los Angeles plus a great many other major markets. And S4GRU has been saying this from a position of knowledge for months now. http://s4gru.com/ind...l-lte-carriers/ AJ

I used to respect The Wall Street Journal. Perhaps that was just my naiveté. Or maybe times have changed. But it seems now that the WSJ is nothing more than a blindly capitalist rag, especially in its editorial policy. That said, I do not really blame the WSJ for the referenced article. The sources are institutional investors, including Sanford Bernstein, who are increasingly out of touch with average Americans, even actively working against the wants/needs of average Americans. Those money pushers should take a history lesson from Marie Antoinette. Their day of reckoning is coming, and le guillotine is sharp. AJ

Why do you have what seems to be a distributed antenna system (DAS) inside your building? Do you not get adequate in building coverage otherwise? If not, then forcing LTE will not to help, as you still will not get adequate in building coverage from LTE. AJ

Because you have a Nexus 7 (or similar future tablet), would that make you consider for your next phone a basic handset that simply makes calls, sends SMS, and tethers? Here is an interesting article on the subject: http://www.zdnet.com/the-nexus-7-will-drastically-change-the-way-i-buy-mobile-phones-7000001359/ AJ

No, LTE 1900 will not likely be any better. If anything, it might actually be weaker. Your mom's home at 99th and Roe is almost exactly equidistant from three sites: 95th and Nall, 95th and Mission, and 103rd and Nall. Those sites are no more than three quarters of a mile from your mom's home. If you cannot get decent signal strength, that indicates other problems. One, the subdivisions in the area are mature enough that they contain many large trees now. Two, to make matters worse, the 99th and Roe intersection is down in a valley. LTE will not solve these problems. AJ

Yep, your record looks like it includes eight different sectors from four different sites: 6545/6546/6547 6737/6738/6739 7219 7730 The sequential records are likely sectors in clockwise N/SE/SW order. AJ

Each different BSID indicates a different sector. And most sites have three sectors. So, did you interact with four different sectors or fully four different sites? AJ