Fraydog

I wonder why Ericsson is with tmobile in the east coast but sprint in the west/Midwest.???

The main reason is Ericsson's US operations are out of Texas with a significant chunk of that in KC. Now T-Mobile might have different reasons for deploying Ericsson in the NE... I don't know what those are. Yet.

Having a standardized network with a unified system of equipment is much better than changing everything for just minuscule single digit percentage improvements in certain aspects. It's both better in keeping upkeep costs down due to uniformity of equipment and adjustment of the network. Standardization saves money. Either way, it looks like Samsung is the one who will be providing the TDD-LTE panels if what they submitted to the FCC is any indication.

That would kind of have to defeat the point given that you'd then have multiple vendors in certain areas. If Sprint could get custom AIR panels like that, you'd deploy them mainly in Ericsson areas. Now for Samsung zones, it absolutely makes more sense to use Samsung RRU's. That I agree with.

You wouldn't need to get the old RRU's ripped out for incremental gain in the areas where no TD-LTE is implemented.

I'm sure AlLu has a solution for this too, but trying to get information on them has been like pulling out teeth.

Here's something to do while we kill time. Look to see if you guys can spot Ericsson's AIR panels deployed by T-Mobile through NYC. Milan03 has more info on these... I'm hoping Sprint would deploy the AIR 32's someday, though I'm pretty sure it would take a custom model to do so. A single AIR panel that supports CDMA, LTE, and TD-LTE on 800, 1900, and 2600. That would be epic.

I'm pretty sure my nearest city (Saint Louis) doesn't have any Ericsson setups except through Sprint.

I want to see Dish and AT&T together for the lulz.

I think the costs of adding a tower are intriguing. If this were still a growth market, then it would be easier to add towers. The mobile industry isn't that big of a growth market anymore. It's hard to justify $150,000 for a new tower and $50,000 in operation per year unless you can return the cost.

Of course I live in a town that has 5,000 users that is 90% Verizon, contributing $2.7 million of revenue to Verizon. I can assure you they aren't spending $2.7 million on their network here in Chester. For Sprint to make it, they'd have to make $50,000. If Sprint makes $50 ARPU, that's at least 83 customers they would need here. That's hard when people are creatures of Verizon habit.

Then again, maybe not...

General complaints not attached to a specific geographic location are also red flags, IMHO. I've see people troll using general complaints on message boards for years:

Here's the thing. We have other threads where we deal with other topics. It helps us organize information so that people can find what they want to read quicker. I personally don't mind deviating from that on tangents once in a while, but that has to balance out and eventually threads have to find their way back on topic.

Does anybody know if there is a similar site to this one where we can see t-mobile or ATT towers and their status?

The closest thing I have found is airportal.de which tracks user reports of PCS HSPA detected on T-Mobile.

Put up towers instead of roaming

See the other thread where it costs Sprint $50,000 a year to do that?

Sprint needs:

1. More low band spectrum.

2. Someone to help share costs with on rural buildouts.

3. Profitability.

4. SoftBank. Not Dish.

If and when all those conditions are met, then Sprint can be more aggressive about rural deployment of more sites.

Yeah, I try to hide the tower spotting from friends. Knowledge does spill out of my brain sometimes. Most of the time I know to just keep my mouth shut. Funny that I'm no longer alone in ranting against VZW with as bad as their service has become here.

AT&T was more or less granted a monopoly back in the 30's due to government action. Does that not sink into Cicconi's head? Or how bad the cellular auction process was?

 

Sure. I will set up shop with my spectrum analyzer on the Sprint Campus. Then, I will make you my one phone call to come bail me out.

 

AJ

I'm in the car. I'll be able to make it to KC in six hours after driving across the blackness we call "rural Missouri."

 

Yeah, you know who would like that, the "jizz-um" and "3G-pee-pee" fan boys.

 

AJ

Likely any such hypothetical carrier would be running both HSPA and CDMA for a LONG time. I look at it as two families living under one tent. At least you wouldn't have to deploy different base stations and sites this time.

Bellus in Canada hasn't even given a firm shut down on CDMA2000. I wouldn't expect a new Sprint owned by SoftBank buying hypothetical WCDMA carrier that we all know the name of to deviate from that.

The only way I can see Sprint and T-Mobile expanding rural coverage, is rural eNodeB sharing. If you could cut your costs in half...

Sprint should enable VoLTE with SMR. If they can get SMR running this year, they can also get "opt-in" trials for VoLTE. I wouldn't start full stop transfer of customers onto VoLTE until late next year.

Verizon is likely going to hit the gas pedal on VoLTE early next year. That gives Sprint not a whole lot of time before the CDMA ecosystem begins it's collapse.

It would be nice for SoftBank to, post Sprint acquisition, to go out and purchase a WCDMA carrier to hedge their bets. Oh wait.

 

I am only 35 miles away. I had my ringer silenced and must have missed the call to join the committee. Damn.

 

 

AJ

I thought you would have the inside information for us. Come on AJ, you have to get to Overland Park to be briefed by Hesse on what Sprint is going to do.

So, wait. $50,000/year (let's not be conservative with our guesses here), at 38,000 sites, is a little under $2 billion. That's... that's really something.

Big reason why Nextel was a giant cash drain. For a while Sprint was running three networks if you count Clear.

You guys need to stop being mean to me i say it once and only once!

Who's being mean here? If you see abusive posts that violate guidelines, report the abusive posts and one of the moderators will be more than happy to handle it.

Clear started a lot of that crap. Use our 4G instead of buying a landline. All good until their ill-built network was oversold and causing Sprint grief. Was grabbing the money worth it for Clear? No.

As far as the state of WiFi, it sucks in lots of places because it's AT&T WiFi. I wish the other carriers would be more aggressive in building out carrier WiFi in the US.

Phone home

Ah i thought it was a sure thing.

 

So with the TD-LTE would that be part of the NV 4G or will it be a fallback network? (if it does go through).

It's going to be deployed first where Sprint needs the capacity. Now for a lot of places, Sprint will be fine with SMR and PCS G LTE. For the places that it won't be, that's where TD-LTE comes in. TD-LTE can offer speeds VZW and AT&T won't be able to match because there's so much TD-LTE bandwidth to throw in. This is a big competitive advantage for Sprint once they get it going.

So now that Sprint purchased all remaining shares of Clearwire what is going to happen? Will they re-purpose the towers into its own LTE network? Or are they going to keep it a separate network and just leave it as is/add more towers?

 

Now that WiMax will be a type of LTE i hope they just use all these towers on Sprints network and start filling out the roll out!

That's not approved yet by the FCC or shareholders, so for now... they're kind of stuck. Then account the whole Dish drama in.

That has to be resolved. Once it is, the plan is to go to TD-LTE.

http://en.wikipedia....-Term_Evolution

But yes, they can be gangbusters fast once they start pushing out 2.6 TD-LTE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51kWQTyWqRA

Do not assume that a Sprint PR specifically relates to a definite order of LTE going live. There are cities not announced yet that already have some LTE live and some cities announced last September that do not have one site live yet.

 

The truth is is that Samsung is starting all their remaining markets now and the next 45-60 days. Including Nebraska. I wouldn't read too much into this.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Does Samsung have that much to go?

This is 100% proof right here that cell tower radiation is bad.

 

Even the clouds stay away.

 

I am packing my bags and moving to the only safe place left...

 

Or as I like to call it, AJ's version of Hell

http://www.slate.com...dern_world.html

The supposed EMF sufferers are suffering from Nocebo.

Ryan, you blinded me with science. Or maybe that was just the reflection off Dan's head.

 

AJ

Note how the other carrier CEO's got a good burn in on Michael Prior near the end of the CEO roundtable for the Alltel sellout to AT&T.

I'm mixed on the entire thing myself. While having actual competition for Verizon in Southern Illinois is actually a good thing, I don't think AT&T is going to do a damn thing to make Verizon more price friendly or consumer friendly here. AT&T could set up the most glorious LTE network on Planet Earth here and people still wouldn't move from Verizon.