Fraydog

 

And the sooner the carriers switch over to VoLTE, the better for them. But are you rooting for the carriers? Or are you pulling for your own self interest in maintaining reliable, high quality cellular voice?

I'd say Sprint and their big brother Verizon has plenty of incentive to drag their feet on VoLTE. The main incentive is that the world has moved more and more away from CDMA2000 and they can still lock-in customers. Verizon doesn't really have to comply with the Open Access rules they agreed to to win 700 Upper C spectrum. That is the big reason that CDMA is the ultimate "hold me back" on consumers. Verizon has at least started unlocking GSM/UMTS on their phones, no doubt due to the prompting of the FCC.

AT&T has the least standard UMTS and HSPA+ implementation on planet Earth. I wouldn't judge UMTS or HSPA+ on anything AT&T does. A better reference point would be T-Mobile US or almost any other GSM/UMTS/HSPA+ provider on the planet.

This is likely going to take YEARS. We're talking about the glacial pace AT&T moves. The likely outcome is that if you're on a DSLAM, the IPDSLAM will replace it. If it bothers you that much, you will likely have other options build out to where you live by the drop dead date. I would have preferred that AT&T and the federal, local, and state governments work to subsidize fiber optics where profitability is not assured, but I don't think that's going to be the plan here.

Sprint sold off their copper years ago and were very smart to do so. AT&T is retiring their copper, and that's bad? I don't get it, especially since they had to move forward with LTE in the first place. The FCC itself said that in turning down the AT&T/T-Mobile merger they would have to expand their LTE footprint to their entire native footprint by 2014 in order to remain competitive with Verizon. The FCC was right. I blame AT&T for not adopting this strategy in the first place and losing precious AWS spectrum and money in an ill-fated move, but any more analysis of it is beating a dead horse. I can tell you from a very well-placed source in AT&T that Stephenson almost lost his job over the merger.

I'm glad AT&T failed in the end though because it gave T-Mobile a lot more investment and headroom.

I think the OpenSignal Maps methodology is flawed. Verizon and Sprint can fall back on each other, where AT&T and T-Mobile usually can't. I like RootMetrics' testing better, where they send people to test speed and calls in every market.

Network Vision equipment supports UMTS and HSPA+, am I right? Not that Sprint needs it...they don't. Still, if Softbank eventually wanted to acquire the majority of NewCo and then merge the two, that would be a nice luxury to have.

I think 5 people live in Lake county Minnesota, where AT&T is picking up 700 "B" block from Peregrine.

Actually AT&T has really improved their coverage 100% in that state. Peregerine, I don't know if that was ever serious. AT&T is going to pick up enough of Lower 700 to expand to a lot of the rural areas they weren't going to originally cover.

Given this report, and Sprint's fairly lame response, does anyone really believe that Sprint's Chicago build-out is going to be solid within a few months? I read opinions here that the Sprint LTE network here will soon exceed that of Verizon and AT&T, and I want to believe it, but the little skeptic in me is shouting no way based on available evidence.

You do know how poor EV-DO on Verizon and HSPA+ on AT&T is in the Loop, right?

Because he can take another swipe at Sprint about their failed merger with MetroPCS. He is a dirty jack-wagon. But now, Tmo is the belle of the ball. What a buffoon.

 

Robert

He was speaking of Leap, not T-Mobile. Of course, I'd say that Leap is so poor in service quality that if Sprint bought them, it would almost be of a total and complete spectrum play. I don't know if it is a good idea for Sprint to be dealing in AWS spectrum unless the end game would be to make themselves more attractive as a merger partner for NewCo. Cricket is an extreme pile as it is, unfortunately.

As far as his early comments go, I'm sure someone as short-sighted as him didn't realize right away there's more convergence in the T-Mobile/MetroPCS network evolution paths than people think. Maybe someone whispered that in his ear. Remember people like him are their to serve clients. What amazes me is when journalists quote analysts with said conflict and don't let people know what the conflict of interests are. Moffett discloses them, but journalists don't? That's really pathetic for the journalists.

I have not had any time to play with the iPhone 5 on any carrier, but it strikes me that both Verizon and Rogers have had issues with the IP Multimedia Subsystem core in LTE. Maybe the reason that the iPhone is having issues has something to do with how it connects to the IP Multimedia Subsystem. I wonder if the reason Sprint embedded the SIM cards has something to do with this. I would much rather Sprint have had no embedded SIM's, and allowed them to be swapped like every other GSM provider I know of on the planet. Then, if any IMS or eHRPD issues popped up, Sprint could work through them, much like Verizon did.

Maybe the rest of the industry doesn't want to be beholden to Qualcomm, which has a nasty history regarding IP. Ask Ericsson.

The only providers with the capitalization to cover anywhere close to the entire US are the Bell Duopolies. Even with that, Verizon and AT&T are looking for rural partners to help them with the task. That's how monumental it is.

Why in the world would Sprint ever commit to a "great expansion into rural areas"? Robber barons VZW and AT&T bought out basically everything. The cellular frontier is closed.

 

AJ

USCC and Smalltel (ATNI dba Alltel) would not hurt, especially considering that's area where Sprint isn't and nothing else than either Verizon or AT&T is at. In most USCC or Smalltel areas, one carrier is dominant the the other of the Big 2 neglects. Example. Southern Illinois, Verizon is king and Sprint is a brick along with AT&T, Smalltel can't compete because they don't have the money or power to take on Verizon 4G directly. Cross the river to Southeast Missouri where US Cellular is the main competitor to AT&T, and Verizon is absent altogether through large chunks of the region.

As far as the west where AT&T and Verizon are the only carriers, once Network Vision is complete, I think there's opportunity for Sprint to build out on the Interstates. That's it.

As far as AWS... I think Verizon needs it more than AT&T does, but T-Mobile needs it the most.

AT&T still has boat loads of PCS from the AT&T/Cingular merger. With their iPhone-centric smartphone base upgrading fast, they'll be able to start freeing PCS for LTE next year (probably in time for the 5S). VoLTE will come online at about the same time for them.

Verizon isn't showing any signs of using their newly acquired SpectrumCo AWS until 2013 as well. Surprisingly the of the version iPhone 5 does not support AWS.

T-Mobile is the only carrier using AWS now, barring a few spots where we can't confirm whether AT&T is using AWS or not.

http://www.fiercebro...-buy/2012-10-04

So Neville Ray, the CTO at T-Mobile USA, is elevated to rock star status now. He's done a great job on network modernization for TMo, no question. He has a pretty big challenge ahead of him, however.

Also, as far as Alltel goes, there's still six markets out there owned by ATNI (including where I live). Would Sprint be interested in buying those? It's mainly CLR spectrum, but Sprint also owns lots of spectrum without much coverage in those areas. If they combined they could be a very powerful adversary to Verizon in this area.

Clearly, most don't care though.

Generationally, people my age and younger don't even use the phone to talk much. HD Voice could change that, and I think my disappointment is in not having clear standards for the industry that help accelerate this process.

The more I read about VoLTE, the more I realize it's a mess.

Since the iPhone will likely support VoLTE at some point, the real onus should be on carriers to accelerate to VoLTE.

Most users I know on Sprint and Verizon don't really care, and even those who have LTE don't use SV-DO or SV-LTE.

Again, a case of the tech geeks being disconnected from the rest of the planet. I suspect Apple wants the industry to move to VoLTE, as it is way more in line with what they want for the future.

 

Mueller is a paid shill and hates everything google.

I know all about his Oracle consulting ties, but look at the big picture. If this idiot judge banned the Nexus wouldn't you think Samsung would be in much bigger trouble with other products? Especially the ones that do look like they are somewhat ripping Apple off? Use a little common sense here.

Yeah Samsung does a lot to rip Apple. Thing is, this patent is nothing of the sort. This is just bad on a whole bunch of levels. Banning the Nexus because of voice search? So let me get this straight, Apple got the GNex banned over voice search?

This patent is from 2004 and is so deliberately vague that it should never have been granted.

Apple itself had to purchase Siri so they bought a technology that infringed the patent in question. Begs the question what did Apple say to get Siri to sell out to them.

Android had voice search in their phones before the iPhone 4S was released.

Yet, Koh rules in favor of Apple?

The technical ignorance on her part is outstanding. I'm normally one to defend Apple on here, but this is absurd.

Nope, Lucy Koh, the clueless judge who made the Galaxy Nexus injunction, will probably rule on the GS3 as well.

It's a shame you can't get Federal Judges expelled like Members of Congress or impeached like Presidents.

Pick up your GS3 while you still can, according to Florian Mueller, the GS3 is next in Koh's crosshairs. He said there's a good chance this could get an injunction. S Voice might be an even bigger infringer than Google's voice search was.

Cross-licensing.

That's how things get handled in civility. Apple has decided to toss that out the window. Shameful.

 

I doubt it. Josh, what you have to understand is that many modern day shareholders do not care if the "network starts to go to cr@p." Purely profit focused shareholders want 1) to keep network CAPEX as low as possible 2) to remain competitive not through innovation or evolution but through coerced retention and 3) to limit competition and make subs feel as if they have no place else to go because they perceive that only AT&T offers the coverage they need, all of their friends/family are on AT&T, AT&T is the best carrier for iOS devices, or that other carriers are simply scary, unknown commodities, etc.

 

AJ

I can't envision a scenario where purely profit shareholders are really happy with AT&T given the $4 billion loss on the failed T-Mobile merger. As far as network investment, AT&T is spending $21 billion this year and $95 billion the last five years on network upgrades, the problem is that they thought they could skate on investment after ATTWS/Cingular integration. AT&T had to spend way more due to the number of network integrations they have had. TDMA to GSM. Cingular/ATTWS merger. Jump from GSM to UMTS. Now from UMTS to LTE. Verizon and Sprint have both had an easier path with gentle upgrades on various revisions of the CDMA standard and now are in a better position to leap to LTE.

So yeah, I could see this guy being on the hot seat.

AJ, the STL area is not part of the SpectrumCo deal. I'm pretty sure USCC holds AWS block B there. Other than that, nice breakdown.

Wait, I thought my avatar was changed?

I'd rather see AT&T fill in remaining EDGE with HSPA+, modernize the rest of their core, accelerate on LTE, and acquire enough spectrum to deploy LTE over their footprint by 2014, but what do I know?