WiWavelength

I wonder if there is a way that I could buy the Nexus 7 using Google Wallet on the actual tablet that I am buying... AJ

Several weeks ago, I believe I showed Robert some of the gain and ERP figures from the FCC OET authorization. Needless to say, the Tri-Fi has a lot of RF advantages over most handsets. AJ

Something is wonky with the 22.1 Mbps LTE uplink speed test. I do not believe that >18 Mbps is realistically possible in a 5 MHz uplink bandwidth with a single spatial channel. AJ

To maximize your qi, you must inhale the power of nature, young grasshopper. AJ

I presume that the NID boundary between Baton Rouge and New Orleans coincides with the old affiliate/corporate network boundary. In that case, all bets are off. In my neck of the woods, the Alamosa PCS affiliate NID 1 was absorbed into Sprint corporate NID 43. And if Alamosa operated its own switch, then backhaul was rerouted to Independence MSC_1. In other areas, though, affiliate NIDs may remain as vestiges of a bygone era in Sprint history. AJ

Nat, can you provide some example locations of the higher Nextel sites proximate to lower Sprint sites? Height can be an advantage for iDEN yet a disadvantage for CDMA1X because of pilot pollution and excessive soft handoff. AJ

Being a consummate debug/engineering screen watcher, I have manually tracked NIDs for better than a decade, have even noted as Sprint has shifted NID boundaries. But, basically, NIDs correspond to switches (i.e. MSCs). For example, SID 4139 NID 41 (which you could say is the home SID/NID pair for Sprint, as it includes the world HQ in Overland Park) is backhauled to Lenexa MSC_1. Robert has graciously mapped these site by site MSC associations in the Interactive S4GRU Maps sub forum. The site entries do not indicate NIDs, but they do indicate MSCs. So, if you note a change in MSCs between adjacent sites, then you can expect a concomitant change in NIDs between those adjacent sites. In other words, the NID boundary exists between those sites. AJ

I have had eHRPD connections everywhere I have traveled in NID 41, NID 42, and NID 43 (and that would include hundreds of different sites/sectors). But I have LTE record entries only for NID 41, which includes the southern suburbs of KC and is where LTE deployment in the market is most prevalent. So, I have to to conclude that the list entries are more than just eHRPD. AJ

I was not able to do any extensive testing in KC today, unfortunately, as Sprint has now blocked the LTE site that I had previously used for testing. However, I did encounter an open LTE signal a few miles away from the previously open site. While I did not have time to track down this other site, I was able to do some quick testing. I could fit in only two trials, so these results may not be highly representative. That said, initial testing seems to indicate that an RSRP of ~-120 dBm triggers the reselection timer. If RSRP does not improve above -120 dBm, then reselection causes a drop back to eHRPD/EV-DO. AJ

But those Samsung owners, well, you gotta keep those yahoos on a short leash. AJ

I agree with Nazi Dan. Sprint will have at least limited LTE (or El Tí y) in Vegas specifically for CES next January. AJ

Is that a Sprint scuba tower? AJ

If I have time, I will run some LTE reselection tests while I am in KC tomorrow. By acquiring LTE but then driving away from the site once or twice and observing the signal metrics, I should be able to deduce the RSRP and/or RSRQ values at which the EVO LTE is configured to drop LTE and reselect EV-DO. AJ

No, Ben, that is a very good question. And the answer, theoretically speaking, could go either way. But, from empirical observation, I can say that Sprint LTE devices appear to be configured to favor much weaker LTE signals over much stronger EV-DO signals. The process the handset uses to choose LTE or EV-DO is network reselection. On at least some Sprint WiMAX handsets, those reselection parameters are adjustable. I know that Robert got some traction out of decreasing the WiMAX reselection threshold on his Epic 4G Touch and that allowed the handset to acquire and retain WiMAX under weaker signal conditions than originally configured. However, I have yet to find any adjustable LTE reselection parameters buried inside the EVO LTE. No matter, LTE sensitivity seems to be reasonably good, and network reselection takes only a few seconds -- far faster than on WiMAX devices. AJ

##DEBUG# AJ

Not blasphemy for you, blasphemy for Robert. AJ

Blasphemy! AJ

My guess is that you caught a few wisps of LTE from a somewhat distant site. I certainly had that happen a few weeks ago. The site in question turned out to be four miles away as crow flies. When you have an LTE signal again, you need to view the LTE Engineering screen and report your RSRP and RSRQ values. Then, we can tell you if your speed test throughput is constrained by limited backhaul or by weak signal. AJ

Show the detailed results for that speed test. The 4G icon is not indisputable evidence that the speed test was over LTE. Furthermore, the signal bars may be mapped to the CDMA1X signal, not the LTE signal. So, even if the speed test was over LTE, the site could be miles away. AJ

Cool. Maybe we can get wireless industry types to endorse us with some pithy blurbs. Imagine the possibilities: "The feel good wireless network and spectrum focused blog of the year!" - Martin Sauter, author of "From GSM to LTE" "Action packed! The breakdown of Network Vision deployment in Chicago had me on the edge of my seat." - Kevin Fitchard, writer at GigaOM "I hate those guys at S4GRU. But I read them every day." - Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint AJ

Here is a screen cap of T-Mobile's coverage in northeastern South Carolina. I suspect that most will be able to discern the larger Cellular 850 MHz cells from the smaller PCS 1900 MHz only cells. AJ

Ron Jeremy refuses to carry a Kindle Fire in his pocket because the 7" tablet makes him feel shortchanged. AJ

Let me bring everyone up to speed with some background info. In all 50 states, T-Mobile has just one Cellular 850 MHz license for a single CMA in South Carolina because of its acquisition five years ago of Triton PCS dba SunCom. T-Mobile had essentially no native presence in the Carolinas, so it bought Triton, which had operated as the AT&TWS affiliate in the Carolinas up until the Cingular-AT&TWS merger in 2004. Triton had an almost exclusively PCS 1900 network, except for the one Cellular 850 MHz in the Myrtle Beach area. Now, Cellular 850 MHz licenses have geographic area based construction requirements and currently utilize a site based coverage model (though the FCC is likely going to change that licensing scheme in the next year). Basically, a Cellular 850 MHz licensee must provide and maintain coverage to its established Cellular Geographic Service Area (CGSA). Otherwise, the licensee forfeits the right to any unserved area. So, yes, Triton PCS had already constructed its Cellular 850 MHz market in South Carolina, and T-Mobile necessarily continues to operate it. AJ

...or a snuggie with a pouch. You can carry a full size tablet and look like a monk. AJ

Just for the record, here are the EVO LTE purported data roaming coverage maps: AJ