Fraydog

The 12-13-17 results have to be disappointing for the people on the other big carriers in the US. Otherwise, it's not a bad RF performer. Great write up as usual AJ. 

Will Sprint release any devices with two channel TD-LTE carrier aggregation this year? More and more, my guess would be "no."

Does this device have carrier aggregation for multiple band 41 connections? 

We're getting to the point where the mid-range Android phones are getting to be pretty good. I doubt that Sprint would enable VoLTE capability on this phone ever. This handset could, but Sprint is in no shape to run VoLTE at the present time. I'm all for VoLTE once Sprint has a significant presence of SMR LTE. That's going to take a while. Sprint will also have to get TD-LTE VoLTE support which is coming as it's being tested by Ericsson and China Mobile.

http://www.ericsson.com/news/1681043

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_the_Frequency,_Kenneth

Bonus points if you can tell the difference in the final verse of the chorus at the end of the song in the album version.

If this is the same chipset as the HTC First for AT&T, then a Sprint version of the HTC First could be released later, am I right?

I simply do not believe that Sprint has had enough time to test out the new frequencies. That would be my guess as to why LTE 800 and TD-LTE 2600 are not included.

I presume that you are referring to the PCS D block 10 MHz license. It came from AT&T in a quid pro quo roughly four years ago. In that transaction, USCC acquired quite a bit of PCS 1900 MHz spectrum, much of which has been or likely will be divested.See the public interest statement filed at the FCC:http://wireless2.fcc...?applID=4933178AJ

That's precisely what I was referring to.

There are other local co-ops getting back in the mobile business who could be interested in that USCC spectrum.

https://www.mymobilenation.com

These guys are owned by some of the local telephone co-ops in Southern Illinois, including the one in my area, Egyptian Telephone. Right now they don't serve that area. They had plans at first and didn't go through with them. I assume that's because they didn't want to compete with another low cost CDMA provider. There could be a niche for these guys in Southern Illinois, not to mention they play friendly with Sprint, having most of their coverage show up as native on Sprint coverage maps. With ATNI vacating the area and yielding their towers and spectrum to AT&T, there's a place to go now on the low end IMO.

SI Wireless DBA Mobilenation could consider buying the USCC spectrum in Southeast Missouri around the Cape Girardeau-Sikeston area and Southern Illinois as well.

Look at Randolph County in my home state of Illinois.

Sprint has only Red Bud, USCC has Red Bud, Baldwin, and Sparta.

Most of the areas though, I'll concede that Sprint has stronger coverage.

I'm noticing USCC has spectrum they've never deployed in Carbondale/Marion (BTA 067). Anyone want to build a local wireless carrier?

The Chicago Subway question is a good one. What's going to happen with the Subway once Sprint takes over for USCC in the coming months?

Ha, that's funny that Union City and Martin expansion was fairly recent. Not too long ago Sprint didn't even have service there. Now they get 4GLTE. Nice. Hey, there's hope for an expanded footprint near where I live after all.

Nothing a spectrum swap can't solve, AJ. T-Mobile USA has a proven record of swapping spectrum to better their efficiency. I'm sure they'll look at way to deal with any discrepancies you or anyone else may raise. They can trade excess spectrum in any of those markets for spectrum in NYC. Boom, done.

Also, I don't know about the validity of shutting down AWS DC-HSPA until you have a while to replace those phones that only support DC-HSPA on AWS with LTE handsets. That's going to take a while.

At least nobody is merging with ATT! I dont like them.

Funny that not as many people complained with the Verizon SpectrumCo AWS. Verizon passed AT&T for the national spectrum lead with that purchase. People have a hard time grasping the nebulous, and the SpectrumCo deal was nebulous to say the least. AT&T can get 700 B spectrum out of the deal however. That's still not going to get them up to Verizon's total.

I'm not a Sprint customer, but I wouldn't really have an issue with no SV-DO at this point. I'd rather have the extra horsepower that comes with Exynos.

I am not a degreed engineer, but I disagree with Parklands' "Engrish" explanation. Propagation/penetration is not the issue as much as is the very nature of the airlink.CDMA1X is a great airlink for transmitting a small data rate spread across a much wider bandwidth. That makes it ideal for voice, which is always a small data rate. Furthermore, that spreading ratio allows CDMA1X to operate to very low signal levels. And that, along with soft handoff, helps greatly in rural areas with low site density.On the other hand, much empirical evidence, thus far, has shown that LTE is an airlink best suited for providing high data rates with high site density and strong resistance to multipath. In other words, it is a great urban area airlink. And be assured, providing service to urban areas is what is driving the transition to LTE. Rural areas are peripheral. If they experience some collateral damage, so be it. At least, that seems to be the LTE attitude.AJ

Release 10 and CoMP add a lot of the soft handover features anyway. By the time LTE gets to the sticks where I live in 2013, I'm not sweating it much. CDMA 2000 will still be important for a while but by the time it gets shut down, you'll have a lot of the issues with soft handoff on LTE solved.

I'll probably be gone from here by then, but I'm not worried about it by the time CDMA sunsets, which VZW won't even do until 2020.

I was speaking of the GSM evolutionary path, not GPRS/EDGE, which I agree has outlived its useful life. As far as the rural carriers, I don't see a rush for backing off CDMA for voice. It's useful as a backup where VoLTE won't easily penetrate. I don't see that being many areas though.

Also, there's no need for soft handover with the network infrastructure of LTE. Not that much of a loss by this point.

http://parklands-wir...r-exist-in.html

Now if you deploy like Sprint and have a RRU, I would think that coverage on VoLTE would equal CDMA 2000 on the same spectrum without a RRU.

Why not just have a three way merger, and commit to GSM/LTE as the long term winner in Sprint's technology path?

Could Apple add VoLTE support later on? It seems pretty clear the MDM9615 supports VoLTE and the baseband software by Apple does not. Could Apple add it to the baseband later on?