richy

Use vertical polarization for one and horizontal for the other and just remember to nod your head side to side 704 million times a second.

Not entirely sure how correct I am but I think they have 6MHz of unpaired spectrum, 700MHz E block 722-728 MHz across something like 95% of markets and 40 MHz of AWS 4 spectrum, paired 2000-2020MHz and 2180-2200MHz. To be honest I got a little lost over exactly how much of it they could use due to possible interference.

Sorry my bad, misunderstood Too much time in the sun yesterday lol. Sprint just gets a lot of flack here and its sad because if you look at the process it's all stalling on the permits.

Any site which didn't need some permit got done quickly (edit: 2 sites on federal land). Sprint are having the same fun with permits the other 3 providers are having, only sprint are doing far more work so the permits are even tougher to get. Sure they could have started earlier but I understand the multiple phase approach. Once the permits are done work well be rapid. Please remember this is life on the side of a volcano 2500 ish miles from the mainland that also had an extremely strict permitting process due to the amazing beauty of the area and the past behavior of companies digging up graves and tossing people's bones in a heap to build a hotel. Permits are not a walk in the park here, plus on top of that you the normal political aspect and keeping important people 'happy'. To give an example, kanaka maoli built loko ia (fishponds), usually by blocking off the mouth of a bay with a large stone wall and installing sluice gates. Over time tsunamis knock down the walls. If at any point the wall drops below the level of low tide and you want to repair it you need between 17 and 30 permits costing between 80k and 115k and a good 2 years to file and wait, all to repair something that has been there for 1000+ years, and that's on top of adding 6ft of height to a wall that's 20-30ft wide and 1000ft long all whilst observing the correct protocol. So yup, the permit system can be rough, especially if you are doing anything near a shore our that might affect the skyline. Sprint had my upmost sympathy and there should be a torrent of lte unleashed in the near future whereas tmo will have about half of Oahu coveted and a small area of Maui from Lele to Napili because the only have one permit waiting.

So much is wrong with that oped. This is a Sprint upgrade: This is AT&T This is tmo Note all three are either the same location or identical setups (hotel roof tops a mile or two away from each other), The readers digest version is sprint pushes everything over the side of the root and starts from scratch, the other guys are swapping a couple of antenna. Sprint is not walking at half the speed of tmo, tmo has all but stopped here. They covered one island with mostly LTE. Another island got two sites changed if that, perhaps only one. Now we 'have' LTE. Sure the service is good off peak and their faux G service is ok for now anyway but I get the distinct feeling the author would have trouble differentiating between his ass and a hole in the ground. Sprint is going as fast as it can, money does not seem to be an issue. Locally I can say it is a retarded permitting system seems to be the biggest culprit. Elsewhere not enough crews, but given the fact that all 4 networks seem to be rolling upgrades virtually non stop I can understand crews would be in short supply for at least a few more years as new staff can be trained and get experience.

Maui has a couple of towers converted and thats it. They cover a small part of west Maui, everything else is Faux G. Sprint has no LTE on Maui yet but does have wimax and one day (when permits are done) they should have great LTE coverage (probably on East Maui won't get any ). I wouldn't exactly say we 'had' LTE from tmo although they seem to think we do. The difference is Sprint has permits in process, Tmo only has a few and they seem to be for existing LTE sites? Tmo sadly have more permits for work on their stores than they do on their sites here

LTE rollout in the UK was and is at least partly slowed down by the lack of spectrum. The first LTE network was from EE (iirc) using pretty much the only spare capacity any carrier had. The remainder were waiting for an auction. There wasn't the consumer demand because frankly faux G (dc hspda) was fast enough for most folks needs, not that it stopped people lusting after lte lol. You weren't wrong, but there was a much bigger picture and until the EE thing happened there wouldn't have been any LTE until the governments 800\2600MHz auction which unleashed something like 250MHz for LTE, which in itself took forever due to government & quango dithering plus concerted lobbying efforts.

The big two have managed to create a situation whereby people think that the difference between a 2GB a month and a 10GB a month subs is $60+ something a month (previously it would have been $100 a month). Their pricing is based around keeping their arpu up and selling unlimited voice and texts. I would be very interested in seeing the real figures based on network load and termination charges for voice and data usage. In the early stages of '3g' data (at least in the UK) was sold pretty much at a loss because they had so much spare capacity because nobody was using video calling. As it became popular it was almost too late up up the pricing for data so they kept the base line rental and call costs up. It seems like the reverse is true here in that data is being used as a cash cow to replace falling revenue from calls. Personally I use somewhere between 13 and 16GB a month. I know this will get Robert throwing stuff at me but in my defense its not on sprints network. I am a good boy and use wifi where possible. Maybe 4GB of that is browsing \ email \ skype voice calls etc. The remainder is VOD. It's actually not much VOD either I know I use more than average but in the broader context I don't see it as extreme usage given the folks out there knocking out 100-300GB+ a month. Certainly over the next few years we should see Sprint \ Vzw and At&T being able to support an average usage level considerably higher. The question is if the pricing will change much! If it wasn't for sprint and tmobile I reckon the big two wouldn't touch their pricing, if anything it would go up.

Re keeping an american provider. TMobile is not an American company if you consider it's ownership. Have a guess what the T stands for, and watch the deck chairs for towels! Since Verizon bought itself back from the brits (or at least the other half of itself) it is American owned in essence if not practically given the leverage. Genuinely not sure on AT&T. Foreign ownership could potentially be an issue, or it could be a boon. Softbank appears to have turned up with a check book and a whupping stick and seems to have no problems using either. In theory could sprint divest everything in excess of 100Mhz of 25\2600MHz spectrum as a concession and still realistically kick ass? I think they have a full 200MHz (give or take 1 or 2) here although they have less elsewhere. Re market cap and how much to pay for tmo. I had seen 20bn mentioned, given the concessions they would have to make and the debt they would acquire that could be a fair cost. Vzw paid a handsome price for itself, a 100% premium over the share price, but their business model is evil, sorry different (and they had to effectively pay vodafones tax liability as well which pushed up the price). Tmo's ARPU is the lowest of the big 4 by a long way. They are buffing the books for a sale so they are very aggressively marketing their product. As they continue to acquire more customers, existing customers upgrade their phones (and use more data) and peoples usage pattern continues to show rapidly increasing data usage then there is potentially a liability there which affects the value. I have often seen comments on here along the lines of, sprint is building a hell of a network but they have to fill it as well, in that sense tmo would fit the bill. Yes there's additional spectrum and customers, but without lots of funding for a continued lte rollout \ expansion and refarming they will hit walls quickly. Merging with Sprint could well do that for them, or it could result in chaos. Edit: the 18bn market cap for tmo is only after it went up 3 dollars ~10% today alone on speculation.

Actually the reverse is true, tmo give the $X per GB plans priority on the network (at least until you hit your limit), at least above the 2GB level so in effect contention based throttling is used, but only when they are capacity limited. Will tmo bin unlimited plans? Honestly I have no idea, I don't see it being viable long term which was my point. If they keep it their network suffers and they suffer, if they get rid they lose customers and suffer. Whats the long term plan? Sell Legere's extensive baseball cap collection? They will have to upturn a lot of breakout room sofa's to find the cash they need. IF they manage to buy up a chunk of spectrum they still have to find the cash to build it out and there is a chance that if it is a non at&t band their costs will go up because right now their better handsets basically share costs with at&t, they are the same bar the branding. Not a deal breaker but another cost to consider. I love tmo right now, it's a great experience (at least off peak, although this varies market to market like most cellcos) for a great price barring building penetration and backwoods coverage. Unfortunately it won't get much better, and if their offering keeps bringing in subs the fun will be short lived. However, I respect and understand your well articulated position, no issue with us both having differing expectations Short term I prefer tmo in my market, long term I see sprint as the better bet. Other markets will be different and other people will have differing opinions.

Tmo earns a profit and sprint will in the near future. As regards networks, if you look at how sprint sells unlimited vs tmo you will see a difference. Sprint has a more measured approach with a view to maintaining a decent level of service, i.e. caps on streaming where it would otherwise slow the network vs tmo's stream all you want all day long approach. Tmo's profit is coming from adding subs, as that network fills, even with 20x20 in some markets then unmitigated unlimited will start to bite back. They need a next plan, what to do when their current network hits capacity, Sprint has a 'what to do next', tmo currently is vague and a lot of it would take time and lots of money to roll out (the 600MHz auction). Tmo is sitting pretty if you look in a short term context, long term the party will have to come to an end. As I mentioned I expected sprints arpu to rise as NV 1 completes and the overlay etc gets going. Over the coming years they are going to have one hell of a network to sell and they won't have to be as price concious. Not saying they will gouge, but they will have room to bring in cash and they will bring in more subs and then you will have profit. Plenty of Euro cable companies ran huge losses (in every sense, even net cash) for a long time and still found money to expand \ merge \ go quadplay etc.

Do you think it's possible to structure a deal and regulate in a manner which would see a combined company take the hurt to the big two and not predominately to regional carriers? Not saying they can't, just curious if its possible and how

Perhaps, but its relative to size and income. Vzw just paid $130bn to buy 45% of itself from vodafone. That's one very large chunk of money. My opinion was that sprints prices would always go up marginally as NV completed (at least the first few stages) as their network would usurp value as their main selling point. Tmo's price would always have to go up anyway, they need a network to last and their marketing dept is writing checks their sites can't cash in the long run.

Like vzw and at&t do? Their job is to deliver the most returns to their shareholders. If the way to do that is dancing a little too closely with each other what makes you think they wouldn't do that Am I the only one that was amused by how closely the big two priced their plans? There was a little difference in how much bandwidth in each tier but the prices reflected that. Given two completely different companies with differing networks, they cost basically exactly the same? Seriously, just google for companies that have been caught price fixing, it's rampant. Car companies, chip makers, detergent, computer displays, banks, credit card processing companies.... Not trying to be mean, it's a rude awakening but companies will cheat you to make a buck. I would love for the world to be different but it seems the second you lower your guard you find them schtupping your wife. One thing that is surprising is the number of companies involved, often it is quite a few so that leads me to think that effective regulation is more important than the number of companies in the market. Maybe you are right and I'm just too cynical

I know, but theres no way they would put Legere in charge right? I mean he has done a good job of getting tmobile attractive for a sale but not for long term health of a company. ARPU is low, the spectrum is fairly loaded and LTE is not heavily built out. It's all been short term attractiveness. Sprint is the company with the long term plan, I'd take their CEO because I want a Sprint that is healthy in the long run. Tmobiles short term plan is get bought, their medium & long term plan is 'let someone else deal with it'. I'm not carrier bashing (I like a lot of his ideas), DT made it very clear they wanted a sale, they didn't get at&t and Legere is there to make the books look attractive enough to make a sale or a spin off happen, not to grow a long term success.

Then the 3 giants get sick of having to train so they agree to take turns to win and get old and fat instead of lean and mean. The exact number involved is debatable but that is peoples worry. We may be perfectly fine with 3, we may not. Your analogy reflects my original thoughts on the matter but many posters on here changed my mind last time it was discussed.

So Pluses: You get a bucket load of spectrum nation wide You get customers and revenue (and profit) You have one less big company to bid against in auctions. You get potential synergies allowing for expansion of coverage in the long term LTE (edit: meant to say LTE makes merging easier, sure different bands but same tech and newer phones won't have issues with multiple bands). Cons The spectrum is populated The cost may be higher than buying 'virgin' spectrum and building out There is the possibility of less competition for consumers having an impact. You have to merge networks to realize many of the benefits which could potentially make the deal less valuable or at least add costs and time There may be significant concessions required which would impact the benefits. So it could be good, it could be bad, it depends on how much money is involved and what concessions may be demanded? My biggest fear is them putting justin biebers granddad in charge of the combined company.

True but doesn't softbank have three totally distinct networks? (hey why not lol)

I think it's more a case of does Sprint need it anyway with NV and the 600mhz auction it could find itself sitting pretty without tmo in a few years time anyway. I think Tmo needs this more than Sprint does. If the price reflects that then maybe it makes sense for Sprint, still not sure it makes sense for customers. Dtelekom needs to get serious about tmobile USA. It's like they got bored of it for 5 years and now they are making an effort but you get the feeling it's only enough to make it attractive enough to sell. Sprint would love the spectrum and the customers, but there is a price AND the effort of merging. 20bn would buy a lot of sites and spectrum and the customers would come anyway.

Split vzw in 2 and let tmo and sprint merge, job done I used to think I wanted this and a lot of people on here whose opinion I respect said it would be a train wreck. I think LTE will make any merger easier in the long run (like 5 to 10 years long) and there is some sense in being able to consolidate overlapping towers and then expand coverage. I don't think it is a question of are we better with two huge companies and two slightly smaller ones rather it is a question of will we be best served letting Sprint and Tmo carry on by themselves. My take on this is that Sprint doesn't need tmo, it has a good plan and it can execute on it and in a few years will be taking on vzw and at&t pound for pound. However, tmobiles parent company does want tmo usa gone, so I think there is some logic in if the price is right maybe it could help sprint in the long run. It would all depend how quickly they could realize any benefits (lower operating costs allowing expanded coverage etc). Tmo has a fair bit of mid dial frequency, it would also be one less company to big against in the 600mhz auction (as mentioned by others) so there is some value in a deal, if deutsche telekom wants it sold for a low price maybe theres sense in a deal.

With the deepest of respect that is not entirely correct re European carriers. There are 3 to 4 nation wide carriers in each country, some with network sharing. Many of these carriers span many European (and global) countries, but roaming is often expensive and with lte bands increasingly complicated and sometimes they don't use the same name. Companies such as Vodafone, Orange (EE\O2 or whatever they are called these days) and Tmobile (may be a mvno in some of the countries they serve) do span multiple countries and with the EU whupping on them it is increasingly cheaper to just use your phone and contract sim as you travel, barriers between countries are generally artificial and in place to drive up consumer bills but are being removed. Originally there were country specific carriers but it kind of went all Bell and we ended up with big carriers with networks in each country. Most smaller country specific ones died, cellnet in the UK springs to mind. There is "three" which only has networks in a handful of global countries. Most other carriers I can think of are MVNO's. Apologies if I misunderstood you post, 15 years ago you would have been correct but daddy got the check book out and there were lots of mergers and acquisitions, although go on holiday and use your phone and they do their best to make like they are different providers and it is not as easy as cheap as going to the next state They want to protect their right to charge different prices in different countries for the same product (not saying this is wrong) and they roaming rates this as a way of doing that (stopping you buying an orange france phone and plan for better rates and bringing it home). Source: 30 years living, working and travelling in Europe.

It really depends on your needs and budget. Some tablets don't allow you to add a sd card or attach a card reader to expand the storage. You may prefer amoled to lcd, you may want a keyboard dock with an extra built in battery, theres 7 8 10 and 12 inch options etc Given the latest tablets from sony, google, asus, samsung and lg are all pretty darn awesome theres more chance of you choosing the wrong features for you than choosing an actual bad tablet. Even ainol are making some decent stuff these days. Personally I am loving amoled and samsungs handwriting recognition on the note 3 so that will be a factor when I pick a new tablet. Thats not to say those are things you should consider I would decide if there is any must have features then just find which tablets have those then pick the cheapest based on special offers at the time. A trip to somewhere like best buy should allow you to play with a few and see if theres any quirks that might put you off or things you especially want after using one.

Looks awesome! I love the idea of building my own plans especially with roaming, will have to look into this. I barely use any minutes or texts, mostly data. Thanks for sharing.

If it is something very minor like an additional t1 which doesn't require electrical or structural changes (beyond perhaps adding a line card) or an increase in commit on a fractional t3 then no permit is needed because nothing really changes in a manner that the county is worried about (visually, electrically, flooding, sewage, noise etc). It's like the difference between the Hawaiian tel turning on your phone when you move in vs having dish come and physically install a huge dish. One is a 'soft' change, the other is a physical change.

Thanks, that was how understood it worked (apologies if my post was unclear), so it is possible for download rates to be affected by a congested channel whilst upload rates are fine because that channel is naturally used less but of near equal capacity?