Thomas L.
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Posts posted by Thomas L.
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I think it's a stupid decision, unless Masa has learned something that shows things are going to be drastically different in terms of the regulatory environment re: new site approval. Densification can happen really fast, in the right environment, like in China. China Mobile has at this point activated nearly a million, if not more, band 41 macro sites, their entire LTE network is band 41, so densification is the only option. But that was only able to happen because the government owns China Mobile, the fiber provider, and tower construction company. Here every community has different laws about zoning and permits, it's going to take ages for that process even if Sprint does have money for it.
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Yeah, 6MHz uplink 700. 40MHz on AWS4 which can be all used for downlink. Then the recent AWS3. The unpaired is 15MHz uplink which I think is nationwide. Then the 10MHz of PCS. Plus Dish has been trying to get the L-band from Lightsquard (LTE Band 24) which they have all 34MHz of. it has GPS interference concerns, but even with the proposed guard bands that still is another 20MHz that can be used there.
As is with the Dish spectrum they could do 40x15 with the AWS4 and unpaired AWS3. I think this is the most intersting and what VZW would want to utilize first possibly.
Wasn't Charter interested in buying TWC for $50+ billion? Maybe they'd be interested in buying Verizon FIOS, then Verizon could turn around and use that cash to buy Dish or lease the spectrum. But if they lease the spectrum they are going to do long term lease.
I think if this happens, AT&T and TMobile will have to merge. Long term they won't be able to compete unless they dip heavily into highband unlicensed.
VZW would be much better off going after all that highband. I think 20x20+ over 700 and 800MHz is plenty for rural markets.
Hopefully though, if VZW makes a deal with Dish the FCC makes VZW offer an unlimited data plan of some sorts. Maybe even make their spectrum protection sites offer wireless broadband or something.
God what a hodgepodge of non-standard spectrum Dish has. Building out that network and then getting devices for it seems like it would be a nightmare.
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Use Port 4500. Definitely is 4500. I know by experience because the ASUS routers Sprint sends out slow all other Port 4500 traffic to a standstill in order to give priority to WiFi calling.
Anyway I would most likely start by setting Port 4500 to the Highest QOS Priority you have.
Additional settings beloe:
- 500,4500,5060,5061,52000:59999 for WiFi Calling.
- 53,67,68,500,4500 for an Airvanna (if you have on connected to your router as well.
The below details are just a summary of my research. Please let me know if you agree with my conclusions.
- Port 444 is for emergency 911.
- WiFi calling Gateway: IP Address: 68.31.26.1 Host of this IP: 68-31-26-1.pools.spcsdns.net
From T-Mobile Documentation:
From T-mobile's Instructions but much the same for Sprint WiFi Calling Routers. http://serverfault.com/questions/628379/qos-settings-for-wi-fi-calling-on-pfsense-firewall-gateway
There seems to be a consensus of sorts that you may want to also do some of the AIRRAVE QOS ports as well likethe following from T-mobile as well.
Enter the following two rules giving them a meaningful name like "WiFi Calling", enter the MAC for your phone, enter at least 85% of your available bandwidth (e.g 0-42500 if your maximum transfer rate is 50 Meg), the highest priority and:
Rule 1: Destination port "4500" Protocol "UDP"
Rule 2: Destination port "5060, 5061" Protocol "TCP" lso 52000 to 59999.
From Sprint Documentation:
Sprint also details additional ports for the Airvanna and Airrave.
If your AIRAVE cannot connect to the Sprint network due to a unique network configuration, you may need to open the following UDP ports on your switch or router that the AIRAVE is connected behind:
- Airave (Airave 1.0 Samsung) ports are: 53, 500, 4500, and 52428
- Airave Access Point (Airave 2.0 Airvana) ports are: 53, 67, 68, 500, and 4500
Really nice, informative post, with references. That's awesome.
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Anyone have a link to explain what using b41 for backhaul would look like? I tried searching the forums and generally on the web but couldn't find anything that made sense to me.
I think the reason that there isn't that much information out there re: B41 as a backhaul (which is really using some of their 2.5ghz spectrum assets as backhaul using a non-LTE technology I believe) is that it is a proprietary solution by some company.
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I think it's fine they park on B26. But it needs to be that they move to B25 or 41 immediately when data starts to be used in any significant amount. Ideally B26 needs to be used by only devices that have no other bands available. If it is bogged down just because too many people are parked on B26, then they need to configure it that when B26 performance drops below 5-6Mbps in a given sector, that all the devices with B25 or B41 in sight get shunted over. So B26 performance can be preserved for customers not in "view" of higher bands.
AT&T in my area is 5MHz B17 (700MHz) and 10MHz B4 (AWS). AT&T keeps everyone on B4 if you have a useful connection. Even it is weak. It keeps B17 running 4-8Mbps in most places. And even a weak B4 signal runs 10-12Mbps. Granted, there is a reduction in battery life than if we were all parked on B17. However, the difference is not catastrophic. It seems if I park on B17 all day, I get 24 hours life out of my Nexus 6. If I park on a weak B4, I get 20 hours life out of my Nexus 6.
Personally, I'd rather take the slight battery hit and plug in sooner than to have B17 run 500kbps-2Mbps. It works well for AT&T and their customers don't even complain. But their data works well everywhere they have an LTE signal here.
Just out of curiosity, why does parking users on B26 bog it down if they're not really using any data? Does each connection reduce available bandwidth some amount even if it is just parked there?
Tommy
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It really is completely ridiculous. Sprint really isn't even an option for those folks in SoCal compared to the other big 3. Just too many holes without 800. And until that changes there is no way I'd use Sprint if I lived there. The times I've been in Los Angeles and San Diego, I was appalled at how inferior the Sprint network was out there compared to here in the Southeast.
Same. T-Mobile is so much better than Sprint in LA it's embarrassing. I could understand it if it were just an indoor coverage issue or if it were in the suburban areas, but for West LA, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, and Downtown ALL to be places where you drop back to 3G constantly is just inexcusable. It seems like Sprint set their site spacing at the absolutely maximum distance for 1X and EV-DO performance, and that means band 25 LTE is just unworkable. Sprint has some half way decent deals with plans and unlimited, so it's a shame they aren't a contender in SoCal.
(PS. This isn't supposed to be a Sprint bashing post or T-Mobile fanboy post, just my observation after 8 years as a Sprint customer and now having my main driver be T-Mobile.)
It is sad, especially for those of us that stuck with it thinking at NV completion it would be great.It really is completely ridiculous. Sprint really isn't even an option for those folks in SoCal compared to the other big 3. Just too many holes without 800. And until that changes there is no way I'd use Sprint if I lived there. The times I've been in Los Angeles and San Diego, I was appalled at how inferior the Sprint network was out there compared to here in the Southeast.
Stupid San Bernardino County! They are the worst county for re-banding ever!
Sent from Josh's iPad mini using Tapatalk
The worst county for a lot more than re-banding, just saying
That is one incredibly high cost increase for the project.
I was a trustee for a community college district. You would approve a budget for a project and the managers were so used to getting the money they asked for I actually had someone come to the board asking for a huge budget increase for work that they had already been done without permission from the board. Government spending is a massive inflating shit balloon in local governments like this.
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I wonder how sprint managed to do well (supposedly) in Las Vegas rootmetrics without b26. Any thorough indoor testing would reveal the lack of building penetration unless sprint turned up the power on all antennas during the rootmetric testing phase.
The geography of Las Vegas. It's as flat as a pancake, I'm sure the density is high enough on the strip, where the majority of large buildings are, that it is workable.
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I don't want to hear anything about this until there is an international standard selected for 5G. The LAST thing anybody needs is a company like Verizon going on half-cocked and causing a repeat of the EV-DV/EV-DO fiasco.
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Looks like great voice and weak LTE. Wish I had 72 dbm of 800 1xrtt at home.
Makes me ask the question: If I had two choices make voice strong and data weak or data strong and voice weak, which would be best?
Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk
I'd go for strong data and weak voice, that way you can use VoIP over the data and have the best of both worlds.
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Well that remains to be seen. Bay Area needs a ton of densification. I look at all the NV sites available in the SF peninsula and it appears to have coverage gaps which I know a single LTE 800 carrier is not going to fix. Trying to cover LA and SF is already a tall order to ask due to the size of the areas it needs to cover. This is why Sprint needs to not only add a ton of new macro sites as part of its NGN program for densification but it needs to aim for placing LTE 800, 1900 and 2500 at as many existing NV sites as possible.
Tmobile has been deploying 700 MHz LTE rather quickly in LA and I would be curious to see what their strategy is in the spacing of their 700 MHz sites. I know of an area along my route to work where there are 2 Tmobile sites within a 0.5 mile distance and only 1 of them has the 700 MHz panels installed.
My understanding is that they are trying to eventually deploy it on all sites possible because it will give them another speed boost in some cases, as the latest phones have carrier aggregation enabled for both B4 LTE with B12 and B2 LTE with B12 (Plus B4 with B4 and I think B4 with B2). I am sure that, first, they are strategically adding Band 12 where they've decided they really need it, and that they will then go back and and fill in other sites. I feel like in LA (LA proper anyway and Santa Monica, Culver City, etc) the Band 4 network is so good that Band 12 is icing on the cake. Even on a band 4 only phone my experience is already great in LA.
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Good news is that one of the recent NV sites that was accepted and now live in the La Habra/Fullerton area on Imperial Hwy and Harbor blvd has both 800 RRUs and 1900 RRUs installed. I am glad Sprint did not opt to just install 1900 RRUs and then have to come back and install 800 RRUs.
Hopefully the SB county rebanding effort is almost finished. I believe SB county was suppose to have a deadline around late August but who knows how strict the FCC is enforcing it given its poor track record. The data coverage in La Habra is really poor and the LTE 800 is badly needed.
I hope that LTE 800 will help your coverage there more than it did in the Bay Area. In my experience, the difference it was sadly negligible. In markets where coverage was never very good, like the Bay Area and LA, I'm convinced that the only thing that is really going to improve the experience and bring it up to par is densification.
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Some history first;
Been through all the highs & broken promise Lows over the last 18 years with Sprint, currently have 7 lines. My main areas of concern are where I live and my retirement cabin which are in a semi Sprint dead zones.
My Note3 will hold onto 3g for dear life. I have to toggle airplane mode to return to LTE signal (while standing in my back yard). Once I enter the house it drops to 3g. Speed test at 4g is slow at best.
In my front yard it's 3g unless I walk into the center of the street, togle airplane mode then can pick up SLOW 4g again(until I walk to my front door.) i know note3 is missing band 41 which is suposto help.
The wife's Iphone6 is 3g in my front yard, lte in the middle of the street and drops to 3g when entering our house also. When on 3g and walking into the back yard, airplane mode to froce it to 4g and it sticks to lte once you enter the house again. 1 to 2 bars, 17mb down with 1.3mb up. It will hold onto the lte signal.
Does anyone have any insight to what I should expect with a Note5? Sprint has programed the system so if our 3g signal is stronger, my phone will want to stay there, Will carrier aggregation solve this problem or will the Note 5 try and hang onto the stronger 3g signal at all costs?
I'm able to pre order the Note5 for $249 with a $200 SAMSUNG REBATE. Hate to get all excited and sign on for another 2 years if the Note5 will be doing what the note3 is doing. I get the whole ehrpd and 3g improving the cell phone experiance. At this point im more interested in being able to use more than the 5mb per month my 7 phones average and finally be able to use some of the unlimited data I've been paying for over the last 18 years. I'm in West Orange County, CA. and travel to the SAN Bernardino mountains weekly. Experts please chime in. On the fence to switch carriers but want Sprint to suceed and be there when they do!
Honestly it's really hard to say. Southern California generally speaking has been greatly helped by band 41 (in my experience), but LA and OC are still really weak markets for Sprint and, because we have no real idea of the concrete plans of Sprint regarding when and where they'll densify the network, the only real thing to do is try it and see. As the previous poster said, carrier aggregation is only band 41 and would probably not be that much of a help for you. The only thing that would really do you any good is band 26 and SoCal is still out of luck with that one. What I did was finally decide to switch to T-Mobile (as service was much better for me in SoCal) and reconsider Sprint in a year or two when they've densified their network and band 26 is available in SoCal, etc etc.
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To bring this back to serious discussion, any rebrand does not necessarily have to include the word "cellular," "wireless," "mobile," or "mobility." Think of Sprint's history -- even when the wireless arm was known as "Sprint PCS," its nomenclature did not use any of those four aforementioned terms.
For another example, prior to the Cingular-AT&TWS merger over a decade ago, AT&TWS had been spun off from the parent company and had a limited amount of time to continue to use the AT&T name/logo. As some of you old fogies like me may remember, AT&TWS launched the "mlife" media campaign. Part of that was related to its investment from NTT DoCoMo -- that swayed AT&TWS away from TDMA, did not go to the prevailing thought of CDMA2000, and instead went to GSM/W-CDMA.
Absent revelations from insiders, we may never know for sure. But conjecture is that AT&TWS was prepping itself as an independent company to be rebranded "mlife" -- or maybe just "m." Along the same lines, Hutchison Whampoa has operated its non 2G network in the UK as branded simply "3" for over a decade, too.
AJ
Oh God, I remember this. I'm an official old fogie.
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Let's combine them: Opterminoble Sparkticon.
This reminds me of how Sprint used to name phones.
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U.S. Cellular has a pretty good reputation in locations it is in now. Sprint has a bad reputation it has not been able to shake off nationwide. A name change or an image change could be in order once major cities are densified.
Softbank doesn't even sound like a wireless carrier. It honestly sounds like a bank's name. They also aren't widely known in the states. Keeping the name Sprint around as a parent company and using a new name to brand the wireless service isn't a good idea. It hasn't worked for Comcast since people still know xfinity was just a crappy way of Comcast hiding their craptastic name. We all know its crappy Comcast at the end of the day. Only difference is that most people can't ditch Comcast for another cable company because there isn't another cable company to switch to. Wireless industry has 3 other national carriers, several regional carriers, and endless amounts of MVNOs.
Don't be so sure about people knowing xfinity is a way to hide the Comcast name. I know plenty of people, especially non-tech people, who don't realize that.
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In the areas US Cellular use to serve, such as Chicago, the name isn't so good. Besides, why should Sprint use a name that belongs to a regional carrier, when Sprint is a nationwide one. When SBC acquired AT&T, they chose the AT&T name because if its longstanding image and nationwide presence. US Cellular doesn't have that, nor that great of a reputation.
Changing the name to Softbank is a better idea. However, Sprint might also want to create a new name, which with a good new reputation behind it, could be used by Softbank as its mobile division brand name, the way Comcast uses Xfinity for their television/internet brand. If that happened, the name would need to be something without any country identification.
Softbank is an incredibly awful name, especially for a wireless carrier. The only reason it worked in Japan is because neither Soft nor Bank are Japanese words, so it's basically just a name without meaning for them. In my view, neither "soft" nor "bank" are positive qualities for a mobile carrier, and I would kind of balk at it as a consumer.
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The major question that jumped out at me from that article was this: is Sprint going to have enough money to participate in the 600mhz auction. I know that Claure (I think it was Claure) indicated they weren't even sure they would participate in the auction because they felt they had a solid spectrum position already, and I wonder if he was trying to prepare people for Sprint not participating because of a lack of money and Softbank having its hands tied do to the "covenant" with Japanese banks that they wouldn't put more money into Sprint.
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A year or so ago I legitimately believed the Sprint brand was almost on the verge of a turnaround. But now that the network is back up to par (relatively speaking of course) with competitive plan offerings and public opinion still hasn't turned around, I'm not so sure anymore.
They certainly shouldn't rebrand yet, because the network really isn't back up to par in so many places. They need to get up to at least T-Mobile's level in all the major metros before they do it - there are too many markets, like LA and San Jose and San Francisco where the network is not up to par.
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What Sprint should do is combine this plan with the International Value Roaming plan - give you up to 10 gigabytes high speed while roaming in those countries and then throttle to 2G that you would have gotten with the other plan originally. That would be way less confusing and make it more of a real competitor with T-Mobile's Simple Choice North America plans.
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Band 25 is a superset of band 2 that includes the PCS G block, so Sprint devices can connect to band 2 if MFBI is used.
This is something I've always been confused about: I thought that if a device supported a superset, it could connect to any bands in that superset, like band 25 can connect to band 2, band 26 can connect to band 5, band 41 can connect to band 38, and that it was if it was the other way around that the network needed MFBI (a band 26 network, if it included band 5 frequencies as well would need to broadcast an MFBI, when sprint moves activates carriers outside of the PCS G block they could activate MFBI so band 2 devices would be able to connect to LTE on non G-block carriers).
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So only the RRPP/CCA capable devices will be able to connect to LTE in these countries. Hmm.
Shouldn't band 25 include support for Band 2? Also, WCDMA/HSPA+ which is deployed in most of these countries isn't like EV-DO, I often get 10mbps+ on HSPA+ networks, what suffers is the upload which is usually only around 2mbps, but Sprint flagship phones for years have supported HSPA+.
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I love the competition, it makes me so happy. This is in response to T-Mobile's Simple Choice North America plan where usage in Canada and Mexico, including LTE, counts as part of your existing plan's usage.
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The issue is that Softbank uses band 41 (TD-LTE) a lot like Sprint does, it's a high capacity solution while they use THREE other LTE bands in addition(1, 3, 8), none of which Sprint phones support. In addition, at least from my experience with my internationally unlocked LG G2 in China, even if band 41 LTE is available (band 41 LTE is China's main LTE band and it's everywhere in big cities, the number of towers is incredible), the phones won't access it, even with a local SIM. I wouldn't be surprised if the TD-LTE component remains locked down in Sprint phones for use abroad.
My ultimate dream is that, someday, Sprint phones will at least support band 3, as it is what LTE runs on in a huge number of countries, but GSM+CDMA+UMTS+FD+LTE+TD-LTE on proprietary frequencies seems to make this impossible, or Sprint just doesn't prioritize international compatibility like other carriers.
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Hi All,
I was looking at T-Mobile's Jump! On Demand as I cannot stand to go 2 years between phones, and I was wondering: does Sprint have anything similar?
Thanks all
Tommy
B25 CA?
in Network, Network Vision/LTE Deployment
Posted
You should pin this, it's a really good visualization, even if not perfect, of how the network is planned to work. I know in this little town where my parents live, now that there is band 41, the only time anyone is every on band 25 is if they don't have a Spark device, which is incredibly rare (my Dad has a single-band S4 and it essentially always maxes out speed tests).