irev210

But how do you define need? If you prevent carriers from taking risk, they have no opportunity to offer innovative wireless products (like DC-HSPA+). Looking back, you could say that it was/is an inefficient use of spectrum but what about an inefficient use of capital? That's the bigger discussion. LTE was likely cost prohibitive relative to DC-HSPA+ when T-Mobile decided to move towards evolving HSPA+ back in 2011. Look at clearwire - they hardly use any of their spectrum. Instead of letting it fallow, why not put a less efficient technology on it today at a price point that makes sense? Offer a service that is a competitive game changer? Isn't that the whole reason Softbank had interest in the US market? Offer some disruptive service options that big red/big blue can't match? They don't need the spectrum today but to steal marketshare from verizon and AT&T they will need the spectrum tomorrow. The idea of perfectly allocating spectrum to carriers is idealistic. I love the idea, but in a practical sense, it is just impossible. Are you going to say each carrier has to offer the same 5GB data plan and same 5Mbit data speed to keep everything on parity? Needs change. What if T-Mobile grows and needs more spectrum? What if all of them NEED to deploy faster broadband? What sort of return on investment should each carrier be allowed to have? Every day subscribers jump from one carrier to another. Would we have an annual FCC Spectrum Re-balance? The only situation that's problematic is when carriers just buy spectrum so others can't use it. At the end of the day "need" is impossible to define. Trying to say how much spectrum someone needs is like saying how much fried chicken someone should be allowed to eat. Competition requires risk, risk requires someone to take a chance on buying more spectrum than they need to offer a service at a price point a competitor can't.

Yeah, but they got the spectrum to burn. They started deploying DC-HSPA+ back in 2011 before LTE was really a possibility for them. Might as well do something with it, heh. I am sure that they'll eventually refarm to LTE. Until then, why not evolve WCDMA? It's pretty well know that T-Mobile has more spectrum per customer than any other carrier - why not use and refarm later?

I got into the 20's and low 30's when LTE first launched in Boston. Now, latency is way up and upload is faster than download It's pretty bad how quickly the sites are loading up. To be fair, most sites in Boston aren't on yet, leaving the few that are to take a lot more load, but Sprint did "officially" launch the market... I have to admit, I am pretty excited to see what T-Mobile can do with LTE in Boston. I view the DC-HSPA+ network as far superior to Sprint's current LTE network (in Boston).

I know someone with this exact same problem. Not sure of any fix, very annoying.

I would wait for the HTC one or galaxy s 4. AJ reported that the HTC One was tuned specifically for Sprint's G block, so reception looks promising.

No, it works well. I also have Google voice go to my email so I'll get both an email and text. It's nice to be able to reply to texts via email while I'm at the computer.

I'll definitely be getting the HTC One. I'm looking forward to enhanced LTE performance.

They will quickly attempt to standardized locked devices that only operate on AT&T and be as anti-competitive as possible. Business as usual, basically. I hope it backfires :

That's why people enjoy tailgating.

Really? It's the google voice app in the play store - it uses a completely different interface.

I agree completely, yet people still seem to fall for it. Even if you don't partner with them, they'll go after your trade secrets that took 50+ years to develop, knock off your process, stop doing business with you, and undercut you on price. Look at the DuPont story about Titanium Dioxide. When DuPont refused to sell process technology to China, China's government basically green-lighted as much theft of DuPont's titanium dioxide manufacturing process as possible. It's a crazy story - yet the response by the federal government is basically nothing. Either way, companies can't win when only a few street-level pawns are getting punished.

It's been interesting to watch the google voice app evolve. it used to stink at pushing txts through, then problems sending... Now it has a very nice "queued" "sending" "not sent" "retrying" "sent" progress report. It's extremely rare that a text can't send - just might take a minute, but you can continue texting and they'll eventually make it through. It doesn't happen often, but in a loaded area, it might take a minute for them to work through. Given all of the problems people have with Sprint's text messaging, I am not sure one is necessarily better than the other - both have their ups and downs. The biggest win for me is streaming live radio and texting. If I text over sprint, it drops me down to 1x and because I have an active data session, it won't revert back to EVDO. I prefer to keep my EVDO

I am a google voice user, google voice texts go as standard data (which is very nice).

I text over EVDO, not 1x. I supposed I wouldn't have been able to do either.

True, to a degree. The problem is, China requires you to go with a domestic partner. Part of it is corporate greed, the other part of it is ignorance. They try to build contracts to protect IP but in China, they don't enforce the IP at all, so it doesn't really matter what you put into the contract. The Chinese company says that it's their own technology and Kawasaki can't really do anything - regardless of what the truth is (like the wind turbine story). One of the more interesting stories is the signal systems. They stole the IP to the signal switches but beyond that, they didn't have the experience to implement the IP. There have been a few tragic train crashes as a result. Agreed, we saw America do this with British goods, and Japan with American goods. The difference is someone had to reverse engineer it - China just steals the source code. Check out the NetNanny story and what China did to the NetNanny company when they were trying to put up their "green wall". A lack of willingness for companies to step forward is a giant problem. Often times, facing embarrassment, they brush off serious data breaches. There is a good story today in the WSJ about how they hire law firms to investigate so they can keep attorney/client privilege. I think China's goal was to essentially jump start industries that would take decades to build and then throw massive amounts of bodies to keep updating products and move toward "indigenous innovation". Suitcases full of motorola trade secrets and cash always helps. The problem is, if that happened in the USA (or most other countries) the offender would be jailed, the company would be facing a serious investigation, and people would be going to jail. There would be no way that the company could keep doing business. In China, it's a little different when that sort of behavior is not punished but encouraged, nourished, and backed by the state. Me neither!

No, it doesn't say that. It says a report did not find any evidence. It also doesn't address what Huawei did to get to be in the position they are today. How much IP did Huawei steal? More or less, they (Chinese military) is interested in stealing technology to help "indigenous" chinese state-sponsored companies grow. The far bigger issue is how they basically steal technology to develop new industries, stealing without recourse, billions of dollars in IP. Why should they be allowed to do business here? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704814204575507353221141616.html From an older post of mine:

Serious question: How many hours have you spent researching publicly available documents on Huawei? If none, how can you have that opinion? China's money is good? In what sense? That they buy US debt? The Treasury auctions debt, they do not sell it. Considering each auction is well subscribed, they don't need China to buy any of the debt. China chooses to. China buys US debt because it is in their best interest to do so (as well as Japan and Korea, etc). It's not really relevant other than a political talking point. No, it's not. Your kidding right? The problem isn't growing economic prowess. The issue is that unlike other countries (espionage for military secrets, etc) China is doing economic espionage. Just look at poor Kawasaki trains. The list goes on and on. Basically, we develop technology and then state-sponsored entities hack and steal it. They've been trying to steal the dupont titanium dioxide formula for decades now, it's sad. More examples: http://www.businessw...orate-espionage The fact that this has been directly linked to chinese military: http://www.wired.com...inked-to-hacks/ I could go on for days... but go back to the Nortel hack and how for 10 years the Chinese had complete access to all of Nortel's data. What do you think built Huawei and ZTE? They aren't really allegations at this point, they're well documented. This is one of my favorite examples: http://www.bloomberg...-companies.html It's not *might* (see above). The bigger issue is that they are stealing absolutely anything and everything they can get their hands on. It would be one thing if it was just "oh, well, we just want to see what's going on" - instead it's "we want to steel everything, nothing is off limits". Given how much media attention this topic has received and how well documented this stuff is, I am sort of surprised that S4GRU members are pretty behind the curve on what's been going on in the cyber espionage world.

Probably has a lot to do with my crummy EVO 4G LTE handset but I spend a lot of time on 4G LTE with RSRP around -105dB to -115dB. While 3-5Mb isn't bad, I imagine it's only going to get worse once the network is loaded. Look at poor Verizon.

Robert, why not just assume the liability on someone's old verizon unlimited plan? I know a family member with a legacy unlimited plan. Truly unlimited, including hotspot - and it does not violate any Verizon T/C's. Verizon continues to allow customers with these rate plans but at the expensive of losing device subsidies (a worthy price increase for some, I suppose). It's the enemy, Verizon. Likely legitimate usage.

The more I look at 10x10 vs. 5x5 - the advantages of deploying a 10x10 carrier seem substantial. In areas where you have poor coverage, it seems like the 10x10 carrier can offer a far better user experience than 5x5.

even non-profits want returns. I am not really sure where this is going...

They just need to update their lame "I am unlimited" commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frKZyFYxQCY "So why would you cap that? Take another byte" "I need, no, I have the right to be unlimited stuffa my face!" "I am unlimited stuffa my face!" I think it would be better having cookie monster do that commercial. Take another byte! Visit more websites to get more cookies! I stuffa my face with cookies from websites!

I know, I know, heh. I define abuse as breaking the T&C to use a service in a way that sprint did not intend. You and AJ define abuse a little differently (which is fine too, just a different viewpoint). While I go against the grain on this one, I appreciate you guys letting me take a stand (and having a good discussion about it it). I see this as a good thing. LTE hotspots are not unlimited - if sprint could sell LTE for home using hotspots, that's fantastic. More revenue. Verizon does the same thing - and probably makes a boatload of money doing it. As for the WiFi comment, that's just dumb. Customers benefit from better battery life, faster data connectivity and access to their home network (automation, locally stored files, etc). With how good phones are automatically picking up and disconnecting to WiFi, there is no reason not to use it.

While this goes against AJ here is my two cents: You were sold a service and agreed to various terms and conditions. If you are following those terms and conditions, what do you have to worry about? It's on sprint to deliver the service you signed up for. You shouldn't have to worry about the "how". It's not your job as a consumer to worry about how a company gets the job done. At work, if you have a client and you promise them that you will deliver a project by Friday and you don't do that, is the client going to say "well I know you have a lot of clients so I understand..." No, they will take their biz elsewhere. If you can't deliver on what you offer, you shouldn't be selling it. Sprint is selling the heck out of unlimited.

I think a lot of it really has to do where you live. T-Mobile's coverage seems to vary greatly by region. A lot more so than Sprint.