Fraydog

If Clear is using only 30 MHz of spectrum, what's stopping them from converting some of that spectrum to FDD-LTE corresponding with European spectrum?

We will see what happens. I think two things need to occur before we see anything here.

1. Mobilenation opens for business here and we see their full deployment. They're already up and running in Tennessee and Kentucky, and the co-ops that founded them are based in Southern Illinois, the same co-ops that ran First Cellular and sold it to Alltel. See the "future regional coverage" on http://mymobilenation.com as an example. The closest tower these guys have is 10 miles away in Steeleville.

2. Network Vision deploys on the St. Mary's site and Sprint evaluates what kind of mileage they can get out of NV on the existing site.

I don't know how Mobilenation's build corresponds with Sprint's. I know they also signed a deal with Lightsquared but I imagine that quietly went up in smoke.

Honestly, what's the point of Sprint carrying the Lumia at this point? May as well wait for LTE to go live, then Sprint and Nokia can launch a LTE enabled Lumia 900 that also runs on CDMA.

The terrain might not allow that, honestly I would be shocked if the 800 MHz ran all the way through. The current Sprint signal hits the river and pretty much stops, the town is on a very tall bluff and signal hits the bluff and stops. Then Chester runs away from the river for 2 miles to the NE.

AT&T has a much closer site on the south bluff 7 miles away to the south. It is 4G HSPA+. The HSPA+ only makes it halfway through town, it actually cuts out right through downtown, a mile away from the river. If AT&T's 850 signal can't make it I'm not betting on Sprint's site which is in Saint Mary's, MO, about 10 miles away from town to have SMR make it that far. Of course AT&T doesn't own the CLR B in the CMA we are in, and ATNI dba as Alltel has basically gave up on providing service here and doesn't cover the whole town either. T-Mobile has only had service here since 2010, which is the perfect site for NV because it sits atop the bluffs. T-Mobile actually has the 2nd best coverage to VZW here but is only EDGE for data.

Verizon has a natural monopoly here because everyone else blew it, more or less.

In other words, it's a nice mess for Sprint to actually come into, the SMR spectrum is the only real beachhead that exists here against Verizon. With the only bridge across the Mississippi between Chester and Cape Girardeau, it's a nice place to cut into and I believe the cutting of roaming costs would pay for the tower in the long run. Right now, Sprint roams on Alltel, but that isn't viable for anyone to buy service here. Sprint will let you order with our zip code but if you didn't live in native coverage you would eventually get the boot, which really disqualifies 80 % of the town.

I'll just be happy when CDMA is finally gone. See the "Galaxy Nexus isn't supported anymore" debacle of a excrement storm over nothing as a reason why. The more I learn, the more I want open standards. Not necessarily "open source", mind you, but common platforms like Android. There's a good chance my next phone will be Android for this reason. I like iOS, and I love my iPad; I just don't want my eggs all in one OS basket.

Jack Wagon.

I just want them to build a filler cell in Chester Illinois (my home town) on the site T-Mobile built, not far from the middle of town. Right now Sprint has "limited coverage" but it's really 20% of the town. In our case, it would be a realistic alternative to Verizon who holds 95% of the customers in our town. How is one company having that many customers anywhere healthy? It's not. A little NV love (the supplier in my area would be Ericsson, I checked) would be really good.

Supposedly there's a Sprint Alliance partner (SI Wireless dba as Mobilenation) in my region but I don't know a whole lot about them. Their FCC license area cuts right through the middle of Chester, but doesn't serve the entire town. I would rather have Sprint, as their established provider, and Mobilenation can hit the more rural areas to the NE.

Drug deal.

Great deal.

Greetings all... As a longtime GSM user who has migrated to Verizon's LTE system, there's another issue on WiMax devices that preclude them from ever being converted to work on LTE. USIM cards, or in the case of Verizon and Sprint, CSIM's (USIM's that work on CDMA). With no CSIM support, there is no way WiMax devices could work on LTE and no way they could use eHRPD for that matter.

Hope this helps.

This smells like AstroTurf. Phoenix has a history of pro-industry studies. I would love to see who their major donors are.

Even without this, it's absurd to the point where anyone with any knowledge of the subject can poke holes in their study with little effort.