iansltx

My crystal ball only interprets data that's already available. Can't tell what the competitive environment will be a year and a half from now, when Sprint has an LTE network rivaling Verizon and AT&T in size...with TD-LTE hot zones to go even faster...

Not necessarily denser. Just using a different frequency. I'd bet a few bucks that AT&T has less towers live with LTE in Atlanta than Sprint does at this point, but it doesn't matter because Sprint PCS requires tighter cell spacing than AT&T 700.

AT&T may or may not be able to do that in the foreseeable future. They'd have to use PCS spectrum and/or carrier aggregation to get 20MHz of bandwidth on the downstream side (what you need for 100 Mbps speeds). Verizon and T-Mobile OTOH can do this, depending on the market. T-Mobile will have enough AWS to do 20x20 FD-LTE in a bunch of markets, and so will Verizon. Both of the Big Two's cases, they'll have to put new equipment on the tower to get those speeds, since VZW will need LTE-AWS and AT&T will need LTE-A.

Dangit...when is W3C going to standardize the <sarcasm> tag? HTML6?

Doesn't solve my problem. I'm missing an AT&T LTE device, not a Verizon one (my iPad).

My dilemma is whether to get this or the Kindle Fire 8.9 LTE. The reason for getting the Fire being that then I have a device on all of the "big four" running on each carrier's fastest network (LTE for AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, DC-H+ for T-Mobile). But the N10 is a better device...

That's the Panhandle market. It'll be awhile. How long is uncertain at this point, and even what round it's in is up for grabs. Could be fourth round, but the schedule is in enough of a state of flux right now that it's best just to wait until sites are going online before making predictions.

That screen resolution...is epic. Same resolution as the 13" Retina MacBook Pro (which sells for more than 4x what the Nexus does, though to be fair it's an actual x86 laptop)...or a 30" monitor that costs around $1000. Slightly higher resolution than the 27" iMac that I'm getting the day after tomorrow (it's current-generation until December ). That's just insane.

Just calculated the numbers, based on this week's update, for the NV Running List. Robert will post them soonish. Some highlights: Chicago now has a very significant number of approved 4G sites, the majority of which have 3G (or 3G + 1x on SMR) also complete. As of this update, a little over 69% of sites in the city are now running on Samsung Network Vision equipment. Chicago, Baltimore and PR/VI markets look like they'll be NV complete within the next three months, backhaul permitting. Baltimore is ~49% complete, while PR/VI is ~40% complete but is moving at a quicker pace relative to the number of cell sites in the market. For AlcaLu markets, ~20% of towers in the LA metro market are upgraded. ~15% in the NYC market are upgraded. For Ericsson markets, ~39% of towers in Atlanta are now running Network Vision, though most are still running 3G over non-NV equipment. Houston is ~35% complete, with some 3G+4G sites mixed in. Kansas is ~36% complete. For detail above and beyond the Running List, donating to S4GRU will get you access to the Sponsor-only forums, including maps of Sprint sites that have been accepted by Sprint as Network Vision complete on 3G, 4G or both, and a breakdown of what sites have been accepted on a week-by-week basis.

Correction: iPad plans do NOT automatically rebill when you run out of data. The data stops, and you have to buy more. By contrast, they DO rebill each month unless you stop them. This is how it works on Verizon and AT&T anyway. As for tablet users hitting more than a gigabyte per month, my iPad has only once needed to be on a plan higher than 1GB, and that was on an extended vacation where I was tethering it (in addition to using a T-Mobile aircard) and doing everything short of watching long-form video on the connection. I used ~3.5GB that billing period. Do I watch my cellular data usage on my tablet? Of course, since indiscriminate cellular usage would run me out of data prematurely, causing me to need to bump my service up to the next tier. However it doesn't take all that much effort to stay well within 1GB for cellular usage.

There are a couple options. You can get the large update, or the bunch of small, incremental ones. Can't say for certain whether you can flash them on a completely stock device, but I think the answer is Yes: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1910947

XDA now has the LJ7 update and firmware available for download. The main OS (760MB) is taking awhile to download so I'll probably build a torrent of it and link to the torrent here for anyone else who wants to download it (will be seeding the torrent from two decently bandwidth-rich places).

As an iPad third-gen owner, I've seen my device run circles around other VZW LTE devices (all of them phones) in terms of speed and reception. Gotta love a much larger battery (even compared to a Razr Maxx), which allows the LTE radio in the device to run full-tilt.

Dangit...you beat me to it. I wonder how much DC will cost, whether MVNOs will be allowed to use it, and how quickly LTE phones will get it (ahem, GSIII).

That's what I did, on purpose. My phone is Sprint. My tablet is Verizon. And, now that T-Mobile is refarming HSPA+ to PCS, my tablet can do T-Mobile as well. I got the Verizon edition of the tablet partially because it allows tethering (the AT&T one didn't...maybe doesn't still) and because Verizon had LTE in the areas where I was while AT&T was HSPA-only.

Looks like the LTE version of the 16GB is only bringing in $250-$260. No thanks.

Where's the trade-in option? On the one hand, I don't mind keeping my third-gen iPad at all...it does what I want it to. But on the other, if I can upgrade to the newer model for around $200, I can deal with that, seeing as how the device is unlocked and coule be used with a variety of LTE networks here or overseas.

See the link if you're a financial wonk (dedub, looking at you, though you've probably seen the source report already): http://www.jagsreport.com/2012/10/credit-suisse-starts-stock-coverage-on-sprint-nextel-s/ Thanks to my immediate family's brand-new (large-ish) long position in Sprint, I have a copy of the report (one page of information and three or four pages of disclaimers). Nothing of interest that's new, though the bank puts a price target of $6 on the shares without considering M&A activity (SoftBank). Add another $2-$4 for M&A and you get their $8 (on the conservative side) price target. Not too shabby, considering what the stock price was even four months ago. NOTE: Insert relevant disclaimers here. Just because I'm long Sprint doesn't mean that you should be, and if you take my advice you can't blame me if Sprint stock comes crashing down. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.