NGeorge

I realize the investment firms are all about money -- but I still don't see why more weight isn't put behind the fact that Dish will have basically NO money to expand the network... If they leverage themselves to the gills, sure the shareholders might pick up an extra $1 per share with Dish as it stands now--but how do they expect to grow the network? Without network expansion, there are few new customers--and with few new customers, there isn't as much money to be made, which defeats the purpose in the first place!

The customers that Dish are counting on for a triple play with fixed wireless are RURAL customers -- and to properly serve these customers, it will require a MASSIVE buildout over what Clear already has... hell it would require a MASSIVE buildout even if they aquired all of Sprint. If Sprint or Clear (or T-Mobile) had the coverage of Verizon, this would be a different discussion--but they don't!

The issue is that Dish quotes their ability to provide "on demand" and a triple play of TV/VoIP Landline/Internet Access as the big synergy of this deal. The problem is that the majority of Dish subscribers that are inside of Clear's existing coverage areas (and even most of Sprint's) already have access to extremely fast cable connections, or at the very least somewhat reasonable DSL. DirecTV (who is my TV provider of choice) offers full "on demand" (the same content as Comcast) via internet -- and I use Comcast (who is in the process of doubling their speed tiers for the same price--I now get 50 meg service in Washington State where I had 25 before--they also have done this in a few states in the NE as well) to get my internet, as well as On Demand from DirecTV. With that sort of bandwidth, the DirecTV On Demand service works just as flawless as traditional cable on demand.

It has been proven a number of times that Wireless triple plays from TV providers in urban areas don't work... remember Pivot, the cable provider MVNO? That lasted about 2 years... Remember when all the cable providers tried to offer Clear as an MVNO? That lasted about 2 years as well... Hmmm... TV provider offering wireless internet... sounds pretty similar to what Dish wants to do. Sure, Dish is proposing a fixed solution, and wants to be the primary internet connection--but even with the expanded range of fixed wireless, Dish still needs a massive buildout because Clear as it stands now doesn't even nearly begin to cover right up to the edge of where you can't get cable or DSL... not to mention the fact that most people see wireless internet as something you only get if your only other option is satellite internet--and there are plenty of local WISP's to serve this market already (via Canopy, local WiMax, and local LTE that is starting to pop up such as BendBroadband).

What Dish wants to do will work great--in RURAL areas. The problem is that Clear is absolutely the farthest thing from a rural carrier (aside from some protection sites in BFE, which legitimately do provide some of the only broadband available to these areas--and I know a number of people in Iowa who have Virgin hotspots at home because of this), and Sprint is only marginally better. If given a choice, people in urban areas who choose to get their TV from satellite will pick up their triple play from the phone company, which will include the satellite TV... if the phone company has crappy DSL, they will pick up their internet from the cable and use that to get the satellite On Demand (which is what I do).

So unless Dish can build out the Clear network to RURAL areas that have horrible or no DSL, which will require a TON of money, I just don't see too many takers for their triple play... if anything is a triple play, it will be Dish as the TV component from the phone company...

Same deal with Sprint -- when Dish put up their $25 billion, how were they planning to expand the network to serve these rural customers who would take their quadruple play (including the voice cell phone service) -- again, remembering how big of a FAIL that Pivot was? The customers in such rural areas already have Verizon, AT&T, USCC or a local cell phone provider. If it's a local cell phone provider, they may already be getting Dish with their cell phone or landline service. Hell even Charlie himself said he wouldn't carry a Sprint phone even if it was free because it doesn't get coverage in all the rural places he visits (I assume Charlie must be a Verizon customer lol) -- if I held a huge chunk of Sprint, that quote alone would make me want to run into the arms of Softbank--unless he followed it up with "But I have 8-10 billion dollars worth of investments I plan to make to the network so I can feel confident in my service and can drop that other provider ASAP"

I just don't get why these investment firms don't see this and are playing ball with Dish as much as they are... to me it seems simple: Softbank = a little less money up front, but a TON of wireless experience, and plenty of money to back it up, and possibly even sink into Sprint and Clear to turn them around and maybe even give the Big 2 a run for their money in a few years--and a LOT more money for shareholders in the long run or Dish = a few extra bucks up front, but LOTS of debt, and no money to build out the network--and a business plan that REQUIRES a substantial investment to build out to the areas where it will actually be successful.

The people I feel really sorry for are those who bought into Clear when it was $8-$17 per share and hung on for the ride... hell I even had some Clear stock when it was in the $9 range, but got rid of it pretty fast with only a small loss when I realized that WiMax was going to  fail--and when I actually got a WiMax phone and realized just how horrible the 2.5 coverage really was, and just how many MANY more towers it would require to be competitive.

N

My dream would involve an EE type situation here in the US (or ACS/GCI situation like in Alaska for the rest of the US)... all the carriers get together to provide the absolute best network they can -- then they each market it however they want.

Even though you would lose choice as far as coverage is concerned, the mass network would have coverage pretty much everywhere, and the fastest data network available... not to mention the same frequencies required across phones...

N

Been happening to me pretty much all the time now... started one day about 3 days after NV got installed in Olympia, WA and has been doing it ever since... it followed from my PhotonQ to my HTC One, and it doesn't happen when I go to Minneapolis or Des Moines... It has to be a network thing. It also doesn't do it on WiFi, but it does do it on 3G.

EDIT: Just noticed your in Federal Way -- that's just up the road about 40 miles... So it's a network in Western Washington thing... I tried putting in a ticket and Sprint denied it, saying update my software. Hopefully they aren't trying to use us to trial some new compression scheme--I'm all for helping ease bandwidth, but the example above is exactly what I am seeing as well, and that's a little over the top. There are ways to get awesome compression that are invisible or barely visable on a mobile device...

Nat

Added a Blackberry to the list that received FCC certification yesterday that has LTE Band 25 (PCS + G), has no CDMA BC10 (SMR), so it's been added to the devices that received Sprint LTE for possible roaming. However, it's the only LTE band it was certified for. So this device really confuses me as to who it's for. Unless of course, Blackberry decided not to put SMR CDMA 1x voice support, which is really an odd thing. Anyone want to chime in?

CSpire Wireless? IIRC they are the only other carrier deploying LTE at 1900... they have no SMR, so this would make sense...

N

I'm about an hour SE of Seattle.

Then you might be OK... it sounds like Sprint is deploying up to the line -- which if that's the case, areas south of the base should get 800.

Also because the line follows Vancouver Island, being an hour SE may still be in the 800 area...

Vancouver Island is the main reason our zone is a bit larger than the other states--if it was just the straight border, the zone would be 60-80 miles south of the border, and that would be it--but with Vancouver Island in the mix, you need to factor in 80 miles all around it -- which includes all of Seattle proper and most all suburbs, as well as 60-80 miles south of Port Angeles.

I wish there was a higher resolution map available... it does appear that there are a few cities back east within the line that have been granted permission to deploy 800 -- I wonder how they were allowed to be considered outside of the exclusion zone?

Nat

Have noticed that for the last week ForumRunner for Android is displaying "The Page Doesn't Exist" when I open any thread... the other forums I have loaded up still work great--it's just S4GRU--was working great up til then.

N

Yep -- that's a different map (the one I saw also showed Mexico) but it's the same point... as you can tell, Washington has the widest area... 140km... based on that, it looks like the southern line is south of Shelton, Tacoma etc. The drawing of Puget Sound is not to scale on that map--it shows the southern point of it a little north of Tacoma it looks like.

It looks like all of the Seattle metro area north of the base won't be getting 800 for now

I wonder if Sprint will be really good about going right up to "the line" with their 800, or if they will decide to just not do 1900 for entire markets... I'm in Olympia so should be in the OK zone for 800, but I'm hoping that they will go absolutely as north as possible... from the map, I'm not sure if that includes Tacoma proper or not.

N

It looks like Portland is starting to see a little bit of 800 now... For those of us in Western Washington, does anyone know how far south the exclusion zone for 800 SMR reaches into the West Washington market? Vancouver Island in Canada reaching so far south will take a decent sized chunk out of the available area for 800 -- has anyone calculated this out? from what it looks like anything north of Fort Lewis won't be able to have LTE... I'm in the Olympia area so hoping we'll see some 800...

Also I remember seeing a chart and map with the entire exclusion zones across all the borders -- I can't seem to find it anymore... 

Thanks!
Nat

I recently mapped a bit as well... went south to see my folks on Wed... Got a good chunk along the freeway south of Chehalis, plus they've activated the site at Mary's Corner off hwy 12.

N

Lilotimz ill try to get some more in the IBEZ zone

That'd be great... It looks like we have a number of panels with 4 wire connections here in Western Washington -- sometimes it is hard to see the number of wires from far away, so can usually only guess based on the size of panel--it looks like around here they are doing 1900-only north of Centralia, WA (Centralia I saw 6 wires for sure) -- when you take Vancouver Island in Canada into account, it chews up a LOT of area around here that can't be used for SMR

What is disappointing here is that they actually have a 1900-only model antenna... I originally thought that they would ALL be capable of 800, and once the agreements were worked out, they would go and physically hook up the 800 antenna ports. If they are installing 1900-only antennas with no SMR antenna, it shows to me that Sprint thinks it will be a LONG time before SMR is cleared up around the borders -- to me that would seem a lot longer than the 2014-2015 time frame that is floating around...

Also does anyone have a link to the IBEZ map again? I remember seeing it and can't find it again.

Nat

Sounds like they had an outage or was doing some tweaking... Not only was LTE not transferring data all day in Olympia (it would aquire the signal but no data would flow), but EV-DO kept kicking on and off to just 1x on both my HTC One and Blackberry.

Yesterday had a really weird one in Lacey -- 1x and LTE was completely down and was roaming on Verizon for a good 2 hours for 1x and voice, however I had EV-DO available with great speeds -- verified with SignalCheck that it was Sprint EV-DO. Rebooted both my phones and had the same thing happening...

Also the voice quality in downtown Olympia has gotten god awful the last week or so -- full bars, but voice quality has been choppy to the point of unusuable with numerous dropped calls, particularly  at the base of the hill on Plum, up the hill by Ralph's and downtown and around the port/KGY areas. It starts off OK, but about 20 seconds in just goes to garbage.

Either something is messed up, or they are doing some work on all fronts right now...

It seems like it would be a cluster to clear out the 900 mhz. SMR band, the same way it was for 800...

That said, the thread above said that 900 SMR is part of 3gpp2's band class for SMR... if this is in fact the case, if they could make all 4 mhz. contiguous, that would bring them up to a total of 18 mhz. in SMR (14 mhz. together in 800, 4 in 900)... I wonder if they could they could then split the frequencies between low and high bands (e.g. low band downlink, high band uplink) for another 1x channel or two (or another purpose down the road)... could particularly come in helpful in SoLinc areas where they could still use 10 mhz. for LTE and keep the single 1x channel in 900...

I do doubt that the 900 is in the band class though -- I've never seen 900 mentioned in the RF testing of phones...

I noticed a couple of new spots appear in Sensorly on I-5 in Tumwater this morning & I had planned to drive that way today so recorded the drive and was able to expand on the LTE footprint slightly. Data is uploading at the moment. Must be a new tower somewhere around Tumwater.

I think my phone put that there the other day when I drove down to Centralia to see my folks.. I have an HTC One now and the LTE rf is *much* better than what it was on my PhotonQ.. SignalCheck Pro dinged on the way down through that stretch south of Tumwater but not on the way back up.

As for the site, I'm not sure which one it's coming from... I live in the Olympia area, and so far the LTE is coming from 2 sites -- the one on the office building downtown by the 4th ave bridge, and the lattice tower in Lacey at College St. The LTE in Tumwater is very spotty, so it could just be a result of spill from Olympia downtown... the only other site I could think it's coming from (that I havent checked) is the site over by the airport by Pick-A-Part... will check that out this week.

Also, if anyone else is from Olympia, have you noticed calls dropping nonstop in the last week? Particularly downtown... it's getting annoying--I have full signal but the calls are choppy and drop.

N

Yeah the upload on LTE is definitely better than WiMax... is that a feature of the technology, or just the 2.5 Ghz. spectrum (would LTE at 2.5 have the same upload limitations?)

Been getting the issue on and off the last few days on my PhotonQ on the Olympia/Lacey towers... 4G connects, but no data (the bars stay grey) -- if I airplane mode it and back, it tends to reconnect with blue bars on LTE and fast data... seems to be an issue with the 3G network handing off the IP to 4G since if I start in an LTE area the data works great--but if I leave and come back into the LTE the data goes away...

Again, has only started this in the last few weeks, then it's on and off..

Also echo the quirkyness on the Galaxy Nexus... I upgraded the employee phones at work to these when they were free at Christmas (from Nexus S's--I wish I would have researched those... they were an IT nightmare!). It's *not* a bad phone, but there definitely is something up with the 4G--I told everyone that 4G was rolling out and they should start to have faster data... out of 8 phones, 6 seem to get 4G fine -- but I got complaints of navigation and data dropping in and out on 2 of them... on checking them out, these 2 seem to get considerably worse LTE signal than the others, and one in particular seems to take it's sweet time to find the LTE (like 10 minutes) where there is full service... all 8 phones have serial numbers within the same lot all within a block of 100 (they came out of the same box)... I hauled it in to sprint and they gave me the usual 'we don't see anything wrong with it... LTE isn't officially launched anyway...' bah!!

Looks like there's some LTE out in Aberdeen/Hoquiam

Happening down here in Olympia the past few days... I also spent most of the day without LTE data... they seem to be up to something. Looks like the data is fixed as of an hour ago, but the dropped calls have been much worse than usual, and my phone has really been flakey.

I've had one since Sprint first came out with them ~2008-- the first one was mainly just to play with since I had great Sprint service, and I figured I'd try the "unlimited" plan on it for a few months... it worked fine, but since I had great service at home I didn't really need it... As for the "unlimited plan" idea, that only stuck around for a month or two since I found I was still able to keep within my plan minutes even without it--plus with such a strong Sprint signal outside, it was constantly flipping back and fourth and didn't seem to be doing a good job hanging on to the Airave signal (and the unlimited plan only works via the Airave)

Since they had agreed to waive the $4.99 fee, I just kept it unplugged for a few years til I moved -- which happened to be an area without good Sprint service indoors... when I moved to my new place, it worked perfect on my Epic, by my Blackberry absolutely HATED it--flipping between no service and 1x and chewing through the battery, so they sent me a 2.0... The 2.0 would only connect via 1x and not EV, and the Blackberry still hated it (they couldn't figure out why it wasn't--the 2.0 is supposed to connect as EV)... so they sent me a new one which was a 2.5 and it's worked awesome.

I find that there's about a 50/50 chance it will connect to the macro network when I leave... I never get "dropped calls" when I come inside, it just sticks with the macro network and the calls get choppy (which is why I get the Airave in the first place)... it does what it says it does.

I will say since NV has been happening the Airave voice quality has gotten a bit worse, and a bit more of a delay... I can still deal with it... although about 2 weeks ago I moved to a new place yet again, about 5 miles from my old place (also with bad Sprint reception) -- I had to put in a ticket that took 5 days to resolve as the Airave kept throwing up "Error 12, switch 2308" at the new place whenever I'd try to place a call... I could receive calls and txt over it fine... but now that that's fixed, it again works as advertised...

SO, if you live in a bad Sprint area, I say by all means get one... they are awesome... Don't get one if you live in a good Sprint area and want the "unlimited plan" -- unless they've fixed something, the phone gets tripped up between the Macro network and the Airave.

N

Yeah the only thing I could think of was that WiMax either didn't have a spec for FDD (which is how PCS frequecies are paired vs. TDD that 2.5, 3.65 and other ultra high frequencies are), or there was just no sub-2.5 equipment available... seems like every WiMax deployment I've heard about is between 2.3 and 3.65 Ghz.

Seems that if Sprint and Clear were truly "partnering", Sprint would have cleared some of their PCS for Clear to deploy alongside their 2.5 for at least some increase in coverage (still wouldn't have been that great--most Clear sites sit VERY low on the towers, in addition to being spaced too far apart--although much better for PCS rather than 2.5)

In the end I think it's a good thing they didn't... had they deployed WiMax correctly in 2008 we'd probably have a lot better 4G network by now--but then you'd have Sprint as being pretty much the only carrier using WiMax... I still can't imagine that even if they had an awesome WiMax network that it would have pushed the tide towards WiMax from LTE... Verizon and AT&T (and most major cellular companies) were behind LTE from the start--LTE started as a telecom standard, vs. WiMax which is an more of an IEEE "computer" standard (the same folks who came up with WiFi)... you may have had a few more companies jump on it, but none of the other majors... still would have phone sourcing issues etc--especially if Sprint was the only one using PCS for their WiMax.

Nat

I never though WiMax was terrible -- just the high frequency that Clear deployed it on... If I was 3 blocks away from the tower I could get 16-18 megs easily... but any further and it would start to drop... go inside and it would drop... and Clear's towers were spaced WAY too far apart.

Had Sprint figured out a way to plug WiMax equipment into their existing 1900 mhz. network in addition to to Clear's coverage, this whole story might have been different, and NV might be a mass WiMax 2 deployment.

Regarding this whole discussion about Sprint switching to UMTS, I do agree that this is a few years too late -- LTE *is* the evolution of UMTS, so putting the money into releasing UMTS, and swapping phones would be like blowing money... had they had their ducks in a row ~2007-2008, this *might* have made some sense as they could have had an straight(er) path to LTE -- but it didn't happen, and it's way too late now--they can should put the money into making NV and LTE the best they possibly can. Plus, as has been pointed out, CDMA2000 runs on 2.5 Mhz. channels -- with the 10 mhz. PCS markets (not counting the G block) that Sprint has down south in some markets, this would have been impossible to shoehorn in without either buying more spectrum or making a flash cut. The fact that CDMA2000 allows you to launch EV-DO on a 2.5 mhz. of spectrum is a good thing!

What I *do* think they can and should do (even though they probably won't--few have) is to be the first carrier to launch EV-DO Rev. B in conjunction with LTE -- the whole idea behind Rev. B was to string up to 3 EV-DO channels together (so 7.5 mhz. of spectrum) to provide a ~10 meg connection. Now that the backhaul is there for NV, why not go ahead and do this as well? From what I understand, it's just a software upgrade that all their legacy equipment can take, they wouldn't have to dedicate 10 mhz. of spectrum for it, and in areas where they already have 2 or 3 EV-DO channels available, it would simply combine them together to allow the phone to use the larger bandwidth available to it--and in areas where they don't have the spectrum for all 3 channels for whatever reason, they can do it with just 2 channels and get a ~6 meg connection. Also, most 3G phones released in the last 5 years already support it--it's just been laying in wait.

I say Rev. B since I think it would do a few things... 1. It would give the lower end 3G-only/prepaid devices a bit more usability without gobbling up a ton of bandwidth from LTE and NV -- 2. It's just a software upgrade on the base stations, and most all EV-DO phones made in the last 5 years support it -- I could see why they didn't do it before since the backhaul wasn't there--but with the NV backhaul there, it would lessen the "brick wall effect" for LTE users -- the signal requirements for Rev. B are the same as EV-DO, so in areas where 4G drops, but a 3G signal can still be had, you would still get a useable amount of data (say a 2 meg connection on 2 bars of 3G with Rev. B vs. 500k or less on equivalent Rev. A)

I realize they are releasing LTE on 800 as well, and that will fix a lot of in-building issues -- but there will STILL be plenty of single band LTE devices around for quite some time (they still haven't started selling 800 capable LTE devices), plus all the 3G-only lower end devices that could use the boost--it would only go towards helping Sprint's perception of service quality.

I'm surprised that Verizon didn't jump on Rev. B years ago, and that it has only been deployed by a handful of carriers -- everything I've read about it makes it seem like a fairly trivial upgrade, aside from backhaul requirements (that you'd have to do anyway to increase the speed of your network -- and which Sprint is taking care of with NV)

--Nat

What makes a grey trace instead of purple? I assume it means no signal.

You would be correct... it just depends on the phone.

Most Sprint phones are good about kicking the data correctly back and fourth between 3G and 4G for the maps they are getting depending on the signal they receive on any given trip. Even if put in LTE only mode they don't tend to report "no signal" and just leaves the map blank in the areas where it isn't getting LTE. I think the LG Optimus G is the one that is displaying the grey when it's not finding LTE.

There are a number of GSM phones (I've heard the Nexus 4 is the biggest offender--also an LG) that will report "no signal" and show up grey on the map -- you can particularly see this on the T-Mobile LTE maps, and on AT&T.

Honestly I think the grey clutters up the map so I like the fact that the Sprint phones are fairly good about this -- if there's no colors there, I'd say it's safe to assume there's either no signal, or it hasn't been mapped yet.

Also on the non-Sprint LTE front around here, I'm sitting in Shelton, WA right now on my AT&T LTE hotspot unexpectedly getting ~30 megs on their LTE... this just confirms my suspicion that a lot of the tower work being done around here is for AT&T bringing their LTE network south.

Speaking of this, there's a site in particular that I need to take a picture of in Lacey, WA (behind the Goodwill at Yelm Hwy. and Rainier Rd.) -- it's always been an AT&T site (in fact the power meter says "GTE Wireless" so it's an ollld AT&T site) but last week I noticed an new set of panels below the AT&T ones that have been there for years, which also have RRUs (looks like Samsung ones), and looks EXACTLY like a number of the LTE Sprint sites I've seen. Around the base of the tower it looks like they put the new equipment for these new panels underground in a vault with a single tube carrying fiber and power up the tower, and right at the base of the tower (which is outside the fence) is a small square cabinet that is labeled "LTE Fiber Collection Point"... I'd have gotten all excited that not only had Sprint brought another site online with LTE, but that it is in a Sprint dead zone that REALLY has needed to be filled in forever... only problem is try as I might, I couldn't find any new power meter... just the old "GTE Wireless" one. It REALLY looks like a new carrier other than that one thing -- is AT&T known for 1. putting an entirely new set of panels under their existing ones just for LTE and 2. Burying the new equipment underground (it is a fairly small area around the site, so I could see why a new carrier might need to bury) when they already have 3 perfectly good large cabinets above ground?

Nat

 

Whatever happened to the Montana towers that Sprint purchased from Qwest back in 2004? The last time I checked Sprint was still the registered owner of those.

Yeah I'm curious about these as well... I also looked them up, and Sprint still owns them--even renewed them recently.

I was last in MT right around the time of the Alltel native switchoff, and at that point I had 2 phones with me--one with the "native Alltel" Sprint PRL, one with the "Roaming" PRL...

What was funny was that inside the city of Billings, the "Roaming" one showed CLR 850 service on Alltel's SID, while the "Native" one showed native service on 1900 on channel 575, which is a Sprint channel but Alltel's SID... but it flipped back to CLR 850 native once we left what would have been the old Qwest coverage area...

Maybe Alltel was managing Sprint's network there, and AT&T didnt want to take it over? Would they just let the equipment sit? Maybe they are waiting for just something like this:::

No need to drive around and "find" LTE towers as they come live. If you donate, the member's section has maps that are updated weekly with new live LTE sites as well as maps of all of the sites to be updated under Network Vision.

I am a premier sponsor and have checked it out -- unfortuneately there are at least 8 sites in the area that I've found that show 4G live on the map that are in fact not live -- in fact I found 4 of them marked as complete that don't even have new panels, nor seem to be GMO -- The only thing I can guess is the backhaul may be ready, the 4G isn't there yet.

Nat

For the most part, you should get LTE everywhere you get EV-DO, down to about 1 bar, when it will kick back to 3G--provided the 3G is coming from the same tower... if you watch your engineering screen, it's amazing just how many towers your phone flips through as it is moving around--a LOT more than you think!

Since the LTE is only on selected towers, that explains why you can kick back to 3G and not get back onto 4G right away until you are really close to the 4G tower again -- chances are your phone is already scanning around other 3G only towers that do not have the 4G yet, and the 3G/4G are coming from different sites.

That is weird about Silverdale/Bremerton though... looking at Sensorly, it looks like even though there is a good bit of mapping, noone has yet "found" the LTE tower -- there are no "full strength" areas yet, which pop up right close to the towers... something tells me they have LTE up on just a couple towers that are way up on the highest hills--which would explain why the overall 4G signals are weak in the area, and also why you probably don't kick back to 4G as fast as you should--since the stronger site is 3G only and your phone locks onto that once you lose LTE.

I won't be able to get up that way for a while--but it would be interesting if someone in the area could do a drive and "find" and map which sites are actually putting the LTE into the area... from the maps it doesn't look like any of the sites downtown proper are doing it -- even the "tower farm" in Silverdale by the freeway doesn't appear to be in a "strongest" LTE area (I've always thought that was funny -- apparently the carriers didn't want to co-locate and the city actually allowed them to each build rather large monopoles when they could have all been crammed on 1 or 2... there's 4 or 5 lol)