richy

Hotspot gives you more versatility, you can usually use it as wired connection via USB, and also via wi-fi when you don't want to do that. It's basically 2-in-1

I haven't tried it in a decade but can I not use my phone as a modem via usb? I just kind of assumed it would still work that way. I guess hotspots can have ethernet ports which would be a plus. 

I cant recall ever using a mifi \ hotspot thing or an external dongle or internal lte besides when works given me one for free to use. Since the days of proprietary cables from phones to serial ports I've used my phone. Somewhere around 2007 ish I think I swapped to using the phone as a wireless hotspot rather than serial \ usb tethering. I don't find the need but I'm sure it works better for others. I seem to get a better signal with phones, less to carry around, charge, pay for etc.

Sprint already is a tier 1 backbone.  They have a lot of fiber.  They would actually have to buy CenturyLink as CenturyLink recently purchased Level 3.  So that is a LOT of fiber.  They'd get CenturyLinks small last mile business that I hope Sprint wouldn't be forced to upgrade.  Most of it is old DSL they have never bothered to upgrade. 

 

For last mile, a company like Charter would be a lot better as they have a large last mile footprint.  The towers would more than likely still have fiber, but this will not largely push FTTH.  Coax still has a lot of life in it.

 

If Sprint bought CenturyLink and got all this tier 1 fiber, they wouldn't be deploying this directly to towers.  They'd have to run hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber just to serve their towers, and that would be costly. 

Just as a point of interest, a tier 1 provider actually has a fairly specific definition. It's a carrier that doesn't pay for domestic (or at least for their native coverage area) transit for egress. They basically use just peering domestically. It's a bit of a shady definition used to protect a few entrenched large companies.  Cogent used to love to call themselves a tier 1 when in reality they weren't. They also used to be shocking quality unless you really knew what you were doing. 

Sprint is most definitely a top tier carrier on a cellular and fiber basis, not sure if they are genuinely considered a tier 1 fixed line operator though. Plus the definition probably changed since I worked in the field. 

Sprint really shouldn't have to own such a large fiber network, it should be more economic for them to buy it in. However, I get the feeling they really need to own their own to protect themselves from predatory pricing and shady business practices from competitors. 

That too!

 

It would be great if Sprint commented on this. However, there seems to be an avoidance between Sprint and T-Mobile in mentioning each other lately, which may be due to merger possibilities.

Not sure about that:) If you check the earnings report statement for q2 there were a few jabs at sprint 'giving away service' and 'choosing not to respond to crazy offers'. I guess since merger talks are stalled everything is fair game again. Sad to see alleged professionals behaving like that. 

....

Just my thoughts...

1-  On the tmobile - comcast - buffet thing. This isn't much different from buying a home, its just talking to multiple partners to get a better deal. A Cable company might make sense, although they are debt heavy, if the real deal is with tmobile then talking to cable companies is a power play to increase sprints bargaining position. Tmobile undoubtedly was trying to assert that sprint was lucky to get any deal, this pantomime helps sprint get  a better deal. Buffet just sees sprint as heavily undervalued and that there is security in the assets, he has a pile of cash, he thinks he can come in and turn sprint around or sell it for parts and make money either way. 

2- I may be wrong but the 85% ownership limit isn't a hard cap, its a cap on how much you can have before the company is no longer allowed to be publicly traded. You pretty much buy the entire thing if you want more than 85%, unless he has covenants on his loans relating to a maximum % which would be weird. 

3- Not sure on dish, they have no money and no experience building a wireless network. Cableco's and satcos are typically very debt heavy due to high startup costs, they run to show OCF not so much pure profit. Their attraction is basically as tax free cash generators to a company that makes lots of profit. Sprint doesn't need the spectrum, they need cash, Dish would be weird choice.

I really don't see what the site is called mattering much. Just leave it as it is. IF any merger happens there will be lots to keep up on with the technical challenges and merging the two companies brands would take time. 

If it does occur I feel sorry for Marcello, I don't think he is a worse CEO but I think John has gotten better results, mostly due to better luck. However you are measured on your results and I doubt they would factor that luck in. Unless he chooses to take some money and run I would see him in charge. The good news is I think he would take a run at the #1 spot. Better coverage, speeds and maintaining the pricing as thats he vehicle for gaining market share. Don't pull profits out of the company, run it lean and grow it and collect the profits in the future.

Wondering this myself.

 

Do you hear that sound, guys? Oh, yes. It's the plot thickening!

I really don't see any way sprint could have participated, they didn't have the money to do so and even if they raised some funds to do so they would have to deploy it. They money spent deploying it would be better spent ensuring they deploy everything they already have.

It could have been a tactic to drive the cost down but there were so many other players I don't see it having a huge impact.

Maybe sprint talking itself up to promote a sale? Making things "sound good"? I definitely think Masa wants a global superpower and US won't let him get it. I am sure he wants dish and Tmo/sprint to eventually make SoftBank a global wireless powerhouse. That said I don't think he has much patience nowadays. Sprint isn't flipping fast enough, I believe he really thought sprint would bought Tmo by now and would be flourishing. He wasn't ready for American politics or thought he was bigger either way he wasn't ready for what he got.

I don't see a merger happening. The FCC would likely block it as Chief Eunuch Ajit Pai is just on loan to the guberment from Verizon and I cant see Verizon wanting a tmo sprint tie up. He has his eye on a cherry job with Vzw after he finishes his time as an instrument of evil so will be remembering who bought him his current job and what he stands to earn after he goes back to the industry.

Richy, in your opinion, if you look on the CyberPowerPC website for the Syber Vapor PC system, is that a workable size for a 1080TI or TitanXP? The other case size I'm considering if I don't end up buying directly from these companies, is something like the Puget Systems Echo Pro or Origin PC's Chronos. To me, the Chronos looks like the least likely to have overheating issues, but then again the EchoPro despite being smaller, has what appears to be several cooling fans.

I have a psp emulator on my phone, I agree, I love it when I'm stuck in some HR training session. 

As for cases, http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Cases/742 is a great resource. Not every case that is large or looks cool will actually give you the best results. I had a quick look at that site and the case looks to be about xbox sized, I guess if you move the air quickly enough and with good airflow then it might be possible. A larger case would give you more upgrade options, like running dual cards in sli. I got an alienware 17 laptop and so far its been a dream, theres pretty much nothing it can't cope with. Right now its eating up Warthunder at 4k. Admittedly its churning out more heat than a nuclear power station but I have a newfound respect for dell \ alienware. You can also get some crazy deals on their outlet store. 

 

The i7-7700 4.2 CPU, 32gb or 64gb Memory, 2TB Samsung 960 M2 SSD, Nvidia Titan XP for 4k and to probably last this computer for many years graphically, and a decent fan cooling system. I'm not interested in any fancy liquid cooling, lighting, and what not. Plus, I'm looking for a very compact case that'll still work for these, not a huge tower or anything. When I started looking around online and configuring, I thought this would be around $3,000 to $3,500, but nope, its much more expensive. I've also considered the Syber Vapor from CyberPowerPC, which they go up to a 1080Ti, but the company doesn't offer an extended warranty from when I talked with them a few weeks ago.

4k isnt such a reach these days, my laptop can do it at a pinch (intel i7 6820hk, 32gb, nvidia 980 i think) but emulating dreamcast games at 4k? You are probably going to really look into how well it can use the resources you throw at it, i.e. does it need more cores, or less of them but faster etc same for the graphics. One thing I found was gaming at 1080p with more detail turned on and at a higher frame rate seemed better than 4k with a little less detail. 

Don't go for too small a case though, I know they can look cool but you want awesome airflow once you start racking in some high end cpu, ram and gfx cards. Good luck, if I get the time I'm going to try a ps3 emulator on my laptop. 

Does someone here know the spectrum allotments for both Sprint and Verizon in the Chicago.area? I know Sprint has around 120mhz of band 41, but the rest of it and Verizon's spectrum amounts here I don't remember at the moment.

Offhand no, but you can find out here http://reboot.fcc.gov/spectrumdashboard/

I'm planning to eventually get an Android, with my mother getting an iPhone 8 at the very end of this year/early next year. I'm either going to get a Sony Xperia XZ Premium, or wait until the Note 8. I'm trying to coordinate what smartphone I'm going to get based on connectivity with what brand of tv I'm getting, for compatibility reasons.

 

I'm going to be busier the next few days exploring options.

Samsung sets have some pretty neat integration with the newer samsung phones. I didn't play with it much but it seemed to do remote control, screen projection and screen mirroring. It wa sso easy to setup it managed to do it without my asking (not sure thats a good thing). I was just setting up the TV's and my phone vibrated and announced it had found the TV' and did I want to mirror my screen. 

Ugly according to who?

 

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The guy in the picture with the orange bow tie in the picture fresh from his morning cup of kopi luwak. 

Yeah, and it was not a great Arysyn post.  A top notch Arysyn post must hit all of the highlights:

1. dislike of John Legere
2. problems with retail stores or customer service
3. his illness/disability
4. his mother

AJ

How about a suggestion for a new rate plan?

One actually on topic thought did occur to me. Re any potential merger between t & s, Ajit Pai is currently Chief Eunuch at the FCC but is also part of the federal revolving door corporate shill program. He came from Verizon and after doing their evil bidding will no doubt be headed back to them at some point. I doubt Verizon would be too happy with a merger, therefore the FCC probably wouldn't be too happy about it. It wouldn't be hard to say this potential merger would hurt competition and try and block it. 

T-Mobile's network is nowhere near anything as stable as Verizon's network. I just did a project using T-Mobile and Verizon as backhaul for a test, and T-Mobile's coverage was sorely lacking 5 minutes away from city center.

 

Side by side, Verizon is > 50mbps while T-Mobile is around 3mbps.

Funny but the last time I did a side by side it was the opposite, Verizons network was spotty and slow whereas tmobiles was fast. However verizon did cover more places (albeit not very well) than tmobile. I think its fair to say verizon still have a network advantage for coverage over tmo. 

YOU GUYS! We're off topic again.

 

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Yes because one gets to 1080 pages by staying on topic

Yes, I agree with this. Why is it any of our business if he is a smoker/drinker? Who cares.

 

 

 

Incorrect. If you really want to get technical, smoking affects your athletic abilities far more than drinking.

 

For example, smoking has more systemic complications, such as reduced V/Q ratios stemming from circulatory system diseases. 

 

 

 

Are you seriously trying to advocate for lesser restrictions?

 

As a licensed MD, I disagree completely. The restrictions are in place for a reason and need to be far stricter. There are far too many patients being over-medicated and have become too dependent on their dosages.

 

The fact that you think there is no opioid epidemic in this country is ridiculous.

I had a tooth out and they gave me percocet. Freaking percocet. The stuff they give terminal cancer patients. I cut the pills into quarters and was still in orbit. I think I had a total of about 1.5 pills and switched back to ibuprofen. There is most definitely an issue with over prescribing. I had originally mentioned that the ibuprofen didn't last long enough but that did work more than well enough to block the pain. I had asked for something that I could take more frequently or that would last longer, I specifically said I didn't need anything stronger. Yeah, Percocet is the answer Coming from a country that thinks pain management is "eat an apple and take an asprin" I can appreciate the idea that we shouldn't have to suffer pain unnecessarily but I think we jump to far too quickly. And lets not get me started on antibiotics!

John Legere ought to be a talk show host, or a game show host. He'd do alot better at that than he does as a CEO.

By what measure? While he got lucky with the AT&T cash and spectrum he has done well by most metrics. He may be an ass but he is an ass who has turned that company around. Most sane people (who aren't tmobile shareholders) wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, but the reality remains he has delivered some serious growth. If Claure manages to complete the Sprint turn around and get them on the same growth path it would probably be a more impressive feat. He has made a great start but the job is far from done. 

When Legere took over Tmo it had a market cap of $2-3 bn (there's a couple of figures floating around for Sept 2012). Today its approximately $55bn. He has grown the networks capacity and coverage. He has grown the # of subs. It's generating a fair amount of FCF. The cash numbers aren't Verizon good but the subs growth is. Don't mistake him being an ass for him being incompetent. 

Legere earns way more than either of us do and it isn't because he is a snappy dresser  

Inner Stalin. I love it. I'd tell them Do svidaniya bitches!

 

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It is so funny watching them storm in like ants invading a picnic. It's just SOOO important that everything is switched at exactly the same time and if THEY screw up and don't have a re branded replacement for something you cannot use the old one. After the first time I just stored what we needed in my office at home until they were gone. The level of disruption is totally unjustified but these peoples entire existence is dependent on the perceived value of this completely pointless exercise. You can't polish a turd, it is far more sensible to invest in not being a turd then trying to polish one.

With all do respect it seems like you're in a dream. I would love a rebrand and so would most. Financially it's not a few thousand, its millions. The worst part is the wireless industry is so aggressive the negative press would absolutely slaughter sprint. Can't you hear JL and everyone saying "you can change the name but the network is the same"

 

I fully agree at some point sprint needs a rebrand but that can't some until the network is in a much better position it's just money wasted that could have been put somewhere more useful. As mentioned early sprint needs to advertise more where the network is strong, increase advertising in areas as the network gets better. --- meaningful advertising directed at that specific local market... As in Sprint has the fastest speed/coverage etc here in this specific market vs whoever was the top.

 

 

--- But I do agree with your last part about the domino effect

I'b been through 2 re brands of a large cable co. It's insanely expensive, disruptive, and usually is counter productive. The money is usually better spent on capex. It also usually brings out the inner Stalin of brand teams. They decide on one specific date every tv commercial, letterhead, sales collateral, piece of staff clothing, sign on building, sticker, etc must be changed. No using your last batch of letterhead and switching over. The waste is insane. It's comical to watch these little dictators raging through your offices replacing everything and searching your desks for contraband logos. Every cable installers van has to be re branded, every piece of their clothing, it's just such a gargantuan effort for zero benefit to the customer.  

If Sprint offered a service on a par with Verizon across the entire country than any past issues would be forgotten by the vast majority of people in a year, the remainder of people wouldn't be fooled by a re brand. I'd rather see the money spent on network, that pays real dividends. A different color logo doesn't fix *(&^ apart from the bank balance of the coke hounds who tell you it is required.

Check off angle viewing on the Samsung sets.  A lot may have changed since I seriously shopped LCD several years ago, but Samsung used mostly PVA panels, while LG used mostly IPS panels.  In a hotel environment, would think that off angle viewing would be more important than contrast.

 

AJ

Thanks, that didn't seem to be an issue but I'll check again. The in room sets are on mounts that can move so in rooms they can be re positioned. Our biggest criteria is reliability which was a nightmare with the LG units.  

We currently have about 280 sets (hotel) which I am in the process of replacing. We used some Toshiba but mostly LG in the past but I am all but set on Samsung this time. Most will be 1080p  although I have purchased some 4k sets already (65 inch LED) for use in presentations \ sporting events etc and I was really impressed. I initially went to costco and got about 6 different sets and played with them. The in room sets are different from what you would buy in the store (the panel is the same, the firmware is different to support different features). 

Our experience with LG was pretty poor, very high failure rate (never the panels, always the electronics). I'm hoping the samsungs will be different. I've had about 20 of them for 6 months with zero issues. While it is highly subjective I love the picture on the Samsungs, contrast, upscaling, saturation etc.

Well, here is some good news for those here, who want the same as I do, for Dish and T-Mobile to merge :

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-18/verizon-s-ceo-is-open-to-deal-talks-from-comcast-to-disney

 

I think it is quite telling that Lowell McAdam did not mention Dish in that article. He brought up a few times about Comcast, which is what I'm both thinking and wanting to happen as a merger between the two companies. Besides, Comcast is testing out Verizon's network using their new Xfinity Mobile service.

 

So, I'd say its quite likely those companies are going to merge, which means a greater chance for T-Mobile to go for Dish. Still, there is a chance that if Softbank decides to stick around with Sprint, or sell Sprint, they could end up going with Dish, if T-Mobile does not.

 

Granted, if that happens, I think that might trigger a possibility DT might become more open to selling T-Mobile. That is when the chance of AT&T getting involved may become more likely for them to make another offer for T-Mobile. Although, I definitely would rather see DT keep T-Mobile and go for Dish.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think a tie up with a satellite TV provider is really the same as with a cableco, even if that provider is sat on a pile of virgin spectrum. A cable company has a giant last mile network to leverage, dish just has more spectrum and the potential to work some kind of TV proposition into packages. I think it would work, assuming dish wasnt stupid about valuing itself, but a cableco would have huge upsides when it comes to the backbone and offload opportunities. 

There are also some fringe benefits, typically triple play services result in lower churn (both voluntary and involuntary) but thats more an upside for dish than tmobile. 

I know I'm a few days late responding to the T-Mobile auction results here, so I'll post now about it. I think this is one of the most proudest times I've ever been towards T-Mobile, as a company. As we all know, T-Mobile eliminated taxes, they had their great two for one promo at $100, gave hundreds, possibly thousands of customers an additional 20% off discount for some time, same with a free third line deal, which that extra line I ended up not taking advantage of after all.

 

Now, all the talk was that T-Mobile's plan in the 600mhz auction, was going to be for them to get a nationwide 5x5 chunk of it. I vehemently argued against T-Mobile going for such a limited amount, hoping they'd go for at least 10x10 of it nationwide, while focusing on more for larger markets, such as 15x15 or 20x20. Although, I was skeptical they'd do what I was hoping for.

 

As it turned out, T-Mobile blew away my expectations, and did exactly what I wanted them to do. The Chicago market has 15x15 of the 600mhz spectrum. This matches along with the 15x15 of AWS spectrum, and from what I think is, but not sure of, 15x15 of PCS spectrum. This is a great thing here for Chicago. Now I am hoping DT and T-Mobile work towards buying Dish, to add both their added spectrum and service offerings to T-Mobile, which would turn T-Mobile into a competitive force against AT&T, matching their spectrum and some of their service offerings, while keeping up with whatever Verizon might do, which I suspect will be in a large cable merger and an attempt at large-scale spectrum grabs in the higher frequencies, possibly involving Sprint, though that isn't certain.

They eliminated taxes? I thought they just rolled them into the price so they weren't added on as an extra. I'm fairly sure eliminating taxes would be illegal otherwise I would be sending the IRS a letter. 

The spectrum is nice in theory and can't really hurt. They also got more than I expected but its still a couple of years away for most people. 

I hope they can keep up the momentum and manage to move forward with getting some higher band spectrum for 5g as well (nationwide rather than their current limited spectrum).

Optimally, 1.5mbps is good for 360p. I found a link to an article containing some really good charts showing what I believe is fairly accurate information.

http://www.lighterra.com/papers/videoencodingh264

Their info of 480p HQ is listed at 2.5mbps. I'd say best is 3.0mbps. I use to believe 3.0mbps was good for 1080p, which while its generally sufficient, its not optimal. No, My opinion is 360p at 1.5mbps, 480p at 3.0mbps, 720p at 6.0mbps, 1080p at 9.0mbps, 1440p at 12.0mbps, and 2160p at 18.0mbps.

That website is making some general suggestions about bitrates for resolutions. Even within the h264 codec ecosystem there are encoders which can produce significantly better results at a lower bitrate than others. Netflix spent a fortune (literally buying companies) on their h264 encoding. It saved them money by being able to offer the same experience for less mbps used. 480 with a decent encoder is more than possible at 1.5mbps, 720p is even reasonable in many use cases at 1.5mbps with  a sufficiently advanced encoder. h265 should improve on this some more, especially as the encoders become more advanced. I don't think it unrealistic to see 1080p at around 2mbps and maybe even 1.5mbps as the encoders improve.