iansltx

The catch here is that the Sprint iPhone ends up at a handicap vs. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile variants because VZ can do 10+10 FD CA (13+4) pretty easily. And T-Mobile and Verizon have 20x20 in some markets on B4. So the iPhone can use 40MHz of total spectrum running in FD mode, which is where the 150 Mbps number comes from. Now, the 5S could hit 150 Mbps too, but only in markets where 20x20 spectrum is available as I understand it. Oh, and AT&T can do 10x10 B17 + 10x10 PCS or AWS if they can plop down a big enough carrier in mid-band. That said, this only gets higher peak speeds in near-perfect conditions, since we're assuming that VZ and T have unloaded low-band spectrum (they don't), or that VZ or TMUS have 20x20 AWS (sometimes they do) that's also relatively unloaded. So the imbalance of power isn't quite so bad. Now, the upside of things is that Sprint can use B41 on the iPhone 6/+, and though CA on B41 won't exist, they can spread iPhone usage around the band to keep speeds high even though peak speeds will top out at 70/15 or so. And smaller cell sizes do help Sprint's performance under load. So the situation isn't nearly as bad as with the 5S, where you're confining to at most 5x5 of bandwidth at once, and ignoring high-band spectrum. Re: leasing, a cool bonus for Sprint there is that they can retire old iPhones if their being in the field is a real drain on network performance, though the 6 probably won't be. And if they want to re-sell the devices at the end of their lease, we're talking about a phone worth $350 refurbished.

Looks like there's an error in the B26 frequency listing there; B26 should have different freqs than B5. Anyway, the X v2 looks like a really solid device. Will have to see whether Google comes out with another Nexus handset this year. If not, I suppose I'll get the X as long as I can get an unlocked version like I've got with the N5.

Corrections incoming... GFiber isn't available anywhere yet. Grande is limited to 110/11 outside their FTTH area toward the center of town, but $65 gets you a gig if it's available. AT&T is at a full gigabit now where they have GigaPower (a friend lives near 35 and Riverside and his apartment complex has GigaPower). Suddenlink is available in Pflugerville, Georgetown and parts of Leander, and recently their standard tiers went from 15/30/50/107 to 30/50/107/300 from what I understand. Upload speeds are 2/3/5/15 IIRC. Thing is, I think that their 300M is cheaper than TWC's, though that isn't saying much (I pay ~$100 per month including modem rental for 300M). SL could offer 200M to everyone by running 16 channel modems on a 24 channel system...though they'd probably have to settle for 10M up in that case. Gigabit? Probably selective FTTH, at a pretty penny per month ($150+). DOCSIS 3.1 won't be ready soon enough to deliver a gig that way.

I wonder whether Sprint might push VoLTE in areas where partner LTE overlays either nothing or non-CDMA. Might take a little longer to deploy, but might as well set up a standard tech when it's available, rather than just trying gardern variety VoIP over cellular with associated QoS implications.

21db parabolic would be a highly directional antenna, not an omni. The cool thing about directional antennas is that in addition to amplifying the signal coming from a particular direction, they won't pick up the noise from other directions nearly as strongly. So it's a bit of a double-whammy connection quality wise that you wouldn't be able to get by having to assume that a cell site was equally probably in any direction.

...and upping the amount that I pay to Sprint. What got me to do this? Their business plans. So I'll be getting unlimited voice + data + 3GB tethering on my phone for $45/mo with no contract (no subsidy, obviously). Plus another 3.1GB shared between a Zing and a Galaxy Tab 4 (which I'll probably mail to my littlest brother for use at college after I play with it for a few days) for another $45/mo, on-contract with subsidies slightly above the ETFs for those lines. Consider this my vote of confidence in Sprint's ability to get Spark running everywhere I want it. I'm already nearly fully covered with B25+B26, and it's no mistake that all three devices I'll have (Nexus 5, Zing, GTab) are tri-band. We'll see what happens. But I for one will enjoy having all of that legit tethering data at my disposal, in case for example Time Warner Cable decides to have another backbone failure, or whatnot.

Now, I wonder how they'll make cases for this one, without obscuring the screen. I don't personally use cases on any of my gear, but most of my immediate family does, and they'll be the ones who'll be getting this phone more 'n likely.

Duly noted. At this point there's no good reason for me to switch off of my Nexus 5, but that may change

Sprint's website when I go to upgrade my phone. I get a nice message saying "You will need to change your plan in order to use your phone, but you can do that once your phone arrives." or something to that effect. Maybe I have to go through telesales (I'd say in-store but they tend not to know what they're doing) to get this straightened out, but online doesn't give me much hope.

...and I think that Sprint's done it again with tri-band devices; I'm off contract now (have been for a few months) but the list of devices that I can do a subsidized upgrade to on my SERO-P plan is basically zero. I'd have to switch plans. I actually switched to SERO-P a day or two after it was announced. Hence the Epic that I had when I got here.

If I'm reading things right, the fine print is clarifying the bill credit, not the to-unlimited upgrade. Hence the "limit one monthly $10 OR unlimited LTE offer" bit. So it's really an upgrade to unlimited, and it really would work on the lower-end postpaid Simple Choice plans.

I'm talking specifically about the refer-a-friend promo they launched today. Not "1GB except when we feel like breaking Net Neutrality or throttling you" side of things.

To quote a recently released dystopian movie, "precision of language!" It's not equal if it doesn't have 5GB of tethering. There's also the whole UnRadio thing but having some Spotify thrown in means that that's more of a fringe issue.

Their newest refer-a-friend "lifeline" promo. See here: http://www.tmonews.com/2014/08/t-mobile-offering-free-unlimited-data-refer-a-friend-deal-from-next-week/ TMo's limited plans, on Simple Choice anyway, don't care what you do with your data. So the $50 1GB plan becomes $50 1GB tethering + unlimited on-phone data, unless I'm understanding things horribly wrong. Granted, this offer expires after a year, but at the rate things are changing, they'll have some new promo to take advantage of then.

One good thing that Sprint is doing here is working to get phones that are actually reasonably priced when their price isn't bundled into the plan's subsidy. The Aquos phone is a prime example of this: $240 per year = $10 per month = not a huge premium for the device fee on top of what you're paying for the plan. Now, so is T-Mobile, with stuff like the Galaxy Avant, the Lumia 635 and the Galaxy Light. But Sprint is getting on the bandwagon here, and will probably promote the less expensive devices more, and work more to get interesting ones, because that's how they're positioning themselves.

Quick! Everyone start posting Spark speedtests! Which, by even the most liberal estimates for TMo, would be going at 800 mph vs. T-Mo's 2000. But since wideband LTE isn't everywhere, Spark is actually faster. So maybe 2500 mph?