iansltx

I've hit 29 Mbps down, 3.5 Mbps up over DC-H+, though at the moment I'm "only" getting 15/3 (could be due to the older radio that I flashed on my Nexus 4 to get back LTE support). Still waiting on LTE, though I'm told it's coming very, very soon here. I half expect it to be slower than the top speeds on H+, at least for downloads, because they may go with a 5MHz carrier here (hopefully not though).

Verizon needs somewhere to run their CDMA for the next four or five years, so they'll need to keep either CLR or PCS. Just an opinion here but, while I'd like to see PCS H head Sprint's way, they really should go for 600MHz TD-LTE. By contrast, as long as T-Mobile is uninterested in rural, 600MHz isn't a big deal for them. If they bid on it, with the intention of changing their outlook a bit, I'm fine with that too. But having only one 5x5 LTE channel available in SMR certainly isn't the end-all, be-all of low frequency spectrum (even with PCS to back it up). I will say though that, when T-Mobile and Sprint merge (I think it's a when rather than an if), I wouldn't mind seeing 2500 holdings sold over to Dish. That frequency is a better fit for fixed wireless, and PCS + AWS solves your mobile capacity problem on LTE with less site spacing issues than BRS/EBS. Heck, the combined entity might have enough spectrum to eke out 20x20 LTE everywhere, whether in AWS or PCS, and that's kind of phenomenal.

You want to use SOHO router mode for their stuff if you want to use it like a standard WIFi router. This is due to Ubnt's legacy as a wireless ISP gear company, where usually their radio was the equivalent of a cable modem rather than a home router.

On the flip side, at least Sprint would have pseudo-native coverage in the first place. And you could say the same thing of Shentel potentially defecting, though that would be a bit harder as Shentel has no spectrum of its own (right?).

I'll be "running the numbers" for a Running List update sometime later today. I don't think I'll see a 100% complete market, but there are some markets that are ridiculously close. Which, remember, means LTE on EVERY site. Neither AT&T nor Verizon are doing that with their 700MHz network. Nor is T-Mobile, if you look at the size of a "market" in Sprint terms (including rural areas as well as urban).

I could dig up my Boost Mobile i450...or my i425...but they're currently inactive. Maybe they'll pull down a signal though, and I can see the minute the network goes offline on the 30th in two locations (Austin and Fredericksburg).

PCI? Maybe, though if I remember correctly we're talking about 100 MB/s there or better, so not really. PCIe? Nope, and any new machine is going to have PCIe slots, rather than PCI ones.

The rest of my family has been on Ting (my e-mail is associated with their account) for a few months now. What started out as a couple of LG Marquee refurbs is now an LG Marquee (littlest brother, who doesn't use his phone all that much), two Galaxy Victories (one used ex-Ting, one used ex-Sprint brought over soon after BYOSD allowed LTE phones) and my dad's Samsung M370 refurb (a $40 phone is less painful when ruined than a $150 phone). In the case of my mom and brother (the two Victories), their coverage was upgraded when switching to Ting; they both previously had Virgin Mobile, though my mom kept a Tracfone on Verizon for areas without Sprint coverage. You get voice and SMS while roaming, which is fine for them since when roaming that's generally all they need. No roaming data, but the only 3G roaming that I know of in this area is one or two ex-Alltel sites, and that's not worth signing a contract for. My dad, who moved from an AT&T Tracfone (and before that a Verizon Tracfone) has more or less comparable coverage to what he had before (remember, we're talking about someone who uses practically no data on a non-smartphone). After making it clear to these family members that voice and texts are dirt cheap, but data is not, usage across the four lines has settled into the 1000 minute, 1000 text and 1000 MB tiers, for a total cost of $71 + taxes and fees per month. Yes, three $93 phones were bought not long ago, and two $150 phones were purchased more recently (plus a $50 phone). But with the monthly pricing we're coming out ahead, particularly if you compare to Verizon, where those same four lines would be $30 + $40 + $40 + $40 + $50 = $200 plus taxes and fees with a Share Everything plan. Even EPRP would run us $140 + taxes and fees...which would put us about even if I rolled my individual plan in as the fifth line but then we're all under contract and I'm not quite halfway through mine. For their usage patterns (a fair chunk of voice and SMS, plus a reasonable amount of data) Ting works excellently, and I've been pretty impressed with their customer service (though I wish they had live chat customer service in addition to their phone, email and Twitter channels...yeah I'm choosy). I probably won't switch in the foreseeable future, as I don't want to stop using 3GB or more of data per month (about 80% on 4G at this point...that number will probably hit 90% next billing cycle), despite my low minute/SMS usage. But if Ting's data charges were half of what they are, Ting would at that point be good enough for even I to consider paying my Sprint ETF and switching to them, allowing me the freedom to upgrade my phone when I felt like it rather than once every ~22 months.

You might want to look into Sharedband if you want a "bonded" connection; they set up a tunnel between your router and theirs, utilizing whatever connectivity you have to build a bigger pipe. So in your case you'd get close to 12/1 (well, 10/800 since if I remember correctly AT&T doesn't overprovision to counter ATM overhead), rather than two 6/512 lines, for $25 more per month. On the other hand, you may want to keep traffic segregated; use a wired router for one connection (both PS3s, the Airave, Vonage, Roku, satellite, maybe the camera) and a wireless router for the other (everything else). What you want is to keep heavy, sporadic uploads from one segment from killing consistent, light uploads/downloads from the other, and in order to do this by just throwing bandwidth at the problem you need a lot more upload bandwidth (I still have this issue with my 5 Mbps up connection).

I'm sure he wishes that AT&T would just run fiber to his home rather than continuing with copper. Since FTTH would give him 50/25 for the price he's paying for unbonded 2x 6/512 now.

Which data card? I have the Rocket 3 and have never seen more than 3.5 Mbps up.

Software-wise, you'll probably miss the cleanliness of base Android when switching from a Nexus 4 to something else. But hardware-wise, there's a reason Google is coming out with a new phone at I/O in a week or two (so I've gathered): the current crop of Samsung, HTC and LG handsets beat the Nexus 4 hands-down. And I have the Nexus 4.

There's no denying that swappable SIMs is nice. Nor is there denying that H+/DC-H+ are fast networks. But remember that T-Mobile had to obtain AWS spectrum before it could roll out WCDMA, because their PCS was full of GSM. In areas where Sprint only has 10MHz of PCS A-F, it would have been impossible to run WCDMA and CDMA side by side, necessitating purchases of new spectrum, band class changes, and the like. Not good. Fast forward to now. LTE has a theoretical capacity of around 37 Mbps per 5 MHz (I've seen 35 Mbps in real world environments) on the downlink and 14 Mbps per 5 Mhz (I've seen 13.5) on uploads. By contrast, HSPA+ has 21/5.76 Mbps of capacity in the same spectrum...and I've only ever seen about 14.4 Mbps on a single H+ carrier (28.8 Mbps on DC-H+). Granted, EvDO rA's theoretical capacity in the same 5 MHz is 12.4/7.2 (realistically you're getting 2.7 Mbps down, 1.2 Mbps up per channel, for 10.8 / 4.8). But at least there you don't have to wall off an entire 5x5 swath of spectrum for a single technology...a 5x5 that could be pushing a LOT more bits with LTE. Would I like to use my Nexus 4 on Sprint? Sure. Would swappable SIMs be great on Sprint? Yes they would...and that's coming. But adding WCDMA at this point would mean that Sprint would have one less "slot" for 5x5 LTE in PCS, and that's just not worth it. As for why T-Mobile went for WCDMA over EvDO, that's just what you do if you're a 3GPP based operator and the tech is out. Remember that HSPA only becomes more spectrally efficient than EvDO at 14.4 and above, and EvDO rA was for the longest time competing with HSPA 3.6. By the time T-Mobile had H+ deployed, Sprint had its ill-fated WiMAX network, which in ideal conditions could give HSPA+ a run for its money. Was the WiMAX venture a misstep? You could say that. But if you're going to razz on someone for not going to 3GPP standards it would be Verizon; they were releasing EvDO-only phones right up until their LTE network launched...and got away with it because it's very, very hard to find an area that has their network without 3G. With AT&T it's still possible, and with T-Mobile it's dead easy.

Meh, it works for me, if I wanted to actually do it. But I like having my GVoice separate/

To be fair, T-Mobile's CEO isn't doing its network any favors by specifically saying, more or less "Come at me, bro" to heavy users. And by offering a reference point price-wise to unlimited at 4.5GB, you're effectively guaranteeing that your average $70 per month customer (less if they're multi-line) is hitting 5GB per month. And, let's face it, for all the whiz-bang-ness that is DC-HSPA+, it's about half as efficient as LTE, less so on the upload side. Here in Austin, we're less than a month from T-Mobile LTE getting deployed (I have a source outside TmoNews), and their network consistently performs better on the download side than Verizon LTE, as long as you've got reception of something better than EDGE. Heck, uploads aren't too far off either; in the Sprint store at 360 and 183 in Austin today I hit 7/3 for Verizon, ~22/1.5 for T-Mobile and couldn't quite get a solid LTE signal from Sprint yet (I'll bet said solid signal is less than three weeks away, at which point I'll see 15/5 or so). But...and this is a big caveat...I spent multiple hours in EDGE-land because H+ building penetration isn't all that it's cracked up to be. And EDGE on T-Mobile is pitifully slow when you've got indoor coverage issues in places where people are likely to be checking their phones. When LTE goes live, I'm reflashing the baseband on my Nexus 4 back to the version that allows AWS LTE, since I'm sure latency will be slightly lower (I've seen 22ms on H+ before though!) and upload speeds higher than DC-H+. But I fully expect my phone to be waffling between LTE and H+ (and in some cases EDGE) more than a Denny's chef on a Saturday mid-morning. As an aside, T-Mobile has plenty of spectrum in PCS and AWS with the MetroPCS merger...in some cases they have as much AWS alone as Sprint has PCS A-G...plus T-Mobile has PCS on top of that. But, as AJ has said, T-Mobile has made the questionable decision of putting the more fragile airlink on the more fragile spectrum (at least for now...give them three years and watch 'em put LTE on PCS), with no low-frequency backup. Reasonably good in urban environments, and lightning-fast when they get 20x20 online, but T-Mobile needs 600MHz spectrum more than anyone at this point, and that's one thing that MetroPCS won't give them. But maybe they can just focus on cities and roam on Sprint for rural coverage...nah, that'll never happen until the two merge down the line.

In somewhat related news, any bets on if/when our member count will go back to being above the NV Sites Complete count? I mean, being able to call a site my very own is nice, but we obviously need more members