WiWavelength

Yeah, I have found WiMAX sectors in Kansas City, San Francisco, and/or Chicago that can deliver 10 Mbps. Keep in mind that Clear WiMAX is utilizing 10 MHz bandwidth carriers, while Sprint LTE is currently limited to 5 MHz bandwidth carriers. AJ

How is it an "epic fail" when 1) Sprint has not officially launched the Houston market and 2) the failure could be your handset not picking up live LTE? As a word of advice, keep the dramatic antics to a minimum. Negative criticism is welcome, but it needs to be constructive. AJ

No kidding. LTE has been live for three days already. Yesterday's news. Blasé. Time to move on to the next big thing. AJ

No, LTE really has very little in common with GSM, even less so than W-CDMA has in common with GSM. W-CDMA and LTE are just the airlink technologies to which most/all GSM carriers have decided to evolve, but that does not mean that LTE is GSM. Similarly, other carriers, such as Sprint, also may evolve to LTE. But that does not make them GSM carriers. AJ

He crossed me. So, now he is visiting Jimmy Hoffa. Permanently. AJ

Heresy! Josh, your California card has been revoked. Visalia is now off limits; you are confined to Nevada. AJ

Hmm, I am unsure who is being serious and who is just playing out the joke. This situation is __________. A) ostentatious sanguine C) cryptic D) callow E) jubilant AJ PS -- I wish that we could get that damn sunglasses smilie turned off. It wreaks havoc with FCC filings, too.

To be clear, the FCC has jurisdiction over the AWS 2100+1700 MHz spectrum portion of the VZW-SpectrumCo-Cox transaction. With the recent concessions from VZW to auction its Lower 700 MHz A/B block licenses plus sell/trade plenty of AWS spectrum to T-Mobile, the spectrum portion of the transaction has been pared down to something reasonable. And the FCC is said to be in favor of approving the spectrum license transfers. That said, the DoJ has say on the antitrust concerns that arise from the cross marketing and joint operating agreement portion of the transaction. And word on the street is that the DoJ is not going to let the non compete agreements fly, since they effectively undermine the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that engendered telco and cable to compete in exchange for deregulation. So, that brings us back to the spectrum transfer. SpectrumCo-Cox has said that it will not sell the AWS spectrum without the other agreements. If so, then an interesting stalemate seems to be in the offing. AJ

No, Sprint LTE has 5 MHz carrier bandwidth, and VZW LTE has 10 MHz carrier bandwidth. So, that is bandwidth, not frequency. And Sprint is initially deploying LTE in PCS 1900 MHz spectrum, while VZW is initially deploying LTE in Upper 700 MHz spectrum. AJ

Do not confuse "interest" with necessity. Nextel or Nextel Partners had to construct greater rural coverage in some areas (but, inconsistently, not in others) because iDEN was a one trick pony -- effectively, no domestic roaming. AJ

Yes, this is a Sentence Completion question from the October 2011 SAT. And, of course, the correct answer is: D) ejaculate . . dungarees But I heard that thelasthallow, surprisingly, answered the question incorrectly. AJ

Yes, iansltx is correct. Both Bell and Telus are national CDMA1X/EV-DO carriers in Canada. Basically, Bell has the Cellular B-side licenses in the eastern provinces, while Telus has the Cellular B-side licenses in the western provinces (and Rogers has the Cellular A-side licenses everywhere). So, in Windsor, ON, Bell will be dual band Cellular 850 MHz and PCS 1900 MHz, and Telus will be PCS 1900 MHz. I am not sure which, though, is currently higher priority in the Sprint PRL. That said, Windsor is just across the river from Detroit, so Sprint signal will bleed over in many locations. AJ

Yep, my credit card was charged, too. I am so excited I could almost ____ in my _____. AJ

Is it on sale? I try to stock up on LTE when it is $.79/lb. AJ

I doubt that your in building repeaters will work for Sprint LTE. Since the repeaters do work for Sprint EV-DO, we can safely conclude that they are at least PCS 1900 MHz capable. However, they are likely PCS A-F block (1850-1910 MHz x 1930-1990 MHz) capable, as that is the traditional PCS band dating back to 1995. The PCS G block (1910-1915 MHz x 1990-1995 MHz), which Sprint is using for all initial LTE deployment, is a more recent addition to the PCS band. In fact, until Sprint started Network Vision deployment late last year or early this year, the PCS G block had never been in use for cellular type communications. As you can see from its frequency passband above, the PCS G block is a 5 MHz x 5 MHz extension at the top of the traditional PCS band. And your in building repeater system is probably designed to filter out this range, since it was not previously part of the PCS band. AJ

Not a chance. All further EV-DO revisions focus on multi carrier (e.g. 2xEV-DO, 3xEV-DO, etc.). Sprint would have to rejigger many of its current EV-DO carriers and potentially eat up available spectrum that could be used to deploy additional LTE carriers. AJ

Okay, could you have made that case in 2008? If not, then your suggestion that EV-DO Rev B would have been a better choice is just revisionist history. Also, FCC consent bound Sprint to deploy its BRS/EBS 2600 MHz spectrum, which is/was suitable for WiMAX but not for EV-DO of any flavor. For further discussion, see this thread on WiMAX: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/11-ill-say-it-wimax-was-a-good-decision/ AJ

Two possible explanations: WiMAX and economy of scale. Had Sprint not gone with WiMAX in 2008 as its 4G solution, then Sprint potentially would have deployed EV-DO Rev B as an interim solution prior to UMB or LTE. But WiMAX precluded the need for EV-DO Rev B. That said, no major carrier that I can think of has pursued EV-DO Rev B enhancements. So, the economy of scale for EV-DO Rev B infrastructure would be small. AJ

On second thought, watch what you say, Herron. We have leverage over you. We can have you turned away at the border, your Crawford County fried chicken privileges revoked. AJ

Hey, there is nothing wrong with Kansas. Oh, wait... AJ

wyndd123, I intended for my post to be humorous, not offensive. If you took it to be the latter, I apologize. As S4GRU staff, we have seen essentially the same posts and pics dozens, if not hundreds of times by now. So, we have to inject a little bit of comedy here and there just to stay sane. If you are willing to play along with that humor, make some cracks about us, too, this can be a simultaneously fun and informative site. Best wishes... AJ

Excellent idea. I think that I will travel halfway across the country for my dental work because if there is one characteristic that we all associate with the South, it is certainly good teeth. (Now, extra credit for those who can point out the logical flaw(s) in my humor.) AJ

Is that your dentist who has his shingle above the dumpster? AJ

boomerbubba, the issue is really a debate between two signal metrics: RSSI vs RSRP. Both use dBm as the unit of measurement, but they differ in ways that can make RSSI report signal levels ~25 dB greater than that of RSRP. RSSI, which is a more traditional measurement that has long been used for various airlinks, measures all RF energy in the channel. RSRP, which is an LTE specific measurement, measures only the average power of many reference signals in the channel. HTC's FieldTrial.apk reports RSRP (and RSRQ, but I will not go into that metric right now), while Android ICS may report RSSI. On the latter count, I am not sure. And I do not live within the current LTE footprint, so I cannot presently compare and contrast the reported signal levels. I can say that VZW has made a push to standardize RSSI for LTE signal reporting; thus, it would not surprise me if Android has followed that lead. Due in part to your relevant questions, Robert and I have decided that now would be a good time to write up an article on LTE signal metrics. So, I will start working on turning this post into a full fledged article to be published on The Wall, ideally tomorrow afternoon. AJ

Correct. However, HTC's FieldTrial.apk, which contains the various engineering screens, has not changed significantly since at least Froyo. AJ