iansltx

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

Hitting 600MHz with TD-LTE on a network spaced for PCS CDMA (like Sprint's...and T-Mobile's...are) would practically erase in-building reception concerns, while still providing plenty of capacity in such situations, something that a 5x5 SMR channel does to an extent, but not quite as well (2db doesn't make too much of a difference, but triple the downstream capacity does). Heck, at 600MHz VoLTE would actually be a reasonable proposition (though you'd need to adjust the time slot ratio toward upload slightly), so you could conceivably end up with 100% FD-LTE in PCS, 100% TD-LTE in EBS/BRS, a single 1x channel in SMR for "legacy" phones, as much FD-LTE as you can fit into the remainder of SMR, and 100% TD-LTE in 600MHz, five or six years from now.Yes, that means that you've got at least four LTE bands on every phone you sell, but you might be able to get away with an LTE-only phone at that point, and that's huge.

That isn't satellite service, if you're talking about OMGFast (brought to you by the owners of Cablevision). Also, that service requires perfect line of sight to work, and operates on spectrum that Dish owns in some areas. The return path doesn't have to be on cellular spectrum; OMGFast is using 3.65GHz. Oh, and there's 500MHz of MV-DDS spectrum that the service sits on for downstream speed. That's more than Clearwire, Sprint and T-Mobile's holdings, combined...but you can't do nearly as much with the spectrum. Which is why Cablevision is trying to get approval to use the spectrum for (more lucrative, traditional) cellular backhaul.

I may have time tomorrow to do this by hand. In any event, by hook or by crook this is a good thing not only for both current and potential Sprint customers, but also Sprint as well. They've got plenty of time to satisfy substantial service requirements, even with NV going on elsewhere, and doing so will introduce a bunch of folks to Sprint where their choices have been AT&T, Verizon and maybe a regional carrier like CellularOne (MTPCS). Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sprint hit some towns with LTE before AT&T does in these cases, though that's more a sad testament to AT&T's LTE deployment patchwork than it is to Sprint's prowess.

If you can turn what would normally be sustained max'ing out of a pipe into bursty utilization of a larger pipe, the net experience on most data applications will be positive. It's traffic engineering/statistics, not math, that makes the difference here.

DC-HSPA+ is pretty much the exact type of solution that LTE CA is, and it's doing quite well for T-Mobile. So I won't discount that yet. Having a bigger bonded pipe does indirectly affect capacity in a positive way (sort of like how it's easier to keep reasonable speeds on a less-efficient HSPA 7.2 carrier than it is on an EvDO one). Heck, take DOCSIS 3.0 from cable companies, or pair-bonded DSL from telephone companies.

I think you can specify PCS-only either in settings or the same menu that not too long ago allowed LTE selection?

The rest of my family tends to humor me, even occasionally pointing out cell sites on road trips. Then again, I'm the reason they're saving a fair chunk of change on cellular service...and still get LTE

IMO, for a relatively small band (like AWS), it's not the end of the world if two providers, who don't want to roam on other AWS networks anyway, end up with all the spectrum in that band. At that point you pretty much have to do something useful with your spectrum because you've got plenty of it. The real issue is what happens when a single provider gets all the spectrum in a band. See AT&T and Cellular in a number of places.

Wait...Verizon wants the EBS spectrum, but not BRS?

EBS spectrum is all leased, and tends not to be terribly contiguous. It's significantly lower-value than BRS. I think AJ has mentioned this before, too.

I'll throw my hat in the ring against DISH. Same reasons as before: Ergen. I don't see as much doom and gloom re: the wireless network side...I'd actually expect TD-LTE and maybe S-Band on NV sites to offer something like HomeFusion from VZW, but with slightly higher caps and uncapped DISH VoD (how's that for a Net Neutrality violation?). Though the mobile side may well end up having issues, even though Ergen will want Sprint service nearly everywhere DISH serves. But when you're leveraged up to your eyeballs, you can't put mobile service nearly everywhere DISH serves. And...Ergen...

Aww, Fredericksburg, TX doesn't get its own launch announcement . Ah well...it's Waco-esque in coverage, albeit without CDMA in SMR.

Both were on 4.0 (still are) and both had clean ESNs.

I'll take a stab at this one: it's an update of the Samsung Galaxy Victory. Significantly larger screen, but that's my best guess.

Google: http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/google-fibers-next-stop-austin-texas_9.html?spref=tw AT&T: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases-test/att-announces-intent-to-build-1-gigabit-fiber-network-in-austin-202156751.html