WiWavelength

This is likely incorrect. Sprint holds SMR 900 MHz licenses through several subsidiaries: ACI 900, FCI 900, and Machine License Holding. (There may be a few others, but these three are the most prevalent across all markets.) And seemingly all of Sprint's SMR 900 MHz licenses are active through 2016, 2017, or 2021. AJ

Should the FCC and Sprint ever work together to disentangle the SMR 900 MHz band, it would be well suited to CDMA1X because it would not require another new band class. 3GPP2 band class 10 already includes both SMR 800 MHz and SMR 900 MHz. AJ

To bring some greater clarity to the SMR 900 MHz discussion, I have cooked up another of my famous graphs. Note the interleaved nature of the SMR blocks; B/ILT blocks occupy the channels in between. At the very least, this is why Sprint cannot currently utilize its SMR 900 MHz holdings for CDMA1X or LTE. AJ

As has been mentioned many times before, the $10/month fee is for premium data not Clearwire, WiMAX, or 4G -- whether or not that was originally the case, it is the case now. And based off of its quarterly reports, Clearwire appears to receive ~$7/mo ARPU for wholesale Sprint subs. AJ

Terrible straw man. The jump to Marxist or socialist countries is an utter, extreme red herring. Drop the blind allegiance to capitalist dogma and keep the discussion relevant to wireless mass communications, which is not an "unfettered" open market, never has been an "unfettered" open market, and never can be an "unfettered" open market. Rather, it is necessarily a closed, regulated market due to the limited supply and public ownership of wireless spectrum. AJ

In addition to Robert's statements above, keep in mind that Sprint had every expectation that WiMAX would meet much of the increased data demand coming down the pike because of uptake of the EVO, the Epic, etc. Of course, as we know all too well, Clearwire failed to live up to that expectation -- failed miserably in multiple ways. So, Sprint has had to play catch up with backhaul, EV-DO, and soon LTE. Unfortunately, that does not happen overnight. AJ

I hear this all the time, and it is just naive, superficial analysis. It rates the quality of Sprint's decision making based solely on outcome but fails to take into account circumstances surrounding and following those decisions. Rather, Sprint does not operate in a vacuum. It has to contend with the anti competitive Twin Bells. Blaming Sprint for all of its "very bone headed decisions over the years" is like telling the scrawny kid to stop hitting himself as the bully forces the scrawny kid to repeatedly hit himself in the face. For another perspective, list some of those "bone headed decisions" that Sprint has made. Now, imagine that VZW had made those same decisions. Would they still have been "bone headed"? My point of contention is that VZW would have made those decisions succeed because VZW is too big to fail at almost anything it does. Actually, as I contend above, Sprint's problems are in large part due to VZW and AT&T, as they have bought up antitrust worthy market share and spectrum bandwidth through acquisitions and exclusive contracts. They are #1 and #2 because they are simply too big not to be #1 and #2. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Unfortunately, your decisions may eventually affect you and your family in a negative way if/when the Twin Bells succeed at their goals of buying out Sprint and T-Mobile or rendering them irrelevant. Acting in your own self interest now can act against the public interest, and that can ultimately return in a negative feedback mechanism to harm your self interest. The situation is somewhat akin to living in a small town and shopping at Walmart. It seems great at first, but then you watch local businesses fail, people lose their jobs, and much of your economy come to revolve around Walmart. By choosing Walmart, you harm the overall strength and vigor of the local economy, which presumably you also rely on for your livelihood. Now, do not get me wrong. I am not trying to tell anyone what to do. Rather, I am only trying to get people to think critically about their actions. Like it or not, leaving Sprint for VZW or AT&T is helping make an already anti competitive wireless industry that much more consolidated. And as wireless is necessarily a closed market with many almost insurmountable barriers to new entrants, if we lose/abandon the competitive foils that we have now, real competition and consumer choice are likely gone for good. AJ

The wired broadband duopoly/oligopoly is local to each market. It does not matter a whit that there may still be dozens or even hundreds of wired broadband providers (e.g. Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, VZ, AT&T, CenturyLink, etc.) around the country. Wired broadband does not travel with you; it is tied to a specific location. Many options are mutually exclusive -- for example, if you have the option of Comcast, then you do not have the option of Time Warner. Thus, from a competition standpoint, what matters is the number of choices that you have at a specific location. And, for most, that tends to be two choices: one cable, one telco. At my house, I do have exactly two choices: Knology (cable) and AT&T (telco). As I like to say, I get a tough choice "between a rock and a hard place." I begrudgingly choose Knology because it offers 10M/512k DOCSIS 2.0 service but with a 50 GB/mo quota, and I pay $47/mo for that privilege. I would pay only $36/mo, but Knology tacks on an unscrupulous "cable transport fee" (which is really just a protectionist, non bundling penalty) of $10/mo because I do not subscribe to its cable TV or digital phone services. My other option is AT&T, but it is a non option for multiple reasons. U-verse is not available at my address; my only choice is standard DSL. The price is low at $20/mo but so is the DSL rate at 3M/512k; higher speeds are not available on my wireline. Even if AT&T offered U-verse at my address and a low price, I refuse to do business with such an unethical, anti consumer company. So, there is the wired broadband duopoly for you. It is patently ridiculous, almost criminal that we have allowed such a dysfunctional "free market" to dominate our wired broadband service. We traded away competition and consumer choice so that cable companies and telcos would have incentive to roll out wired broadband services quickly and widely. Yet, now, even though they face minimal competition, cable and telco want to reduce competition further through collusion (see the VZW-SpectrumCo cross marketing arrangements between VZ and Comcast and the end of FiOS). Other countries are laughing at us that we sold ourselves to capitalism and got inferior broadband infrastructure in return. Big Cable, the Baby Bells, and their shareholders, too, are also laughing at us -- laughing all the way to the bank. What a joke. AJ

EVRC is also an ~8 kbps (max 8055 bps) codec. The 9.6 kbps comes from the CDMA rate set (e.g. 9.6 kbps or 14.4 kbps), but the rest of the bits are FEC or just padding. AJ

I understand your predicament, and I sympathize with it. But I also hope that you recognize your role in the dynamic. When you give up on the competition and sign up with one of the dominant players, you -- at least implicitly -- endorse the status quo, as well as any further anti consumer policies that the oligopolists may then gain enough market power to impose, or you hope/expect that the electorate will step in and enact regulations to stem corporate practices that run counter to the public interest. With VZW and AT&T the helm, we are heading toward a wireless broadband duopoly as bad as, if not even more dysfunctional than the current wired broadband duopoly present in most markets. If you are okay with that in exchange for better wireless service, then you have made your rational choice. I may not necessarily agree with it, but I can understand it. AJ

I probably can say this in this forum, but I view switching to VZW or AT&T as "sleeping with the enemy." Doing so just gives the duopoly the mandate that comes from greater and greater market share. They lure us all in. Once they do, they can get away with almost anything because most/all the other choices will be no longer. And we will have none to blame more than ourselves, for we gave them the market power to do whatever they want. AJ

Fort Wayne likely will not get any better without additional spectrum because Fort Wayne is a PCS D block 10 MHz single license market. Sprint has probably deployed two 1X carriers and one EV-DO carrier, and that is all that 10 MHz can accommodate. Sprint has done a good job of shoring up other 10 MHz single PCS license markets (e.g. Albuquerque, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, Peoria, etc.) with spectrum swaps and later auction winnings. But Fort Wayne is not included and remains highly spectrum constrained. AJ

LightSquared should try a "Hail Mary pass" by offering to relinquish its L band ATC pursuit, to continue its L band satellite operations (e.g. precision GPS augmentation), to build out with its own private funds the Upper 700 MHz D block + Public Safety broadband 10 MHz x 10 MHz nationwide allotment, to share that capacity with priority access given to public safety, and to stick to its original plan to sell wholesale access to the remaining capacity. Otherwise, I foresee several problems with the political decision to deed the Upper 700 MHz D block directly to public safety. One, funding for the construction of the public safety network is I believe predicated on the windfalls from future spectrum auctions, which may or may not occur -- or not occur in a timely fashion. LightSquared could obviate the need for any public funds for network build out. Two, even if the public safety build out has the backing of ample public funds, expect delays and slowdowns that would not occur in the construction of a commercial wireless network. In short, LightSquared could build the network faster, especially as it would likely once again ride shotgun on the Sprint Network Vision platform. Three, 10 MHz x 10 MHz LTE is far more capacity than public safety alone requires. Just wait for the news story about the police officer who uses the public safety LTE network to download 100 GB of pr0n to the laptop in his cruiser. Instead of giving public safety so much broadband capacity that human nature will attempt to fill it with unauthorized uses, LightSquared could share the broadband wealth with wireless carriers and subs who need greater capacity. AJ

Yes, we are actively seeking more data on the Atlanta market specifically, as it should be a litmus test for how Sprint intends to coexist with SouthernLINC. I hypothesized to Robert that Sprint in Atlanta, Birmingham, etc., might be forced by spectrum constraints to deploy EV-DO Rev B (2X or 3X Multicarrier) in place of 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE: But early data from other markets show that Sprint has chosen a CDMA1X Advanced channel assignment (476) that is directly adjacent to where SouthernLINC's SMR 800 MHz allotment is located in its markets in the Southeast. I think that it is far more than a coincidence. Rather, it could be indication that Sprint and SouthernLINC have come to an interference abatement agreement that will allow Sprint to deploy the same CDMA1X Advanced and, later, 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE channel assignments nationwide. But we wait for Atlanta Network Vision 3G plans in order to know for certain. AJ

The single Rx antenna for SMR 800 MHz is most likely an intentional design choice, not a compromise. Sprint has no current plans to deploy EV-DO 800, only 1X Advanced and eventually LTE. AJ

That just sounds like the Jack Welch school of management: every year, get rid of the bottom 10 percent of your workforce. AJ

Robert, you forgot to mention one of biggest bonuses of microwave backhaul: the RBOCs do not control it. That Sprint has to contract with VZ Communications or AT&T for much of its T1 or fiber backhaul across the country puts Sprint at a significant disadvantage compared to VZW and AT&T Mobility. Sure, VZ and AT&T will say that they charge Sprint the same rates that they charge their wireless divisions. But money paid by VZW to VZ or by AT&T Mobility to AT&T is money just shifted from the left pocket to the right pocket. So, VZ and AT&T have every reason to keep special access rates high. This is just one reason why it is almost unconscionable that we have allowed VZ and AT&T to retain direct ownership of their wireless wings. VZ and AT&T should be forced to split their respective wireline and wireless divisions into separately traded companies. The simultaneous horizontal and vertical oligopoly that the Twin Bells have going needs to go away yesterday. AJ

This is incorrect. Sprint did not upgrade from GSM to CDMA. Are you thinking of the lone Sprint Spectrum GSM 1900 market in Washington, DC-Baltimore? That was a partnership among The Washington Post Company, several of the usual cable companies, and Sprint. It launched the first PCS 1900 MHz commercial network in December 1995. AJ

Robert, this blog post is top notch. So thoroughly detailed, it may be your best article yet. AJ

Why would the 400 MHz FDD offset make AWS "glitchy"? Sure, open loop power control might not be very effective, since uplink and downlink propagation are not highly correlated. But closed loop power control solves that problem. Plus, having longer wavelength spectrum, hence slightly stronger propagation characteristics on the uplink (compared to the downlink) is always nice for exceedingly power limited mobile devices. AJ

For 1xRTT, RC4 on the forward link can allow up to 307.2 kbps at the expense of half the FEC. But few networks seem to enable RC4 (and all CDMA1X handsets that I have ever encountered have come with settings preconfigured to RC3 on the forward link). AJ

Since you idle most often on 242, you most likely hash to F2, since 283 (which used to be about as close a center frequency as a CDMA carrier could get to the AMPS control channels) is almost always designated F1 on the Cellular A-side. And VZW uses 41 channel CDMA carrier spacing in your market. VZW does the same in my market, though I have seen others use 42 channel spacing. AJ

4ringsnbr, is your VZW signal CDMA1X 1900 or CDMA1X 850? Prior to the VZW-Alltel merger, VZW in Louisiana was solely former PrimeCo PCS 1900 MHz. But now VZW holds some Cellular 850 MHz properties (e.g. your Baton Rouge CMA Cellular A-side) that are former Alltel and/or former Radiofone. AJ

Under most circumstances, -86 dBm should be perfectly fine RSSI for CDMA1X. In fact, it should provide fully a 15-20 dB margin before CDMA1X generally tends to break down. So, if -86 dBm is "at the limit...of their range," your three sectors must be heavily loaded enough to really degrade Ec/Io and cause some definite CDMA "cell shrinkage." AJ

Josh, not to harp on your statement, but I always take issue with the idea that "LTE is based off GSM" or "LTE is GSM." Rather, LTE is the 3GPP evolutionary path for 4G that GSM/W-CDMA and CDMA1X carriers alike have almost universally embraced. But that does not mean that VZW and Sprint are "converting to GSM," as some have said, nor that LTE is GSM, since LTE is both a new airlink and core network that have almost no connection to the original GSM airlink and core network. Now, the reason that I take issue with this is because the GSM Association acts a bit like a cult. Anything that it can connect to GSM, it brands as GSM. A la, GSM is everything that is good in wireless, and everything that is good in wireless is GSM. To me, the insistence of the GSM Association evokes the South Park episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space," in which everything is Marklar: AJ