iansltx

It's unfortunate that all of my iDEN phones are 80 miles away. Or maybe fortunate...I'll be able to get work done on the 30th this way.

The only reason gigabit is ten years away in a given metro is the competition isn't being pushed hard enough. And honestly it probably won't take that long to get to gigabit on the high end, even in areas that don't have a huge amount of competition right now. Comcast now has 105M as a relatively inexpensive tier, 12x faster than they were five years ago (albeit at a higher price). Cablevision (NYC) has 101/35 coming out very soon. Cox offers 150/20. In five years we've gone from DOCSIS 1.1 or 2.0 to 3.0 and channel bonding in both directions in many cities, representing a capacity increase of 8-10x in many cases. 24x8 modems are coming out nowish so already you can hit 300 Mbps in real-world conditions (on the downstream side). And the next big step is DOCSIS 3.1 so you aren't losing bandwidth to channel guard bands (out of 3.2 MHz on the upstream side, only 2.56 MHz is usable for data at this point, for example) left and right, plus some other enhancements that should boost spectral efficiency quite nicely (to the tune of 30%, the other biggie being 1024QAM). Combine this with plant improvements that push systems up into the 1200MHz capacity range, plus going completely digital, and you can hit gigabit on the downstream side without much of a problem. Don't get me wrong. You If you're starting out a cable network at this point it's foolish to build coax instead of fiber. But the lack of FTTH in a given area doesn't doom that area to perpetual backwater-ness connectivity-wise. Business practices might though (ahem, TWC).

They're using 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands, the same ones that host 802.11n WiFi right now, for this experiment. Since we're talking about fixed antennas on the ground...outside homes...you can get a little better reception than just using a cell phone.

I half-think that this move is a partial poison pill for Dish. If Dish somehow buys all of Clearwire, Sprint turns off WiMAX on everyone's phones, swaps most WiMAXers to LTE, and leaves Dish without Clearwire's largest revenue source. On the positive side of things, if Sprint can get all of their subs off of WiMAX quickly after they buy up Clearwire, they can drop WiMAX service to a single 10MHz, or even 5MHz, channel per sector in many areas to make room for TD-LTE. I mean, since everyone seems to be pushing folks off of old networks (iDEN SMR for Sprint, MetroPCS CDMA for T-Mobile) you might as well add one more tech to the trend. As opposed to Verizon, who won't sell LTE (yet) to anyone except postpaid, Jet Pack and iPad + 4G customers.

Just FYI, Android will never be as efficient "pound for pound" as iOS due to its apps being interpreted/Just-in-Time compiled (from Froyo on) vs. Apple's (and I believe Windows Phone's) compilation. They can get close though, skins or no skins.

Honestly, at this point, let Dish buy up the non-Sprint parts of Clearwire for $4.xx per share (probably $4.75). That should serve to buy Dish into a partnership with Sprint, wherein NV sites host AWS-4 (a la LightSquared) for Dish...and are much more likely to get TD-LTE in 2600 because you now have two reasons to use it: fixed wireless and mobile offloading. That was probably more or less Dish's endgame anyway, forcing Sprint to help them build out AWS-4 on NV sites in return for access to 2600 spectrum for mobile. A half-purchase would get them a seat at the table, so to speak, but would allow Sprint to get the math right on wholesale TD-LTE access to itself such that offloading from PCS to 2600 still makes sense. Yes, doing the math this way will be more difficult. But it makes sense financially to move many Clearwire sites to NV gear to reduce tower lease costs and, to an extent, backhaul costs, such that even when Sprint charges Clearwire for those items Clearwire comes out ahead (so Dish can't complain). And those costs will be offset by revenues from Sprint anyway...mostly. The remainder will come from Dish's fixed wireless component, which will be heavy enough to tip the scales on bandwidth costs...but since the fiber is already there to many sites you're looking at decreasing marginal costs per megabit as you go along.By owning 50+% of Clearwire Sprint can tip those marginal costs in its favor and actually have Clearwire as a revenue center relative to if Dish wasn't there. Passing stuff off to the right 4G core (Dish probably won't use Sprint's) might be a bit tricky, but we're talking about IP-only traffic on LTE 2600 anyway so that's not an insurmountable issue. Lastly, using LTE 2600 for fixed wireless will mean that more rural sites will get that base station tier added than otherwise would occur...which is a good thing for customers though most of those sites would be just fine with 5x5 in both PCS and SMR. Going back to backhaul, things get a bit more tricky for sites that are fed via microwave (Sprint's or someone else's) because backhaul capacity is finite, but since Clearwire's network is already marked differently for coverage than Sprint's (and Sprint won't care on its own maps which band is available) you could just deploy sites where fiber could be hooked directly to them and call it a day...and that would probably be enough to meet the AWS-4 buildout requirement. P.S. Those speeds are nice, but 10x10 FD-LTE rel 8 can do better in an unloaded situation like that, and the latency on that connection is just horrid for LTE with an obviously-good signal. Also, Bandluxe is a lower-end provider of equipment than AlcaLu or whoever...Dish said they were using Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson gear for the deployment, but I guess they just meant the base stations. To be fair though, they aren't the first in the US to do this; Bend Broadband in Oregon used AlcaLu base stations and Bandluxe modems for their AWS HSPA+ network a few years back (they've since moved to LTE).

Power usage != transmitted power. And radiated power isn't additive if it's facing in another direction, or out-of-band compared to what the phone is actually picking up.

Just fired up my Clear Hub with a 2-hour pass to see if lower congestion and potentially improved backhaul (but probably not since this is definitely a redundant site) have boosted the attainable speeds from me to the tower 1000 feet away. The answer is, unfortunately, no. Unless Clearwire is heavily de-prioritizing 2-hour pass folks (which I could buy...I'm getting 1 Mbps up and it appears to be a very-much-throttled 1 Mbps). Tests are all over the map, from 3 Mbps to 8 Mbps, with a modem that I've seen hit 18/1.5 before, with a similar CNR (25+). ne interesting thing I noticed is that the frequency the modem locked onto is quite a bit higher than what I remember it using the last time I tried it (several months ago). 2683.5 MHz to be exact. Not sure about channel size; for all its faults, the Clear Spot Voyager gives a lot more of that info. EDIT: Hit 10 Mbps, with peaks to nearly 12, though things are still wildly inconsistent. But hey, I got my CNR up above 30 by standing the modem on edge. Yeah, I'm close to the tower.

...and the have/have-not issue that is T-Mobile's network continues. Speeds on their network, right up to the edge of upgraded cells, will be pretty phenomenal. Once you hit an un-upgraded site, all bets are off. As for 4x2, my guess is that once T-Mobile finishes their H+/LTE upgrades, the old panels will come down. I'd imagine that the new equipment can broadcast some GSM/EDGE in PCS.

The newest iPhone 5 variant is the only phone from that series that supports AWS HSPA/+. That's what all the refarm hubbub is about. It's been awhile since T-Mobile has sold a phone with WCDMA in AWS and not PCS. There are still plenty of AWS-only subs out there, but two years may be enough to get them to upgrade to a comparable phone with HSPA+ in PCS and maybe LTE in AWS (or even PCS).

I would say that under-privileged areas in Africa could make use of iDEN. But I think most of the operators over there have t least WCDMA set up...

I think we're safe from it being the first tri-band LTE phone on Sprint. It's just another phone in the Flash/Force/I want a high class looking phone but don't want to pay for it series.

Add me to the list of folks who will buy it when it comes out. I'm pretty darned happy with my S III, but I bounce between areas that LTE in SMR would benefit. And, when the Clearwire snafu gets un-snafu'd, my area will probably get 2500/2600 TD-LTE as well in relatively short order. The only downside is that the rest of my family will need to wait for a Galaxy Victory-class device with SMR LTE, as they're in similar situations. Though for now they do of course have SMR 1x capability.

Sure about the time slot thing? I think that Clearwire is actually throttling it, in addition to deploying asymmetric time slots. Folks were getting 15/5 on WiMAX back when it started, in places like Atlanta. And the ~1.5 Mbps consistent speeds that folks seem to get now points to throttling at less than capacity, something that isn't done on downloads, because saturating the upload channel on a connection tends to destroy performance even more than saturating the downlink, bleeding over into the other direction.

700 A has its own issues, namely interference with TV stations. That's why neither Verizon nor AT&T want it. And the fact that 700 A interference zones are primarily urban doesn't help TMo's case for that band in the least.

Okay, maybe penta-band. I've been saying that statement since before the noise about 600MHz started.

My opinion (and only an opinion): give five years and you'll se a merged Sprint + T-Mobile, sporting quad-band LTE, coming in at a solid #3, maybe even #2, in the US. Sort of like EE has done in the UK (hopefully with lower prices). But that isn't going to happen in the near term. Sprint needs to digest Clearwire and roll out LTE in SMR + 2500 (which might get subleased to Dish for OTT video in return for them buzzing off...and paying hosting fees for AWS-4), and T-Mobile needs to integrate MetroPCS's subs and spectrum...and probably start deploying LTE in PCS A-F (three or four years out, once VoLTE gets hammered down and enough AWS LTE phones are out there that HSPA traffic is light).

Actually, that doesn't work all the way in many cases. Audio on GsM/WCDMA voice calls doesn't work for me with the latest OS version plus an earlier radio. I hear that if you use a custom ROM this issie gets resolved...and I may end up doing that...but in my case I just use GrooVeIP anyway, in forced LTE only mode. Though that may change when I get addrd to a friend's plan and get unlimited conventional voice/SMS in addition to the data i have now. sent via my SIII on Tapatalk 4 beta

Robert, all you need is proper APN settings. Use "fast.t-mobile.com" also APN type should be dual stack ipv4/ipv6. You should be good to go Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta It's not working for me still. Am I doing something wrong? I've just tried three separate sites with no success. /snip Robert from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta .com not .net sent via my SIII on Tapatalk 4 beta

Nope. Honestly, I do not get the infatuation with Nexus devices and OS updates. Give me OEM customized Android with engineering screens any day. And who cares about OS updates? That is more about the psychology of the supposed "latest and greatest" than any tangible benefit. If you ask me, save the next OS version for your next device. AJ I will have to disagree on this one. I like stock Android...or CyanogenMod...much better than skinned experiences, and OS updates at this point, when executed correctly, have a positive impact on device speed, rather than the other way around. And I don't want to wait two years between OS upgrades. Which means I probably need to add an engkneering screen tool to the list of apps I should write for the Nexus 4...because I'm sure the data is there skmewhere. sent via my SIII on Tapatalk 4 beta

Ah, got it. It's too bad that my Nexus doesn't have those screens. Or can I get something that adds them?

Before I continue... Anyway, where's the source of your confirmation? I mean, I'm not terribly surprised if T-Mobile's doing this to keep DC-H+ in AWS online for a few more months in markets where they don't have 40MHz of AWS, and Austin is along for the ride to harmonize the deployment. But my other guess would be that T-Mobile doesn't have enough PCS H+ sites (equal in number to AWS LTE sites) live to make sure that the tons of non-LTE, PCS/AWS-H+ capable devices on their network get consistent service on PCS (falling back to EDGE or GPRS doesn't count). Which will need to happen more often when less AWS is devoted to H+. But every single urban site can do AWS H+/DC-H+. So, rather than dealing with the network nightmare that would be running H+ and LTE on the same swath of spectrum, depending on which site is close to you, they're sticking with all H+ until their own mini-NV is 90+% complete in those markets. At that point, PCS H+ will be widely available, so most subscribers' phones will sit there rather than cluttering up AWS, so T-Mobile can shut an H+ channel down market-wide and extend LTE up to 10x10. And this sort of thing is why Sprint's PCS G block is a godsend for their first LTE rollout; phones have been out for a year that support the network, and Sprint didn't have to clear anything to deploy. I would say that Sprint is also pushing LTE harder than T-Mobile is (and this would be correct), but the fact is that T-Mobile is just fine with selling cheaper phones with PCS H+21 support because that's as much a part of their revised band plan as PCS LTE is to Sprint's.

Getting back on-topic, don't use Upgrade Now until tri-band phones are out. There isn't really a point, when you've got an S III already, IMO. I'm not sure whether I'll utilize the program at this point, because getting a buyback credit that's less than the insurance deductible on my phone rubs me the wrong way. Might just buy my next phone outright, sell my S III on my own and not extend my contract.

INTJ here. Less ridiculously introverted than I used to be, and I can pick up some S at times, but the profile fits like a glove. And yeah, small talk ain't my strong point.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that T-Mobile + MetroPCS have 51k sites, some of which are collocated. Remember that MetroPCS doesn't have much spectrum in some areas, so in order to deal with capacity issues they have to have smaller cells. As I posted elsewhere, there's a T-Mobile site colo'd with a Clearwire site around 1000 feet from my apartment. I just got LTE working on my Nexus 4 (fast.tmobile.com != fast.t-mobile.com) and I'm getting as low as 22ms latency to Dallas (though highly variable) and speeds as high as 29 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up. Sounds very much like 5x5 LTE to me, and my S III can meet or beat those speeds depending on signal strength, but I may need to upgrade the radio on my Nexus to one downgrade from current rather than two. I'm testing via wired tethering, so anything other than the radio firmware and the network itself aren't bottlenecks (I've seen Nexus 4 speed tests hitting 50/20 on Canadian networks). Posting this via that tethered connection on my workstation, just for fun...the experience is very similar to what I get with my cable connection, albeit with a 5GB per month cap, which speaks volumes about how well LTE works with good signal strength...and how far behind the curve TWC is...I can get more upload speed over LTE from four providers here (I assume AT&T's LTE is plenty fast) than I can from my cable connection.