richy

I totally agree at&t has significantly better rural coverage, I believe they got it in a trade with satan for their soul and the firstborns of their subscribers. I guess I am just a little shocked that anyone who would need rural coverage would leave at&t for tmo, you would have to be howling at the moon crazy. It would be fun to market, they could offer a tmo refugee credit, anyone who leaves and comes back within the cooling off period gets an additional $100 bucks or something like that. Tmo has come up with some interesting concepts with the whole uncarrier thing. Maybe at&t can try some innovation of their own, at which point it may be wise to pick up some shares in pig parachutes.

Does he need to? Isn't that like attacking the Pope for being catholic? I guess what I mean is its a given that tmo generally has poor rural coverage, most people considering tmo either don't have the money for anything else or they don't care about rural coverage. If they want to attract folks who are going to tmo attract them on something tmo thinks is its strength but you can do better. Why boast about rural coverage when pretty much nobody is buying tmo for rural coverage?

I haven't ever been able to find a website like this for any other carrier. There are ways you can find sites for other providers but they are not sure fire, won't work for every area and aren't anywhere near as comprehensive as here. There is a central fcc database of antennas although searching this is difficult as there are sites which are owned by 3rd parties so looking for 'at&t' won't show you every site that has an at&t presence. Given the rapid rate of build out from all providers over the past few years, if your county has an online permit system you can search that although this has it's flaws as simply searching for tmobile won't return all tmobile sites as it appears some legacy sites are under different company names. So basically, you stand a chance of being able to find some sites for other providers but it will take a lot of leg work, won't be comprehensive and won't be in a nice format like it is here. It is very easy to underestimate the amount of work taken to produce something like this, we are spoiled! It has taken me a long time to put together a vague idea of tmobiles coverage on a small island where most sites are shared with other providers. Even now I turn up a new location now and again. Sorry I can't be of more help. Sensorly is about about the best app I have found for coverage, very realistic and detailed. 'cellmaps' is about the worst, it states there is coverage in places that frankly it is impossible to get a signal.

Because it isn't run by Satan's mother in law Networks vary location to location, we all know this. There are places, albeit in cities, where on occasion tmo does offer a better experience. Perhaps because their faux G was less congested or had more spectrum allocated to it. If you rarely needed rural coverage wouldn't you say tmo's network could be better? Cheaper and in some places faster? Admittedly it doesn't have the coverage and LTE isn't as widespread. If all 4 networks were pretty much identical we would be stuffed, no choice what so ever. It's all a matter of perspective. For some folks tmo (and Sprint) offer a better experience than the the other two. I'm not saying tmo (or sprint) is universally superior, although they are at least 400% less evil, but depending on your needs their network may be better. AT&T would have to do a lot more than offer $200 to make me switch. I did consider them a while back but honestly, the security of being able to avoid data overage induced bill shock and a few other things convinced me to stay with tmo until sprint rolled out NV here.

Thanks for the explanations makes a lot more sense now.

Thanks There was a discussion on this topic in the lounge a while back and it was mentioned by someone (sorry I forget who) that TDD handoffs are also currently slower which could be an issue with VOLTE among other things.

Thanks for the explanation. When the FCC sets the licenses do they take into account the usage of adjacent spectrum? I.e. they don't put a block of spectrum that will have a relatively strong strength i.e. site to cellphone next to a weak one like say GPS? I guess I'm asking does the FCC really care what you do or if it is an arbitrary restriction? It just seemed odd to me, if you pay say $4bn for a nation wide chunk of spectrum and build it out and you know your uplink, 50% of your purchase, will sit there mostly unused but your downlink can get saturated. I would be tempted to suggest that if technically possible it would be better to run two downlink signals and one uplink to try and match peoples usage patterns. I will try and dig up some MRTG graphs from a server but normally you see a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1. Sorry re not being clear, I cracked two molars and the painkillers are pretty brutal lol. I'm just glad they're working but its probably an ideal time to try and get my head round this. Thank you for your patience. TDD seems to have an advantage in that if Sprint had 20MHz and they split it 3:2 and the downlink was saturated they could change it to 4:1 if they wanted whereas with FDD you are stumped. It would frustrate me if I were a carrier so I assumed there was some reason I was just unaware of. Does the FCC consult with carriers prior to auctioning spectrum? They must, and take into consideration usage. I'm just curious where the beginning of the story is, at which point the first decision is made for it to be symmetrical (when the working group designed FDD LTE, when the equipment was designed, when the FCC looked at what spectrum it could free up etc). Given carte blanche to rewrite reality, technological rules and bribe the FCC, if I wanted to use TDD LTE and I bought two 10MHz blocks I would split one into two 5's for 5 up and down and then have the 10MHz as an auxiliary download link, if that makes any sense.

Daft question but is it possible to deploy FDD LTE in an asymmetrical manner. i.e. (5+5) x 5 or 10x5 ? Is the licencing restrictions more of a issue than technical considerations. I understand that MHz for MHz upstream can deliver less MBps in practice but there is normally a significant disparity between upstream and downstream usage but spectrum allocation with FDD is equal in many cases resulting in some amusing speed tests where you see 2mbps down but 6mbps up (this could also be caused by congesting on the backhaul). I recently got a result like this on tmo lte. It seems to a layman that TDD does have the ability to change the balance between upstream and downstream to better fit the usage profile as compared to FDD but is there a way of deploying FDD asymmetrically rather than the current symmetrical profile? Apologies is this is a silly question Very interested in your thoughts! It just struck me as one way of better utilizing spectrum given the very high costs of spectrum. I wonder how much this was considered when spectrum was auctioned?

Ouch, on behalf of the tmo fanbois club I must protest! Are you just upset we got a Legere Teeth Whitening kit for Christmas It even came with two fishhooks to give that wonderful forced smile look and a poster of his most inappropriate smeers (half smile half sneer). Re Omaha, is it just a capex issue? They ran short of cash initially and the longer they leave it the more expensive it is to fully build out the network so it doesn't get done? It would take a while to gain traction in an are you have virtually no coverage on, you'd have to let potential customers know you have coverage as well. How long to get over the perception you just don't have coverage. Theres one area not far from me that all the locals will tell you only vzw covers yet at&t has rented tower space for at least 5 years and I can pickup their carriers on my tmo phone (of course I can't roam on it , that would be sensible).

I thought they got fair \ competitive terms as part of their break clause in the at&t deal? I can't wait for them to get so low dial spectrum but frankly sprint is going to beat them to that so in a year or two I will be on sprint. I don't think I will be the only one in that position either. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot about tmobile, but my kids tidy their rooms faster than tmo are rolling out here.

iirc tmo basically freddie krugered most of the areas where you roamed previously. The whol eof east Maui has no tmo service, absolutely no chance of getting any as there is a 10000ft volcano in the way, but you don't roam on at&t anymore. You used to be able to, but not anymore. Vzw and at&t have service there and sprint roams on vzw. Tmo you are left to whistle. I had to chuckle today, theres actually a second small area of tmo lte on island, speeds are 3mbps down, 6.5 mbps up. So not overloaded then Back on the other side its 17mbps down, 12 up. Can't wait for NV to get rolling here, darn permits!

True to an extent, so it is to a companies advantage to ensure it's product requires the minimum amount of thought to achieve a satisfactory experience Having said that we don't have to make THAT many choices in life, at least not big ticket items, and we have a lot of help choosing. Groceries, schooling, housing, car, cell phones, TV health insurance etc.Many of the choices we don't have to review often, most folks don't change house or car on a yearly basis. Schooling was a pretty difficult and expensive choice but its a one off choice. What I absolutely love about our society is we have choice and we have access to a wide range of information (of varying quality) to help make that choice. If you are motivated to read and put in a little mental effort you can understand most things and you can pay to outsource that effort. Can you imagine the Norks running a website like this? Robert would have been executed for 'dreaming different dreams' or whatever the current euphemism is over there for daring to think. Life shouldn't be deliberately difficult but nor should we wish it to be too easy lest we forget how to think. Many industries have also advanced to the point where there it is hard to make a bad choice, you make make a suboptimal choice but look at cars. There are less wonderful cars out there but barring going for some random import they're all pretty safe, pick one the right size that looks pretty. You might pay a bit extra in gas although even thats written pretty large on the window when you buy. Theres websites out there that you put in an address and it tells you all about the neighborhood, crime stats, house prices, schools etc. Ask Robert, I am not a smart person but if I can do fine most people, unless they want to make a really specific choice, should be ok if they put a little effort in. Want to buy a tv? Walk into costco, theres not really a bad choice in there, none of them will explode or give you cancer. They even invented the wps button on routers so all you have to do is plug them in and whack the button and stuff can connect so you don't need to understand configuring it. The cell phone market is a little distorted in that respect as if you can benefit from learning a little more about the networks and the phones to avoid being disappointed, but again the information is out there and it is possible for an average person to understand.

Caveat emptor Theres two sides to this, yes consumers are ultimately responsible for understanding their needs and ensuring they buy appropriately. A company shouldn't be held responsible for people making an inappropriate decision. However most companies wanting to serve the general populous (rather than say a company selling differential scanning calorimeters or gas chromatographs to the scientific community where usually the customer knows more than the company would like) need to understand we are part of the 'cant think won't think' generation. A lot of their customers simply wont bother to understand what they need vs what they want even if they could figure it out and frankly many people seem to be proud of being ignorant. They see shiny, they want shiny, they buy shiny for the cheapest they can. The sad fact is this is just a difference between how we would like it to be and how it actually is. Is the customer responsible for making the right choice? Yes. Is the company going to catch the flak when they don't. Yes. It isn't right, but its how it is. Decades of lawyers ensuring we aren't responsible for looking where we walk or thinking before we act. Luckily customers are also fickle and a few discounts and a marketing campaign later and they are back in droves. but wait theres more, order now and we will send you a second set completely free even though we told you they will never break, just pay inflated shipping and handling charges etc etc. People just don't think. Companies would do well to remember that and remove the need for thinking

It sounds like they hired an editor from somewhere like the global inquirer, source of such cutting edge journalism as "president caught in gay sex orgy with dachshunds" and "Queen dead for years, operated by team of puppeteers". Got to love those supermarket tabloids for keeping us up to date with the news not even Fox will run.

That's what I meant, the note is a tablet for skinny jeans. I'd be both impressed and worried if you could get a surface pro in your skinny jeans!

At least it was Sprint. Remind them if it had been AT&T those last two may have been the other way around.

Yeah but I heard she had crabs

Plus I love tech sites raving about large phones being useless for voice because you look like a tart using one. Like they havent ever heard of hands free headsets or bt yuppie earrings. Sure it probably gets you a few clicks but it costs you respect from anyone with a clue.

Tablets for the skinny jeans generation

Or people who want a pocket sized tablet that can sometimes be a phone, depends what you want to use a cellular device for. I guess some folks are still bitter about their rotary phone stopping working

This is exactly it! People want different things from phones. I want a micro sd slot, huge awesome screen and a removable battery. Hell I'd love a much larger official samsung battery for it (the zerolemon apparently kills signals and the rest of the 6400mah ones come with the worlds worst replacement backs), after the x7500 I could cope with a fatter phone. But thats me, other peoples needs may dictate an iphone or a blackberry or a wp7 phone or an LG or whatever. Theres undoubtedly bad phones out there, poor quality craftsmanship, dodgy roms, dodgy radios etc but strictly ranking them is not viable. Then you have the question of which variants you get? Is it the verizon note 3 with a shonky lte radio or the at&t which is locked up tighter than a disney princesses chastity belt etc, even carrier variation can play a huge part in phones. Seems like clickbait to get people ranting in their comments and clicking on their ads.

On the McDonalds on fire scale does Oakland rate worse than East Cleveland or better? I decided to take a ride through Oakland once on an evening to get some shots. I quickly decided it would be the wrong kind of shots and hightailed it out of there. It felt like being in Blackhawk Down, but then again I am a sheltered country boy. Makes me sad we have places like that or the others mentioned.

Are you perchance suggesting that some \ many journos and bloggers are fickle creatures that ride waves of public sentiment with little or no objectivity

First world problems huh. Like all the fights on black Friday Folks sure are interesting.

Interesting Sprint isn't mentioned. I wonder if they don't want to upset a merger \ acquisition? It's not like Sprint aren't a major competitor. This is a pretty costly move, it will be interesting to see how well it works.