caspar347

IIRC Dish has a partial deadline sometime this year (I believe on their oldest AWS holdings) but it's partial so it's an automatic extension if they don't make it.

Yeah really. What the hell?

Going over 85% ownership would by contract terms force them to buy the last 15% and they don't wanna do that for tax reasons and stuff. But I'm sure they'd rather do that than delist.

I doubt Softbank would let that happen. (But it certainly looks like it could.)

At the risk of repeating myself, theVerge doesn't consider Sprint a legitimate wireless carrier.

Not sure if it was in this update or if it was a while ago (I haven't checked in months) but the map is far more accurate than it used to be in Charlotte in showing areas that are truly 100% 3G-only if you disable the spark layer. There are plenty of places that probably should be marked as 3G because you can only connect to LTE for a few seconds after airplane-cycling before dropping to 3G, but at least the new map is a decent indicator of absolute outdoor LTE dead zones.

This. Charlotte, along with the handful of cities I've visited on this side of the country, use utility poles for everything outside of new (i.e. less than 25 years old) strictly residential neighborhoods. Throw in anything commercial and you're surrounded by wooden utility poles or in some cases metal light poles. So here at least they already have poles pretty much anywhere you'd want a small cell. Not sure about weight load on the existing poles, but at least there shouldn't be any irrational objection from the municipalities for new ones. For pole-less neighborhoods, the only ones here would be better served by a well-tuned macro than a network of small cells.

Last post on page 20 of this thread says Sprint tried to get MC/MB to do a $65 million bond to cover the cost of running WiMAX another 90 days but the court rejected the motion.

Wow. Sounds like Sprint just sorta gave in. It'd be nice if they were somehow only allowed on B41, but it looks like they're getting full access to the LTE macro network. It does sound like they can "manage" the network more aggressively since this is data-only (why else would that be in the FAQ?) which is nice. Full steam ahead!

You'll still get faster speeds thanks to the principle of offloading.

And this means it's potentially an even bigger NN violation if the "requirements" for joining the "optimization program" (I.e their excuse for YouTube being let out) are just made-up.

If I had to guess I'd say server problems. Sensorly's have never reported latency very well and it wouldn't surprise me if their raw speed tests can be similarly inconsistent.

It would help a lot in a lot of places, but as far as we know the owners of US Cellular are not willing to sell the company. Such a merger is discussed frequently here because USCC is a good fit for Sprint from an asset and footprint standpoint, but it looks like USCC is content to be an independent roaming partner for the foreseeable future.

Yep. 300mbps TWC or anywhere from 3 to 24mbps with Windstream depending on where you live.

Alright. Fair enough. But I really don't think it's accurate to equate wireless competition with wireline. At all. They are two totally different kinds of networks built for two totally different use patterns and to attempt to use one for the other's purpose is not a good idea. Because wireless is a hell of a lot less stable than wireline. And data prices are orders of magnitude apart. But that's a different discussion.

I edited my post above with this, but I'll say it again: I only have one choice for broadband. And I live in the middle of a high-density suburb. And I know that everyone around me is in the same boat.

But large parts of America are stuck with just one provider! That's the whole problem! Unless you're a giant like Google you really can't just start a wireline ISP (or wireless really for the same reasons) on a whim. The startup costs are impossibly high and even if you can get past that you've got the PR nightmare of convincing people it's worth it for them to let you dig up their yards to install cables. And then there's permits. And zoning. And slow subcontractors. And corruption in favor of incumbents. And NIMBYs. It's in our best interests to fight for as even of a playing field on the web side as possible since the infrastructure contest is so one-sided. For example: I have two choices for wired internet. Only one of them counts as broadband as per the new definition. I'm stuck with slow Windstream or monopolistic TWC.

This accurately describes my (often frustrating) experiences with 800 LTE except that 1900 and 800 LTE are often at the same RSRP. And I frequently drop to -93ish EVDO from -115ish LTE.

Ahh. Makes sense.

I was agreeing to the useage terms for Harris Teeter public WiFi for the millionth time (the closest Sprint site a mile away provides only 1x towards the back of the store) and it occurred to me: couldn't large-scale public WiFi "remember" devices that previously agreed to their usage agreements based on MAC and let those devices bypass their terms screens upon connection? Are there reasons this isn't a thing already?

Is this a surprise? I thought Disney had some exclusive DAS contract with AT&T?

Hmm. No mention of specific bands. You'll have to report to us!

Hahaha http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/comcast-att-and-t-mobile-must-explain-data-cap-exemptions-to-fcc/ Seriously though, I'm glad they're stepping in now. Maybe it's not too late. It's gonna be really hard for them to backtrack though if they decide to.

Y'know, I think I heard something about a technology designed to subvert this whole load imbalance problem. What was it? I can't seem to remember. Oh! I know! TDD-LTE! Edit: out of curiosity, is PCS or AWS standardized for TDD operation? Is it even possible to operate FDD and TDD in adjacent bands i.e. FDD in PCS A and TDD in PCS D?

So the antennas I have pics of are deployed for spectrum consolidation with the possibility of adding B30 via RRU later?