irev210

I thought the ac units where the real power suckers? Not that hard to do the math. 3000 does sound Like a lot. I'll look up some more info and see if I can get a better number

Well said. Maybe it is the generation of "I want it now" people, or the people who just have nothing better to do. You can't turn on over 38,000 sites at once. Now, I get people's frustration - many were incorrectly promised WiMAX and never got it but that doesn't give people the right to be lazy or impatient. I think the biggest message here is that this is a full network overhaul. The markets that have launched are not anywhere NEAR done but at least you get a taste of what is coming. People may say "well that's what happened with WiMAX" but honestly, it wasn't.

My issues with your comment in the comment section in the article was this: When I said (and confirmed by robert) Minimum backhaul speeds required by Sprint are 250mbit (with the ability to increase as demand increases). 250mbit is a starting point - why pay for more bandwidth than you need? When you need more, it's easy to order more. I guess I am just confused as to why that wouldn't be enough for the current amount of Spectrum sprint is deploying for CDMA and LTE. My second issue was the 10Gbps and 100Gbps backhaul to towers. I have never ever heard t-mobile claim that they are deploying 10Gbps to any tower. Maybe I am wrong, but I try to keep up on backhaul news. Can you share some information on why/how you think carriers are moving to 10/100Gbps to towers?

Sadly, true. 1 sl-crs1-spr(Springfield)-0-4-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.51) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec 2 sl-crs1-nyc(BRONX...)-0-8-0-1.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.206) 4 msec 4 msec 8 msec 3 144.232.4.85 4 msec 144.232.4.89 4 msec 144.232.4.85 8 msec 4 sl-gw50-nyc-.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.20) 4 msec sl-gw50-nyc-.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.22) 4 msec 4 msec 5 nyc-brdr (aka bronx)-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.1.133) [AS 209] 4 msec 4 msec 8 msec 6 bst (back to boston again)-edge-03.inet.qwest.net [AS 209] 12 msec 16 msec 16 msec Just really sad... it hurts, no need to rub it in.

Like 100Gbps backhaul New post in the comment section from Conan Kudo. Doing the math... I can't even get my head around how 10Gbps of backhaul would even be remotely usable for T-Mobile. Might as well light some money on fire.

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132847-sprint-4g-lte-launches-promises-3g-speeds-for-its-path-to-domination Sad that this author is completely ignorant on all things Sprint and they post up this garbage. Another one: http://gizmodo.com/5919387/sprints-upcoming-4g-lte-networkat-least-its-faster-than-wimax Sprint needs to shake up their reputation. Sad they are still getting crushed by bloggers.

I have not seen any examples of this.

Not wimax - sprint is doing every 3G tower - they just want to launch now and backfill later. Wouldn't you rather have sites that you can connect to now instead of waiting for them to finish every single site before launching? Clearwire built the wimax network - you can't compare them.

I went and looked at a few that were upgraded but didn't have LTE - the speeds were all over the map. I then went to the sites that had 4G (not able to connect) but they all had 2mbit+ 3G speeds. None cought the eHRPD yet, so it was still EVDOrevA. My best guess is that they need backhaul before they can light up LTE - but the hardware is there. I saw no difference in antenna/RRU setups between LTE site and non-LTE site.

You aren't far off, according to Robert's calculation as of July 9th. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/212-network-visionlte-deployment-running-list/

Yup, that always helps but the SAMOLED panel's power consumption isn't a direct function of its brightness - it just uses more power than LCD. That was one of the drivers for going with pentile display - less battery usage. Another interesting thing about SAMOLED is its issues with heat. Pretty common to run into auto dimming when using, say, GPS navigation. If it's very hot and you have the display on full brightness, it will reduce the brightness to manage display thermals to prevent damage. Overall, I still prefer SAMOLED, even with its inharent disadvantages to LCD.... but they are worth noting.

I don't think so. It's probably related to two things 1) SAMOLED display sucks more power. 2) EVO has more conservative power management settings. It's pretty interesting to see the EVO just about shuts down radios at night - pretty awesome.

I think Verizon will do what they need to do to get the deal done... which is get back out of bed with the cable companies. The cable cos sleeping with Verizon isn't going to fly, I don't think.

I will mention that not speed but signal quality with, particularly the GNEX, had a substantial impact on battery life. Newer phones with 28nm qualcomm and associated parts seem to care much less.

I think in a world of no spectrum limitations, EVDO Rev B would have made sense. But when you only got so much powder in the keg - keep it for the best stuff (LTE).

why burden the handset with such additional costs if there is no capability? You can future-proof all you want, but the costs involved typically tend to out-weigh the benefits. Anyone that is that into having the "most" antennas will probably upgrade handsets every two years anyway. Even if you have LTE only on Sprint's PCS band, old handsets still get the benefit of other people upgrading as they end up getting offloaded onto other bands.

So with newer phones like the EVO 4G LTE and Samsung GS3, do we get SVDO as a result of MIMO antennas on the PCS band?

At least one, heh. Great call - spot on!

This is exciting news! I guess Sprint was just waiting for the EVO OTA update after all

What does HIPDQ++ stand for? HI Performance Data Quality Plus Plus?

Sprint used to be owned by railroad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Nextel Southern Pacific maintained an extensive microwave communications system along its rights-of-way that the railroad used for internal communications. After the Execunet II decision, Southern Pacific expanded its internal communications network by laying fiber optic cables along the same rights-of-way. In 1972, Southen Pacific Communications began selling surplus system capacity to corporations for use as private lines, circumventing AT&T's then-monopoly on public telephony. Prior attempts at offering long distance voice services had not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), although a fax service (called SpeedFAX) was permitted.

I love how their Node is located right off the railroad tracks. I wonder if that's legacy from the railroad days. 400 Taylor Street Springfield, MA 01105 Probably easy to light up that 4G site in Springfield when your node is right there. I bet Sprint 4G LTE is pretty fast there I should make a road trip. Also, who do you think makes the best basestation/RRU/antennas? AL, Ericsson, or Samsung?

I love their looking glass. It's really amazing to think what a huge part of the internet Sprint used to be. Sort of sad that's changed so much over the past five years. I love the annual Baker's Dozen http://www.renesys.com/blog/2012/02/a-bakers-dozen-2011-edition.shtml

Well, you could also argue that USCC and TMO are stronger than sprint because they are at least profitable. When I speak about two strong competitors and 3 weak ones, I talk about Verizon and AT&T pretty much controlling the entire postpaid market (I want to say around 200 million prepaid subs). Compared to Sprint and T-Mobile, which combined, have around 50-60 million postpaid (cant remember exactly off the top of my head), you can say that we have two very dominate players. In terms of profitability, again, both AT&T and Verizon are extremely dominate with gross margins that the rest of the industry envies. So, while Sprint may be strong against, metro, vs. AT&T and Verizon, they are weak. I suppose it's all relative. Back to my original point though is that to be competitive against big red and big blue, we will likely need some consolidation. I can see Sprint picking up one prepaid carrier, T-Mobile picking up the other, doing some license transfers so T-Mobile ends up with more AWS and Sprint ends up with more PCS, and we have stronger T-Mobile and Sprint to compete with AT&T and Verizon. Scale is extremely important in this industry.

Makes a lot more sense: https://www.sprint.n...merica-MPLS.png