irev210

Agreed. However, anecdotally it appears to be deploying this way looking at completed NV site maps. Except in LA, where it is right in the middle of the market.

 

Robert

I wonder if Ericsson has the biggest advantage in the NV project since Ericsson manages Sprint's network.

Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson both won hardware contracts with Verizon and AT&T so they already have a lot of hardware on the ground - it seems like Samsung would be the most disadvantaged. Apparently Samsung is a leader in Asia but I wonder how difficult it is for them to get going in a new market.

I wonder how much competition there is between the three of them in terms of deployment schedule.

This is the same exact site (KC60XC009) at Black Bob Park in Olathe, KS that AJ visited when he filed this article for S4GRU!

 

Robert

Too bad AJ couldn't get the grand tour like the other reporters.

Robert, there is not a post you've posted that I have not read!

I know I've said this before but I appreciate all the hard work you put into this site and I always look forward to reading what's new.

Drop more crumbs!

Although it's off topic, below is a screen shot overseeing completed NV sites in the Boston market. Sponsors can actually view this map in detail, pan/zoon around and click on sites by visiting this page.

 

 

Thanks for making me a happy camper today! Good to see the progress they are making. Up from 20 sites on March 15th to 68 sites on April 16th!

The capacity of Sprint's LTE will be half, but Sprint has half the customers. Capacity will not be an issue. Not only because the size of a 5x5 LTE carrier is less, but also, Sprint has a very solid plan for additional LTE carriers for more capacity. Also note that AT&T has 5x5 LTE carriers in many markets. They do not have enough spectrum to put 10x10 LTE in every market in the country. Only 1/3 of the country in fact. I would take Sprint's 5x5 nationwide over AT&T's hodge podge of 700 LTE spectrum, myself.

 

You will likely only know when NV is in place by following S4GRU. We keep maps in our Sponsor area showing all the completed Network Vision sites. An example from the Houston area is below:

 

Can you give an example of the Boston area, pretty please?

Yeah, bogus.

This is the same guy that put out the fake 3G/4G videos earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W5kmsBXVso&list=UU7eE-qAZsj3dKqLX1SpNR7A&index=6&feature=plcp

17ms ping 7.5mbit 3G... I don't think so.

People did a little snooping and found that this was totally fake. This guy is a nut job.

Sprint has a LOT less postpaid subscribers vs. AT&T and VZN.

There are actually many places where AT&T can only deploy 5x5 at 700MHz - not all roses for them.

5x5 at 1900 is just to start. They will follow up with LTE-advanced and add another 5x5 at 800MHz. They will then add Clearwire's 2.5GHz spectrum in areas with lots of data usage.

Spectrum is not something sprint needs to worry about for a few years.

Why not?

I've just had such a bad experience using clearwire. Connection issues aside (I have a clearwire antenna right outside my window), speedtests are extremely variable, even in the dead of night when nobody is on the network.

Even when the network was brand new, it was just SO variable. When I do trace routes, it looks like it takes an identical path to whatever server I am doing a tracert on, and since I have no networking expertise, I can't tell you why it is slower.

For example, if I do a speedtest to using the G4 communications server in New Hampshire, I'll get under 1mbit on WiMAX. Using the same speedtest at the same time at night on 3G I get lower ping time and over 2mbit - even though it is the exact same traceroute.

I am not a network expert but whatever clearwire does to connect to sprint's network doesn't work all that well.

Maybe with their conversion to LTE-Advanced they will upgrade whatever network components that connect to Sprint's network.

Maybe this is just an issue in the Boston market.

It is interesting though and I wish I understood how Sprint<->clearwire works.

If it is on the ground, then it is no longer an RRU.

 

AJ

err, oops! Good point.

I imagine that the amount of wires so high up means a good chance of higher maintenance costs, longer install times, etc. Imagine if you have a bad connection and you need to send someone up the tower to replace it instead of just to the base station.

I wonder if Verizon decided that it just added too much time/cost for the benefit when they are using such good spectrum to start with.

Sprint recently upgraded one of its towers in the center of Westborough, MA. I went and took some pictures which I uploaded to my website, www.danlampie.com, along with a quick article about Network Vision. I don't have any performance information but it does apear that Sprint is going with narrower beam antennas...probally 65 degrees. This should help increase the SNR, at the expense of reduced coverage in the nulls where the antenna patterns overlap. This is an Alcatel-Lucent market and they installed three RRH per sector, so I was thinking two RRH for PCS and one RRH for 800MHz. It appeared the only two (the PCS band) of the three RRH were powered on, so I am thinking that 800Mhz 1X advanced carriers would be coming a little bit later down the road. The old coax was cut, but the old antennas were still mounted. I wonder why the old antennas were not removed when they were already doing work on the tower.

It's amazing how many wires are running everywhere. I wonder if there are any reliability differences with the RRU's mounted on the tower. It seems like you could have multiple places were gaskets and such could wear out causing failure.

The Ericsson solution that Duffman posted where the RRU was mounted inside the antenna housing was downright sexy - I wonder what the cost and reliability differences are between them.

I wonder what the cost difference is for mounting the RRU up on the tower is vs. on the ground.

Like I said, I understand what you are saying. Just saying that If Sprint knew that it would be coming that soon, (or if they were planning it that soon), why they wouldn't try to have their new phones, (not even released), try and support it.

 

When is was hinted at coming in 2014 or so, it was really no big deal, as the phones coming out now would be off contract by the time it rolled out and picking up a new one that supported both bands would make sense. Now that it looks like they will be rolling out only halfway into the new LTE phones contracts it kind of seems like bad planning.

 

Also, want to make clear I'm not upset about it, and it won't sway my purchasing decision any. Just trying to understand thier reasoning behind not including it in LTE phones now. Well, I can understand the nexus as its really last years phone. But to not include it in like the El-Tevo which was still in development doesn't make sense.

I think supporting LTE @ 800MHz would have caused their current crop of phones (GNex, Viper, EVO 4G LTE) and the unannounced LTE phones to slip in schedule.

I also might guess that sprint might be waiting for LTE-Advanced capable handsets before supporting 800MHz (maybe Robert knows?)

Sprint is already very behind Verizon and AT&T in terms of handsets - I doubt that they want to slip back even further.

That's probably the biggest driver. For most people, it isn't going to matter anyway. Older LTE phones on 1900 will still benefit from newer phones on 800, as based on capacity, they should default to 800MHz leaving more room for legacy LTE on 1900MHz customers.

Frankly, I am just glad they are getting LTE phones out the door now, not later.

We need tools, not toys. lol.

Very exciting! I am really curious what the real-world data performance will be on 1x-advanced.

Can't wait to see how fast Clearwire's LTE speeds will actually be.

 

Sent from Joshs iPhone 3Gs using Forum Runner

Same here. I really wish we had more info on what they were doing. I wonder if all that microwave and backhaul they setup will be robust enough to handle the new surge in data. Me thinks not.

Yeah just hopefully when this happens the settings in the phone for it allow the user to configure it some on their end easily. With clear live I'd like to know exactly what LTE network I'm connected to and the signal strength of it...there may be times ill rather be on sprints and will hate being forced to clears if not better fully...

Something that Sprint and micro smith deal will handle likely...just interested how it all will look once done...

 

Have a feeling that we won't be able to tweak connecting to clearwire or not from a general user standpoint, which will kinda suck imho...

 

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2

I was wondering the same thing. I am curious how clearwire's LTE deployment will go and if it will be plagued with some of the same issues I see with their WiMAX network.

Well, I figured people would take what this out of context

http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/wi-fi-offloading-who-controls-your-handset/2012-04-11

Really poorly written article - she obviously has NO idea how the app works.

Thankfully, because of Duffman, we do.

Actually, neither "needs" AWS 2100+1700 MHz capability. VZW currently holds AWS across only the eastern half of the US and will wait for the SpectrumCo-Cox AWS transaction to shake out before VZW does anything in AWS. And AT&T, while it has released all of its LTE devices thus far with AWS, quite possibly will never deploy anything in AWS. AT&T's AWS holdings have always been overstated. Now, after assigning much of that AWS to T-Mobile as part of the merger break up fee, AT&T has downright little AWS left in the top markets. See my graph:

 

 

 

 

AJ

That makes a lot of sense - thank you for all the info!

I wonder if the antenna situation is one of the reasons why there have been rumors that the new iPhone will sport a 4" display.

If you had to predict how apple would configure the new iPhone - do you think it would follow in the footsteps of the new iPad?

Josh, how will adding LTE capability to the iPhone be "easy"? An LTE iPhone will have to retain all of the GSM/W-CDMA/CDMA1X/EV-DO connectivity of the iPhone 4S plus add 2x2 MIMO LTE 750 antennas for VZW and/or 2x2 MIMO LTE 700/2100+1700 antennas for AT&T. Even if Apple does two LTE models, a la the "new" iPad, it must do so in a phone approximately one seventh the volume of the iPad. Again, how is that "easy"?

 

As for Sprint iPhone LTE compatibility, I would wager a guess that it will be limited to LTE 1900. And, if the iPhone 4S is any indication, it also will not support CDMA1X 800. And that could be a good thing, as it would confine the throngs of iPhonerds to CDMA1X/EV-DO/LTE 1900, leaving more CDMA1X/LTE 800 and/or TD-LTE 2600 capacity free for other users.

 

AJ

I wonder how much carrier nit-picking is involved in all this. I would assume VZN would be upset if AT&T got AWS support but VZN got left out (granted AT&T absolutely needs AWS whereas VZN does not).

I would also think that Sprint would be anxious to get the new iPhone onto 800 to improve voice coverage and dropped calls. I would assume sprint would really want to see that on the iPhone so they can keep PCS spectrum open for refarming. More iPhones on 1x @ 1900 means less space to refarm, right?

I am just starting to think if Apple will bite the bullet and start engineering iPhones to have the same PCB but have a modular antenna system that they could just drop in during assembly.

Oh, now I understand. Thanks for correcting me on that.

I was wondering how it would work a while ago and AJ clarified that when Sprint fires up LTE on 800MHz ESMR spectrum - Sprint will be able to aggregate 800MHz + 1900MHz since they are both FD LTE-Advanced

However, since Clearwire is deploying TD LTE-Advanced, that would be a different network and would essentially have to reconnect (like 4G WiMAX does now).

I was hoping for a seamless switch between all three, but that doesn't seem to be the case

I'm assuming where ever Sprint can provide local loop access, they can do that.

I am just curious how often that happens. I am also curious if a base station hooked directly into sprint's network performs better than one that is not.

So you think they only did a 5x5 config for WiMax?

 

As for LTE Advanced on Clearwire, I know for sure from what I've read here and elsewhere on the internet, they are planning for a 20x20 config for LTE, and if they do more than that, and eventually expand into Pahrump, I will be one very happy camper.

not 5MHz upx5MHz down (that's FDD), just 10MHz for up and down (TDD)

If I remember correctly, there was no WiMAX FDD option until WiMAX 2. You need paired spectrum to do FDD, which clearwire doesn't have. They could do FDD but it would waste a ton of spectrum that they have.

TDD-LTE is good for data and is the most efficient way to deploy LTE on Clearwire's spectrum.

The 20MHz+20MHz is actually two 20MHz channels aggregated together. Both the uplink and downlink share the same spectrum. Think of a giant 40MHz block that does both upload and download.

When Clearwire rolls out LTE they will do so better than they did with WiMax. With all the protection sites they were in a major hurry to finish, and I think they sometimes got a little sloppy even with full deployment. Also, I think Clearwire also only rolled out WiMax in a 10x10 config, and LTE should probably be in a 20x20 config, which makes for even greater data speeds. I know that with Sprint pumping in so much money to fund the LTE upgrade, they will make sure that Clearwire does it right this time.

Sadly, I don't think the spectrum they allocated is actually full. I think it has more to do with backhaul and routing.

Since it is TDD, it's just 10MHz for uplink and downlink, not 10x10. When they launch LTE-Advanced clearwire said they will do "fat pipes" using TD-LTE 20MHz + 20MHz (aggregating). They might even go 20MHz+20MHz+20MHz or something crazy. I've read that LTE-Advanced can aggregate up to 5 20MHz channels.

Wow. You are getting better download speeds than I do.

The sad part is, the ping time on Sprint 3G is between ~65ms and ~95ms and the consistency of speed between speedtest servers is MUCH better. Speeds are typically between 1.5mbit and 2.2mbit depending on the server.

WiMAX latency is 95ms at best. Speeds can be as low as 500kbps depending on server and time of test. Sometimes even in the middle of the night, WiMAX speedtest to certain servers is extremely slow.

This is why I am nervous about LTE-Advanced and getting kicked onto Clearwire's TD-LTE network. Performance is just so variable. I am not sure how they built out their network, but it doesn't seem very robust.

4ringsnbr and WiWavelength - thanks for the help understanding - this is not my area of expertise.

The reason why I am so curious is because apple tries very hard to limit the number of devices they have on the market.

I am curious how many different models of the next iPhone they are going to have to make to meet the needs of wireless carriers in the US and across the globe.

How many bands/antennas do you think they will be able to cram into the next iPhone?

WiMAX Speeds have always been extremely variable for me.

The routing doesn't seem all that great - the speed tests between various servers has VERY large swings.

That said, the right server at the right time = this:

That said, most of the time WiMAX in Boston is no better than Sprint 3G and the coverage is beyond horrible.

I'll throw in my two cents.

I think it's absolutely amazing what this site has turned into (really the only place you can actually get good info).

It is easy to forget how hard it is writing articles, posting info, etc. I can only read and ask questions, try to learn, help others, etc. I think any format that you want to share information is positive. If it is two bullets, that's awesome. Frankly, we are here to learn about what Sprint is up to - and I'll take it in any way I can get it.

My only issue is the sponsor section. I understand the costs associated with the website are large but it just seems like it really goes against what S4GRU is about by sharing "better" information with those that can pay for it and "the rest" of information for those that can't. I really wish there was a way to change that.

Otherwise, I very much enjoy reading what you guys have to say.