iansltx

Just to throw this out there, based on maps I've seen, a site like TMo4GRU would be reasonably possible if somoene found a reliable source of info who didn't mind using internal tools significantly more than average. Of course, the maps would be less colorful because refarmed 1900 and AWS LTE are being installed simultaneously with TMo...and LTE is being turned on in huge clusters rather than on a site by site basis like Sprint (so, similar to Sprint 3G). But the information would still be useful, particularly for folks who want to, for example, bring a Verizon phone to T-Mobile (which would have the same band implications as a pre April 12 iPhone 5).

I remember being able to select SMV as the home codec on my HTC Mogul (or was it my Touch Pro?). May have been the placebo effect, but I thought that calls sounded better with that codec selected. As for the iDEN vs. CDMA discussion, I'd go for CDMA, as long as you've got halfway-decent reception and aren't dropping to half/quarter-rate all the time due to capacity concerns. Fortunately, Sprint doesn't seem to do that, so voice quality is decent here. That said, running GrooVeIP on my Nexus 4, either over HSPA or over WiFi, gives significantly better voice quality, albeit with delay and/or echo issues at times. But hey, 64k uncompressed PCM voice, or whatever GVoice is actually using (probably G.711 or whatever) is wonderful. Then there's the AT&T vs. T-Mobile voice quality comparison. AT&T often employs half-rate AMR-NB to squeeze more capacity out of their network. T-Mobile, to my knowledge, is full-rate AMR-NB, or even AMR-WB, everywhere. So if you can get a decent signal with them, they're comparable quality-wise to a CDMA call in ideal conditions. As for GSM buzz, any TDMA airlink around 850MHz will cause harmonics that manifest themselves in speaker interference. In the case of iDEN, I've had CRTs go wobbly due to interference caused by using data or voice on my phone near the monitor. WCDMA/CDMA don't have this issue. LTE 750 actually does have this issue to an extent.

As an example, T-Mobile launches markets for LTE when 70% of sites are upgraded (and they're upgraded at the same time that PCS HSPA+ radios are added). Their network is closest to Sprint's in that, nationwide, they have PCS-ish spacing and are doing a network overhaul on every site (in urban areas). But, again, the number is 70%, not 100%. And there's a distinct difference in coverage when every third site doesn't have a tech enabled. Oh, and for refarmed PCS to launch in a market, the threshold was even lower, from what I understand. On an unrelated side note, T-Mobile shares a few sites with Clearwire around here. Hence "PCS-ish" spacing rather than straight-up PCS spacing.

Hopefully Ting (or Virgin Mobile) will be able to grab one of the tri-band modems; I'd really like to test that segment of the network out sooner rather than later, but I don't want to sign another contract to do so. And, unfortunately, I've got awhile to wait before I have my next contract upgrade, though I may bite the bullet and pay nearly full price for a tri-band S4 or whatever when that comes out, selling my S III to soften the blow.

Sprint: SMR 800 (soon) + PCS A-G (G now, A-F soon) + BRS/EBS (soon) Verizon: 700 upper C (now) + AWS band IV (very soon) AT&T: 700 lower B+C (now) + AWS band IV (now, few areas) + PCS A-F (soon) + CLR 850 (soon) T-Mobile: AWS band IV (now) CricKet & MetroPCS: PCS A-F (now) + AWS band IV (now) US Cellular: CLR 850 + PCS A-F + AWS + 700 lower A-C? (I think all are being used other than lower A) Yes, AWS is where everyone is going these days, more or less. Maybe not for a primary deployment, but phones will end up supporting the bands at least.

But if you're talking about latency-sensitive apps, they're probably low-bandwidth enough to run on one connection. Gaming and voice chat are, anyway. I need to call up TWC again sometime and see if I can get another 50/5 line here, and bond via Connectify to get 100/10. Or maybe 30/5, depending on their pricing (I hear it's $40 for a "cloned line" like that). I don't care much about the added download speed, but 10 Mbps uploads would be a nice improvement, provided the cable node I'm on can handle it (the channel my modem is sitting on has 15 Mbps of capacity).

Yep. Though I'm sure that, if you root, you'll be able to flash AOSP onto the S4 soon enough.

Thanks for the info about the AUS spectrum situation. I had been meaning to look that up but have been too lazy to do so. As for LTE vs. DC-H+, T-Mobile has to slap someone in the face unfortunately. As someone who owns a phone that is supposed to only support DC-H+ (if you run the LTE baseband there's a good chance that you lose GSM/WCDMA voice if running Android 4.2.2), I identify with the group that will ultimately be disenfranchised by the move. But T-Mobile either keeps 10x10 of H+...which means that its last-gen network will actually run faster than its next-gen one in some cases...or it pares H+ in AWS down to 5x5 so that folks actually get a peak speed upgrade with the appropriate phone. Granted, it's a bad situation. But I would say that Verizon's is slightly worse. T-Mobile has a Galaxy S III variant that runs LTE in AWS. Verizon doesn't, and now their 10x10 LTE 750 in many cases performs more poorly than T-Mobile's 10x10 DC-H+, likely with no capacity increases on the horizon because splitting cells would potentially interrupt LTE coverage for everyone. Now Verizon will be hitting AWS with LTE soon, and the Galaxy S4 does support that band, but it's sad to watch your phone data speeds dropping down to below what VZW advertises, on a network where advertised speeds are one-tenth of the site's overall capacity in ideal conditions.

From what I understand, the heavy throttling/disconnection warnings on ST have all been to AT&T based customers. Sprint-based folks have never had that issue on ST, because Sprint charges their MVNOs halfway-reasonable wholesale rates. That said, they're still wholesaling on a minute/message/MB count basis from what I understand. Now realistically the numbers are in the terabytes or petabytes of data per month for someone like Straight Talk, but Sprint doesn't sell them unlimited data lines. Straight Talk just runs the numbers and, since MVNO data usage isn't actually ridiculously high, they make money while offering unlimited data. And of course I have no problem with ST selling LTE phones, since the spectral efficiency of LTE is quite a bit better than that of EvDO. The faster everyone switches to LTE-enabled phones, the faster Sprint can turn down EvDO carriers and reclaim enough spectrum for one or even two more 5x5 LTE carriers, in PCS A-F.

Heck, it even shows you what your signal bars will look like when outside a metro area Seriously though, T-Mobile is not holding anything back when it comes to pushing for newer techs. From what I understand, Austin is going live with LTE in less than a week, at which point T-Mo will probably cut down AWS H+ to a single carrier and go right to 10x10 (I'll confirm with my Nexus 4, with its rolled-back radio, as soon as that happens). Yes, they're decreasing 3G capacity in AWS by half to make way for LTE. But, as we've discussed, they can't do things any other way because WCDMA carriers take up quite a bit of bandwidth apiece, and LTE is much more spectrally efficient in anywhere close to ideal conditions. Plus, T-Mobile has had phones that support PCS HSPA+ for a few years now, probably due in part to their courtship of AT&T (who would've dismantled AWS H+ very quickly if they had been allowed to buy TMo).

Ooh, a new built-for-Android IDE. Just might pick that up (hi, my name is Ian and I'm a software dev). Might switch from Rhapsody to Google Play Music All Access as well, but the price of the two services is the same so I'm not sure on that one. Have to look at selection. Also, I can't afford a $650 phone, even if it's tied for best in the market. Especially since it wouldn't have LTE where my S III does.