irev210

Uggg.... stupid sprint will not activate the Galaxy Nexus on my legacy $50 SERO plan.

This is horrible! Trying to get this resolved.

My tower map only says that 3G is live at the Network Vision sites that are complete in the Boston market. Because the site list from Sprint only had 3G checked. However, it's possible that 4G LTE is indeed live, but it is not getting checked off in the Boston market database. I'm looking for confirmation from Members in Chicago and Boston once they start getting LTE devices.

 

Robert

Ok - I'll drive around Boston today hunting for LTE.

I wonder where I should go... any suggestions on where my best bet might be? The closer to Boston the better.

I agree... Verizon (landline) with FiOS is a direct competitor to some of the cablecos that Verizon Wireless is trying to pair up with.... the partnership will be tenuous at best. I think VZW really wants to BUY the spectrum-- the long term partnership is probably not high on their priority list.

The partnership isn't high on Verizon's priority list but it is on the Cable Cos priority list.

Verizon wants nationwide AWS. Cable cos want a real wireless partner.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

That could very well be the reason the T-Mobile merger didn't go thru. Plus the fact that with T-Mo outta the way, at&t would be the only national GSM carrier in the country.

I think while Verizon is trying to get their spectrum deal approved, they will be intentionally understating their subscriber numbers, or making them sound less than they are. Keep pushing just the retail numbers publicly.

 

It may be a strategy, since their other performance indicators are so high, why talk up the subscribers numbers too? If the FCC is constantly hearing numbers less than 100M, makes Verizon seem less formidable than over 100M. That 100M threshold is huge. Even if just psychological. That's just my opinion.

 

Robert

FCC knows exactly how many subs VZN has.

I think the bigger question isn't if VZN will get the spectrum purchase approved - it is the cable companies + VZN partnership that faces bigger hurdles.

For some devices, NetMonitor will be a better app than CDMA Field Test.

 

Robert

Robert, any idea if there is any live 4G in the Boston area right now? Getting a Galaxy Nexus tomorrow and would like to report some speedtests for you (if that would be helpful) - just need to know if I can drive to an active tower.

I am still totally itching for the return of the pin drop commercials when they launch HD Voice.

That would be AMAZING.

That could be the issue... would that make it increase by 100% though? I'll definitely make sure the servers are the same next time. Thx.

yes, it easily could.

When you use the PC version, it actually pings servers to see which one is likely to be fastest.

The mobile app does not.

Speedtest servers are all different - one may be overloaded, one may be poor routing to sprint, etc.

Test all the servers around you - it's amazing how different they all are.

Sprint is projecting steady 20%+ iDEN subscriber losses quarter after quarter until complete iDEN shut down. This is the main source of post paid subscriber losses. Sprint is not retaining iDEN subscribers at the rate they were hoping. The plan was to get them to move to Sprint Direct Connect or normal business CDMA accounts. However, competitors, especially ATT, have been very aggressive trying to pick up Nextel customers. Especially medium and large business customers.

 

After iDEN customers are migrated to CDMA, or all gone, you will finally see the end of the trend of postpaid subscriber losses.

 

Robert via NOVO7PALADIN Tablet using Forum Runner

When you look at the customer reviews of SDC devices - it isn't all that positive. No roaming and problems reestablishing DC after losing 3G seem to be the biggest complaints.

For a company that tried TWICE to get PTT on CDMA... it's pretty sad to still see customers so unhappy.

When you see iDEN subscribers who have been with sprint for over 10 years leaving:

http://www.howardfor...64#post14785964

It's just sad.

Yeah, the insurance rates are out of control.

I've never purchased insurance. I figure if my phone breaks it is cheaper to sell my broken phone on eBay and buy a used phone off eBay.

Net, it would be a few 100 bucks, tops. I have yet to break a phone though - but I am prepared to buy a new one if I needed to.

I've wondered the same thing.

I figured they sell some of it to overseas or rural carriers, scrap the rest.

I believe Sprint paid 36 billion for Nextel. Keep in mind that the spectrum is done through auctions and if Sprint participated in them, they would not be able to buy up every license for both AWS and 700 Mhz. Im sure Verizon and AT&T would have loved to have done that and use their financial muscle to choke the competition of spectrum.

Not really, sprint didn't write a check for Nextel - they "merged".

Obviously more complicated then that, something we could spend hours talking about... but I don't want people thinking Sprint just had 36 billion they could have used for something else.

Good question. But i think Sprint was probably planning on 4g offerings for their prepaid brands in the near future anyway. Sure would a good competition driver in the prepaid market.

 

Sent from Joshs Evo Shift using Forum Runner

I thought the rumors were pretty out there. Couple reasons why:

Prepaid phones have LONG shelf lives. I doubt sprint would commit to wimax for the foreseeable future like that. They are trying to move off WiMAX not onto it.

While Sprint has paid for unlimited wimax from clearwire through 2013 in 2014+ they will have to pay based on data usage. It seems counter-intuitive to give a prepaid customer (low margin customer) a product where they could rack up large data bills for sprint (same reason why you can't roam off-network like you can if you are sprint postpaid).

Just my thoughts - it will be interesting to see what they end up doing.

Pre-order sold out! Our Galaxy Nexus pre-order inventory has been spoken for. Check back on April 22 for the national launch.

Amazed they sold out...

Posted similar story here.

 

http://s4gru.com/ind...-in-cable-deal/

 

I would need more details on how much spectrum is given up first. But on first impression I am still not sold. There are not or if any small regional carriers that use 700 MHz for LTE. We know that MetroPCS, Cricket, Tmobile, US Cellular are the other major carriers that rely primarily on AWS spectrum that could really use the central to east coast coverage that Verizon currently holds. I would much rather have Verizon divest some its PCS and all of its current AWS spectrum holdings. Verizon can keep the A and B blocks of 700 MHz.

 

I know that both MetroPCS and Cricket have a coverage gap in the central to east coast region that could really use the AWS spectrum from Verizon.

Verizon is smart - they know that only AT&T will buy the A and B blocks in the 700MHz band. This is exactly what verizon would want - to strengthen the duopoly.

It's just from all the articles i have read online that say that T-Mobile is just a leech for DT. I guess those articles were just rants from analysts after all.

 

Sent from Joshs Evo Shift using Forum Runner

It's just not a core business for them and it's going down hill. T-Mobile is a really interesting wireless fixture in the US market.

I believe Sprint is gaining post-paid on the Sprint side but losing them on the Nextel side. IIRC they said to expect that trend to continue but it will be more than made up for by the cost savings of shutting down iDEN. Not sure how true that is but I guess we will see.

Considering they are down to under 5 million postpaid iDEN subscribers... there isn't a lot left to lose but you are probably correct. You will likely continue to see losses on the iDEN side and I would guess see gains on the CDMA side (thanks to the iPhone).

Parent company DT has to do something to make this under-performing carrier worth their time and money. I was surprised after the merger failure that they didn't just announce that they were going to close T-Mobile USA down. Instead they are finally putting money into fixing it.

Total annual revenues of T-Mobile are over $20 billion a year.

Earnings before Interest, Depreciation, and Amortization is over $5 billion.

The 7,000 towers that T-Mobile owns is worth about $3.5-3 billion.

They have an average of 27MHz of PCS spectrum and 32MHz of AWS spectrum in the top 100 markets.

More than 80% of T-Mobile's sites are connected via fiber.

Sort of surprised you would think they would just shut it down. T-Mobile is just a lot different than Sprint.

Remember, now that Sprint is doing something that would alter the Wireless playing field, everyone is into bashing them because at&t & Verizon are paying these analysts to do that. Sprint saw record growth last quarter, so they couldn't lose that many people from the massive gain the quarter before.

Really? Which analysts do they pay and how much?

Or are you just making stuff up?

The Lower 700 MHz D/E block 6 MHz unpaired licenses cannot be used for uplink, only downlink. And Cellular 850 MHz spectrum is inherently paired -- it already has both uplink and downlink that cannot be changed. So, carrier aggregation supplemental downlink could, for example, bond Lower 700 MHz unpaired spectrum to Cellular 850 MHz downlink spectrum to form an asymmetric uplink x downlink pair (e.g. 12.5 MHz x 18.5 MHz).

 

AJ

Cool, I didn't know you could bond unpaired spectrum to paired spectrum.

Pretty neat they can do that.

I am grasping at straws here - but could Sprint do that with Clearwire's ERS/BRS spectrum (e.g. 5MHz x 45MHz)?

It looked to me like they might try to do 700mhz uplink then 850 downlink as a carrier?

Their Cellular spectrum is already paired - wouldn't really make sense to do that?

Now this is interesting

I just assumed that ment TD-LTE + FD-LTE via LTE-Advanced. From the sounds of it, they are doing the exact same thing Sprint is doing. The difference is, Sprint has clearwire with 150MHz+ of spectrum in the largest markets, AT&T has 6MHz nationwide and a handful of markets with 12MHz (D+E) to run TD-LTE.

I dunno, maybe I don't know AT&T's plan... but not sure what else they could do besides TD-LTE with mediaflo spectrum.

This is my understanding as well. The Qualcomm spectrum will not be used with their current LTE 700 deployment. It is going to be some time before AT&T can figure out how to use that with LTE Advanced.

 

Robert

Seems like AT&T is actually pretty screwed, at least compared to Verizon. AT&T's arrogance seemed to get the best of them when they thought they could acquire T-Mobile.

If I had to guess, AT&T will buy Dish's 40MHz S-Band for gobs of money. That's probably their best bet.

Personally, I think Sprint's spectrum position with Clearwire is probably the best in the industry, at least in the long-term. When Sprint can have Clearwire deploy all of their spectrum in small urban cells, I don't think AT&T or Verizon will be able to match that. Sprint finally can deploy their ESMR spectrum so people actually have good suburban/rural coverage, PCS spectrum will be the mix of capacity and coverage, and ERS/BRS will be the overflow in the very small percentage of square miles that has extremely dense populations (IE: major cities).

Seems like high frequency spectrum that doesn't propagate well is almost a positive in an urban environment - more opportunity to recycle spectrum and deploy more small cells - and with LTE-Advanced it should be fairly invisible to the end user. And in Urban settings, when people are in office towers, ESMR and PCS should still provide great coverage.

AT&T is also rolling out a 10x10 configuration in markets that they can thanks to the acquisition of the Qualcomm 700 MHz spectrum. Everywhere else AT&T plans to launch a 5x5 configuration at 700 MHz.

 

Tmobile is planning to rollout LTE in 2013 and they are planning on a 10x10 configuration on their AWS spectrum in their top 25-50 markets. I would assume for the rest of the markets it would use a 5x5 configuration.

Qualcomm's 700MHz "Mediaflo" spectrum is unpaired. Not sure I understand the part about Qualcomm 700MHz spectrum they can roll out 10x10 config?

Fierewireless actually had a good special report on it about a year ago:

http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/special-reports/carrier-aggregation-how-att-will-use-qualcomms-mediaflo-spectrum-double-lte

According to that, it is just being aggregated - and not to 700MHz B/C block due to interference issues.

Robert:

 

I was looking at the iPhone 4S specs on the apple site and it shows the following:

 

 

Cellular and Wireless

 

World phone

UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz);

GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz)3

802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)

Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology

 

It clearly shows 800 right there on the CDMA section. I really hope the iPhone can support 800 CDMA because I am not eligible for an upgrade until July 2013. By then i'll be buying the new iPhone.

 

Please let me know Robert and thanks

 

Walter

I am pretty sure Apple is referencing the Cellular band that Verizon uses.

Ahhhh! I'm dying over here to test a NV tower in NYC. I hope my iPhone 4S is compatible with all the NV upgrades.

Yup, your iPhone is compatible with NV upgrades - you will appreciate the difference!