irev210

After reading that the Lumia 900 supports 10 bands and has 7 cellular antennas... my mind is officially blown. From BGR: The Lumia 900 features compatibility with 10 different cellular bands — GSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/900/1900 and LTE 700/1700/2100. From anandtech: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/5724/Screen%20Shot%202012-04-02%20at%202.59.15%20PM.png After seeing this, a sprint phone with CDMA 800/850/1900 and LTE 700/800/1900/2500 doesn't seem all that crazy. Am I the only one that was pretty impressed with this? With the 28nm qualcomm baseband that supports everything under the sun it doesn't seem far fetched to see a fully loaded sprint phone that actually has all of the needed antennas to support roaming on Verizon's 700MHz and 850MHz + sprint's native 800/1900 and Clearwire's 2.5.

I just call that special sprint number that someone picks up right away. I RARELY call and when I do it is because I am having a particularly bad issue. Last time I called it was because a jerk store employee refused to sell me a epic 4g touch without adding a line (he wanted his $$$ from opening a new line). Had to report him. He totally lied to me saying he was not able to sell me a phone off contract - really ticked me off.

Awesome! I really wish I could become a sponser but that's something I can't swing I really wish I could Here is Boston!

I think it was the other way around. Sprint was not going to deploy AWS-capable phones because of the small amount of spectrum that PCS has. It's the other way around. PCS would fit VERY well into the Boost/Virgin prepaid lineup that Sprint has. All of Metro's phones already work flawlessly on Sprint's 3G network. 10 million prepaid subs, sell off the spectrum to AT&T or Verizon, win/win/win. The only problem was that Sprint's stock price fell too much for the deal to financially make sense to Sprint.

I would love to see where the towers are located around downtown boston so i can keep an eye out for network vision improvements. I drove out to the burbs looking for NV towers based on Robert's maps but had no luck finding any. Looks like they were ready to work on this one:

This is good, people should be prompted to connect to home wifi "for improved battery performance and device speed" The wimax offload I am not a big fan of.

OK, thanks for the clarification. I was hoping for a seemless handoff, which after you explained it doesn't seem possible. Sad to hear. I am curious what sort of speeds Clearwire is going to be able to accomplish with TD-LTE.

Yeah, I assumed that if you were on Clearwire's network aggregating Sprint's network wouldn't add much. Clearwire has talked about aggregating its own bandwith (20MHz + 20MHz for example) which makes sense. Speedwise, nothing on the market should be faster. Doesn't sound like aggregating Sprint spectrum with Clearwire spectrum would add much value (and it doesn't seem possible anyway). I guess my question is more about the handoffs between Sprint's FD-LTE network and Clearwire's TD-LTE network. The whole point (from what I understand) of LTE-Advanced is the seemless handoff between various spectrums. Maybe I am still not getting it. I am really curious how the hand-off between Sprint and Clearwire will work using LTE-Advanced. eHRPD-Advanced? heh

I have nevear heard this. I've used clearwire's wimax service and Sprint's wimax service off the same tower and they appeared to be running totally different traceroutes/networks (I saw a comcast one as well, and it used comcast's network). Why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing? It's all IP based, no? I think there are many more advantages to LTE-Advanced than just aggregation also. For example, if a customer is outside, in a high-tonnage urban market, they would be on 2.5GHz. As they walk inside, they dynamically shift to 1900MHz. As they walk further indoors, they dynamically shift to 800MHz. Depending on a bunch of factors (availablity, capacity, cost, etc), Sprint should be able to aggregate and shift customers to various spectrum bands all on the fly with LTE-Advanced, seemlessly. Am I just not understanding how LTE-Advanced works?

True on the gaming part. None of us know... so it's not really fair to say either way. None of us have even read the full report (I haven't anyway). Makes it hard to even talk about. In the video he even says that Sprint is going to do very well or possibly go into bankruptcy. Robert, people are starting to listen to you because you have worked hard to develop a reputation. If you put out a bunch of incorrect info, people would probably stop coming to this site or taking you seriously. If the Bernstein analyst was always wrong, nobody would ever listen to him and he would (likely) get fired. Yes, you have an electronic sword - but you earned it, it wasn't given to you.

He is on da video now too! hahaha http://www.bloomberg.com/video/88609938/

I think we are all saying the same thing here - the Bernstein analyst is an idiot. I am not defending his opinion. I am defending his right to an (idiotic) opinion. Lots of people put out reports saying "buy" or "sell" or "whatever". I do take issue when someone puts out an opinion and then someone just assumes that they are "gaming" the system or hurting Sprint by stating his opinion. My point to Scott was that this happens ALL the time to LOTS of stocks, not just sprint. It might swing the stock one way or the other for a few days but in the long-term it is totally irrelevant. It doesn't come down to him putting out a report to "hurt sprint for his own personal profit". It is him spending a few hours looking at a few financials and putting out a half-baked report so he could get his paycheck and move onto the next thing. Not sure how I am picking on anyone here. The only person I am calling an idiot is that Bernstein guy.... Scott, if it felt like I was picking on you - sorry about that - not my intention

Like I said before, it goes both ways. A few % move is not going to hinder Sprint's ability to manage its business. I find it almost comical that you would think that this particular analyst would be financially motivated to put out a "sell" recommendation. You know that he can't transact on his report, right? He can't say "sprint sucks" then make money off that play... Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), the third- largest U.S. wireless operator, surged to its highest value since December, after a Wells Fargo Securities analyst said it had taken advantage of recent mobile data moves at AT&T (T) Inc. and struggles at T-Mobile USA to gain their subscribers. Link: http://www.bloomberg...iber-gains.html See, some analysts say buy, makes stock shoot up. Some say sell, stock goes down... in the long-term, the stock price is going to be determined on how Sprint itself performs, not what some "analyst" says. Just look at the year-to-date performance. Sprint is up 16.67% YTD after the "analyst" report vs. 17.94% before the "analyst" report in the matter of a day. I think you need to look beyond just today and yesterday. What caused Sprint stock to fall from almost 6 dollars a share in June 2011 to ~2.75 today? I can tell you one thing... it wasn't that guys opinion.

I think you are getting too caught up in one persons opinion. You do realize that more "wall street" analysts have "buy" recommendations than "sell" recommendations on sprint stock, right? I think the guy is just doing his job (poorly) and people (for some odd reason) actually put value in his recommendation. May not be right or wrong, but it is his opinion. If he drives down the stock it creates opportunity for others. One guy can't cripple what sprint is trying to accomplish. Any time more "expert" opinion or more information (like S4GRU) is available, it actually helps reduce swings in prices. Look here: http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/BuyHoldSellAnalysis.do?tkr=s

Of course it is flawed. If it wasn't flawed no stock price would ever change. I think it is better to look at it from a long-term angle. I can argue (imperfectly, of course) that apple today, in terms of dollars, is worth more today than 5 years ago. How do you value that if you own part of the company (even more so now that the company pays divs)? Sprint never had to become a public company. There are lots of companies (like Cox communications for example) that are private and not subject to a bunch of people stating their opinion. Anyway, it's interesting to see the process work. You have one person that says sprint is awesome, another person says sprint is going to go BK... how do you actually know what is going to happen? One answer: visit s4gru.com

Eh, don't waste your time. No point in trying to figure out stupidity. The guy obviously lacks a basic understanding of what Sprint is doing with their specturm. If you asked him what the "G block" was he would probably look at you funny. Ask him if he thought Sprint was going to buy the "H block" he would look even more confused. And that's without even leaving the PCS band! ha.

You can leverage a bet in any direction. Anyway, anyone that follows sprint would realize this guy is a ding dong. That's just sad. The guy should be ashamed he lacks a basic understanding of Sprint's spectrum position and current spectrum plan/play.

Sort of interesting because the Wells Fargo analyst recommended Sprint and the stock shot up. Nobody on S4GRU was complaining then, lol. Goes both ways. Regardless, one persons opinion doesn't set the price of the stock. It seems like many analysts are waiting to see if sprint can deliver on network vision and have a network that is competitive and reduce operating expenses. Sprint won't get credit until they actually show results. So far, it's just been a lot of talk, so lots of speculation, so lots of stock price volatility. Annoying? Yes (when you disagree with what he is saying). Market manipulation? No. There are analysts out there saying you should sell apple, yet the stock price isn't going down...

The guy is obviously an idiot and has no idea what he is talking about. If you compare Sprint's LTE rollout to AT&T... they aren't that far behind.

Old sprint guy was the best.

Verizon runs LTE on the 700MHz band (for now) in a 10MHz x 10MHz FD-LTE configuration. Sprint runs LTE on the 1900MHz PCS band (for now) in a 5MHz x 5MHz FD-LTE configuration. Verizon's setup has twice as much spectrum vs. Sprint (even more in some areas), so Verizon will have higher top speeds. That being said, Verizon also has more subscribers, so in a loaded network environment, I think they will be competitive with one another. Next year, the game changes with LTE-Advanced. Verizon will roll out LTE-Advanced using their current 700MHz spectrum + their AWS spectrum. Sprint will roll out LTE-Advanced using 800MHz SMR, PCS 1900MHz and Clearwire's 2.5GHz spectrum. Both will be good but I feel like if Sprint doesn't screw it up, they will have more capacity than any other carrier. Only clearwire can come in and launch ~150+MHz of spectrum in, say, New York City. Since the spectrum doesn't go through NYC sky scrapers, you can also redeploy the 2.5GHz spectrum many more times, giving your customers a TON of capacity without as much interference as, say, 700MHz.

Robert, you forgot to tell people that the iPad is dropping on Sprint at about the same time

According to anandtech, the Verizon Galaxy nexus uses the Samsung CMC221 with FCI FC7851. I doubt Sprint would get a different version (but maybe they will).

It won't let me edit it - can you delete it? I posted the link :-D

Sorry about that http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-15/china-corporate-espionage-boom-knocks-wind-out-of-u-dot-s-dot-companies