Mr.Nuke

You really need to read the origional lease aggreement between Clear and the spectrum license holder http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1285551/000089102007000003/v25599a1exv10w59.txt

 

When Sprint purchase Clearwire, it must assume the liability. So, Clearwire no longer a company doesn't matter. And the origional offering to license holder only says "free account". It is not specifically tie to WiMax. It also specify how much capacity they will get down to each sector. However, I don't think Clearwire really enforce those capacity limit. 

 

If you know how Mobile Citizen sell its service, they require you to purchase modem at almost full price. I don't think money for new moden is at the issue. They are going after unlimited data.

And you really need to  prove your point before linking to a 200+ page document, and saying "read it". Where in there does it say what you are claiming it to say?

Sprint may have to give certain access for education use.  But they can tell Mobile Citizen to go straight to hell and offer service directly to those required.  And the harder Mobile Citizen pushes, the more likely Sprint will work out a solution without them.  Sprint will work this out, as required.  But Mobile Citizen may not like the result.

Yeah and access protection for EBS licenses for EBS license holders makes sense. John Schwartz doesn't strike me as a "legitimate" EBS entity though. From what I gather he is more akin to a spectrum squatter than a "for the children" do-gooder. And like you say if they are required to offer X amount of service for educational use, Sprint can skip the middle man and offer it directly. Sprint has the leverage here as Mobile Citizen and other related entities sure as hell aren't going to build out and provide service/coverage on their own.

In the case of Mobile Citizen, they own some EBS spectrum and it was leasing the spectrum to Sprint. FCC rule requires 5% reservation on EBS for educational purpose. So Clearwire is giving them educational free accounts to comply that 5% reservation rule.

 

And Mobile Citizen is asking FCC to intervene http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001300834

 

 

Here are some experts from the leasing agreement filed by Clear to SEC:

And this is where it gets interesting because Clearwire and Wimax are 1) no longer a company and 2) soon to be a non-operating technology in the US. The fact that John Schwartz is being quoted in articles pertaining to this as being outraged should be a huge red flag. From all appearances the guy is a spectrum squatter for all practical purposes, leasing EBS from institutions and then subleasing it to Sprint nee Clearwire. The fact that he is being quoted in articles such as one from the Verge as saying "If the WiMAX network goes dark now, the organizations behind Mobile Beacon and Mobile Citizen will be 'destroyed'" leads one to believe that the guarantees in said contracts were likely Wimax and not spectrum specific.

From the start this reeks of trying to get something for nothing. I'm really not sure what Schwartz' end game is here either.  It certainly isn't for the children. Seemingly at best the court agrees with him at which point Sprint finds a loophole and terminates a bunch of their affected Schwartz subleases that they arguably don't need. At that point he'd be on the hook for what they are seeking from Sprint.

The data provided in the lawsuit says majority of user were around 35G per month. That amount of data for whole school wasn't huge.  The 6G limit mean they could only issue the service to individuals not for an organization. It is reasonable that a school would easily hit that limit pretty soon even without Netflix.

They're also a little conflicted on their press releases. They state an average of 30-40 gigs/month, but also self admittedly say the top 25% of schools are using up to 50 and 300+ gigs a month. Be it 35 for 400 this isn't like an average wireless user where data consumption will be spread over multiple sites. It is a fixed building typically meaning a single site is going to be hammered every day during school hours.

 

Sprint is contractual obligated to provide them cost-free educational account. By limited the data they could use, it served as a cost saving measure.

This is what the lawsuit is over. They're claiming this is the case. Sprint is claiming they are paying the EBS liscense holders lease payments (which they are) and they're giving them the required access to the network (which they are, pending unknown contractual terms). The fact that Mobile Beacon/Citizen ore other EBS holders resells the data Sprint is giving them is between them and their customers (according to Sprint).

To me, It really reeks of Voqal aka Schwartz not having the money to switch out his customers from Wimax to LTE and or realizing that even if he does, his initial contracts with Clearwire didn't account for Sprint buying them out. He doesn't have a ton of leverage here either, because Sprint doesn't need most of these subleases right now. Additionally,  he is screwed with build-out requirements and or providing service to his customers if Sprint isn't involved.

What's holding back Sprint from providing Unlimited B41 data?

QOS for their actual paying customers.

And the students and these group of people are using it for "Educational purposes" right? not Streaming Netflix and playing CoD

Data use is data use.

Does anybody know how long it'll take Sprint to convert existing WiMax sites into Sprint cell sites after WiMax has been fully shutdown.

That statement assumes all wimax sties are going to be converted. Many wimax sites likely won't be converted. That is part of the cost savings benefit from shutting down the wimax network.

Perhaps in your opinion, it isn't. Although, I related how in the past, Sprint/Softbank announced replacements along when there were resignations, this one seems quite a bit different. It is odd considering that it hasn't followed that recent track record.

No it isn't just my opinion.  People including executives leave their jobs every day be it voluntary or not. More often than not regardless of the reason for separation, a replacement isn't simultaneously lined up. In a lot of the recent Sprint cases they were critical functions i.e. if you let a CFO go you need a new CFO. Those sort of changes make sense to announce simultaneously.

In this case, SVP of corporate strategy and development sounds borderline like a made-up job title and it wouldn't surprise me if Sprint doesn't replace him as part of their cost saving measures. So no, there is nothing inherently "odd" about this and any speculation right now as to what actually precipitated his departure is baseless until if and when we hear more information.

What is odd about this resignation, is there wasn't an announcement of a replacement along with this.

It isn't odd at all.

The topic is already being discussed here. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/7240-its-the-wimax-countdown/?p=450001

I'm curious why RootMetrics doesn't just use an Unlocked iPhone for measuring results across the 4 carriers. It would remove hardware variation as a contributing factor.

The 6 (newest iPhone available at the start of testing for this round) doesn't support Band 41 carrier aggregation on Sprint or T-Mobile Band 12. Not to mention they likely need an android device to get the data they need running their program.

Good work.  Nice data collation.

 

I will have further comment when I have more time later this afternoon.  And as much as I respect RootMetrics' methodology, its scale appears arbitrary and capricious, always pegged to 100, not truly comparable across different timeframes or markets.

 

AJ

I want to look at it a bit more too, but this was my suspicion of what was going on as well. Sprint's speed score here dropped 7.4 points despite the fact they were the only one of the 4 to have an increase in download speed (upload fell slightly in full-disclosure).

Could they already be doing work and waiting for Wimax to be turned off before flipping the switch to turn b41 on?  Or could they not do any work until wimax is offline?

They could be installing the equipment in advance of the Wimax shutoff date. It is on you guys that live there to figure out if it is happening. That said, again there is no guarantee that Sprint will deploy widespread Band 41 equipment in  the Quad Cities now or in the future.

what is the top speed of that and will it do much good?

Just ball-parking it without running any calculations the usable speed is probably around 40 down* so roughly the same as the theoretical max for 25/26.  And yes that would help quite a bit if they choose to build the QC out. Just like the 20 Mhz channels everywhere else from a network management perspective you'd put everyone you could on the 15 Mhz channel which 1) provides them with a better experience than the current B25/B26 only setup and 2) improves the quality of service for people that cannot connect to Band 41 as the other bands are less burdened. Again though, we have no indication this will happen.

*Edit: Thanks to Tim, theoretical max is 60.3 Mbps in configuration 1 and 82.3 Mbps in configuration 2.

Does anyone know if something is going on in the area? The CEO (support)Twitter account told me twice the B41 is in our area and I had to correct them, but I hope it means something is going on here.

Nothing has changed in the Quad Cities. Sprint could deploy a single 15 Mhz band 41 channel only after the Wimax shutdown.

Add my note 5 to the list.

I don't expect a lot of retail cuts. Retail cuts have to be applied in a precision manner because if done wrong, they limit the avenues that growth can come from.

Especially for a company that is still overall losing post-paid subscribers. Any significant retail cuts would be asinine, essentially waiving the white flag. Getting the Sprint Shack's on the cheap out of bankruptcy was probably one of Marcelo's most impressive moves thus far.

You guys confuse investing concepts. I do it professionally

It isn't showing... You've done nothing to refute my point.

LOL. Yes it does. As long as they are a publicly listed company, it does. Softbank is the majority shareholder, not the only shareholder...you would do well not to confuse those two points.

No lol, and I'm not confusing anything. Yes Sprint is still a publicly traded company. And no Softbank isn't just the majority shareholder they own approximately 83% of the company. What the other 17% of the shareholders care about is of little consequence to Sprint management or Softbank's ownership interests.

This isn't a case of many publicly traded companies with such diluted ownership where an activist investor can come in buy 5% and demand several seats on the board of directors. I think you'd be wise not to conflate those two points.

I want to blame Ericsson for bad configuration.  Doesn't Sprint bring the optimization in-house starting Nov 1st, when the contract expires?

The contract goes for another year, and the odds of Sprint taking it back in house are slim to none. I won't be surprised to see them go with a different company (Nokia) though.

^^ This is what shareholders care about.

Which for all intents and purposes doesn't apply to Sprint.

Gotcha.  What is the EARFCN that is commonly being used as the 2nd carrier?

It is entirely dependent on the market.

If the Nexus line is to be the embodiment of what Android has to offer, then damn it, include everything in it. Include multi-window capability, sd-card support, etc etc.

 

TS

I'm not sure that is ever what it was supposed to be though. To me at least, fairly early on the Nexus line became a phone oriented towards developers so they'd always be on the current version of stock android or a version ahead (preview) to develop and test their apps. Occasionally google would introduce new features or would show new things they hoped handset manufacturers using android would incorporate. On the other hand they decided to let consumers by the device as well. You have niche groups like many of us here who are attracted to the Nexus for various reasons be it the pure android experience/no bloat, instant OS updates instead of waiting for months for OEM/carrier updates, or an android phone with a ton of LTE bands, etc.

Hey guys how do you check to make sure you are getting CA?

 

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

On the Note 5 (and any CA capable Samsung or LG device) the engineering screen...

In some markets, SignalCheck Pro will put a little 2 (like squared) if you are getting CA.  I think this is easiest with clearwire converted sites?  (I could be way off with that one)  However, from what I gather, in other markets it's hard to tell.  Example in Madison, WI which is a Samsung market, I don't see anything with my B41 CA.  I think speed is the major identifier.  If you are up near 70mbps down (like on my towers here), you've got CA going on. 

The squared symbol is an indication that the device is connected to a second Band 41 carrier. That is in all likelihood an indication that carrier aggregation is present, but it isn't SignalCheck indicating CA. In many situations the "first" carrier may be the "primary" aggregation carrier (see the screenshot above). SignalCheck isn't capable of discerning if CA is present or not.

And Samsung markets are programmed in SCP to show a second carrier based on GCI's ending in 03, 04, or 05.

Hi Mike.  I was wondering with the new Sprint phones containing 2xCA capabilities, is there a way to extract the information where you can indicate if you are currently connected to 2xCA B41 LTE?  I think that would be a great addition to the app in your next version if it is possible.

Given that HTC and Motorola don't even show said information on internal engineering screens, probably not. It is a fair assumption carrier aggregation is present if SignalCheck indicates the 2nd carrier. Otherwise to confirm right now you need a Samsung or LG device or commit the atrocity of an unnecessary speed test. 

Kinda ironic considering we were able to run electricity to every single household in the US back in the day. There were more people living in rural areas then though.

And in a lot of rural areas that was solely the result of government involvement through Public Power entities in the early 20th century via the Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification Act, both New Deal programs designed to put people to work.

Or the bandwagon fallacy which goes under various alternatives including: ad populum (appeal to the people), appeal to popularity, argument by consensus.

How are the Las Vegas 2H 2015 results newsworthy, as in good news?

 

AJ

The only real positive in that report is Rootmetrics likely somehow exposed a huge 8T8R configuration oversight by Ala-Lu, Ericsson, and Sprint somehow missed. It apparently got fixed and if it was more systematic beyond Las Vegas it hopefully is fixed or being fixed as well. That is about the only good take away from that report. Sprint had to have known the window that Root was likely going to be testing, and the fact that they were able to effectively double their speeds with a retest points to a huge screw up.

Here we go . Sprint is raising prices on its single line unlimited data plans from $60/month to $70/month beginning 10/16. The question is are current customers under the $60 plan going to be affected or is it only for new customers signing up after 10/16. I guess this increase in price is to help fund the NGN project.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-raise-price-unlimited-data-plan-60month-70month-starting-oct-16/2015-09-30

Already posted.