GoWireless

To me, "CCA support" means essentially moving OEMs towards single-SKU devices per geographical region. Given Samsung's particular fondness for releasing umpteen different sub-variants of every device, probably more than any other manufacturer, it doesn't surprise me that the Note 4 doesn't include CCA support. Hopefully the S6 will. Watch Samsung release it though on like February 10, a day before which Sprint committed to eventually unlocking its phones to other carriers, which, now that CCA support will be included, would actually be fully compatible with almost everyone else's networks.

If released after February 11, CCA capable phones would become more valuable on the resale market. Nowadays Sprint phones are generally sold at a discount compared to other carriers' variants.

So I ended up purchasing the iPhone 6 Plus, and have to say that speeds for data are much better.  The phone shows LTE rather than 3G/1x and speeds have gone from .10 to.30 DL speeds to .98 to 2.27 in my area so at least internet is usable when I'm outside my home. Inside my house I've had Ping:152, and 4.60 DL/1.77UL speeds. Pretty darn good, I'm not looking for 20-30 DL speeds just usable data, with the phone not timing out all the time.

 

Thanks for your input,

 

Tony

Thanks for the update.

Your experience shows just how critical it is that Sprint deploys LTE B26 as quickly as possible. In my opinion, speeding this up is the most important thing Sprint can do right now to improve their chances of success in the wireless market.

Upgrading to either of the new iPhone 6's will increase your coverage significantly over the iPhone 5 in Chicago.  It will add Band 26, which will increase coverage exponentially.  It will also add Band 41, which will increase speeds and in some places coverage where Sprint has a Clearwire (Band 41) site only.

 

It may or may not help specifically at your house.  We cannot say specifically, not knowing where you live and how the nearest sites are configured.  However, the chances are extremely good that it would.  And even if it did not help in your home, it would be a night and day difference everywhere you go with a Triband iPhone.

I believe the iPhone 5 has CDMA BC10, so, if the user can make and receive voice calls today without a problem but has problems with data reception then that is a very good sign that yes, upgrading to the iPhone 5c/5s or 6/6p should, as you said, significantly increase their data reception and battery life.

However, if the user has problems making voice calls in their location then upgrading to a newer iPhone probably won't make that much of a difference as far as data and battery life is concerned.

So will the iPhone 6 support Sprint's LTE on 800 MHz or no? Wish it would cuz that's very important for in-building situations..

Yes, of course. In fact, the iPhone 5S already does.

Ah, Sprint devices should be unlocked domestically so that users can ostensibly churn with those devices in tow to AT&T or T-Mobile?  And that would be cool?

 

Give me a break.  That would be a double standard -- with the deck stacked squarely against Sprint.

 

AT&T and T-Mobile devices rarely support CDMA2000.  Even if they do, they do not support all of the appropriate CDMA2000 band classes and LTE bands for the Sprint network.  So, unlocked AT&T and T-Mobile devices are basically worthless on Sprint.

 

That is hardly a two way street.  AT&T and T-Mobile put up a roadblock by not generally supporting CDMA2000 in their devices; Sprint puts up a roadblock by not freely unlocking devices for domestic use.  Tit for tat.

 

GoWireless, you seem to have an agenda, and it appears to be anti Sprint.  Not cool.

 

AJ

AJ, you a re misinterpreting my point. If Sprint wants to lock its devices to reduce churn or whatever, then fine but come out and say so, instead of pretending that they want to unlock them but supposedly can't because of the OEMs - when the OEMs already go out of their way to accommodate Sprint's unusual requests in this arena. My point is that if Sprint really intended to allow some type of domestic unlock, I am sure they OEMs could have figured out a way by now.

At the end of the day these shenanigans (e.g. domestic locks) are a double-edged sword. Yes, these kind of restrictions might marginally reduce churn but on the other hand it makes Sprint a less attractive carrier for someone to sign up with in the first place (since all the other carriers will fully domestic unlock their devices under the appropriate circumstances except for Sprint which won't under any circumstances).

As far as I see it, the proof for Sprint's actions are in the pudding - they are still losing subscribers by the droves and are about to lose the 3rd place spot. It's time for the company to reconsider all aspects of how it does business.

Don't get me wrong, I want this company to succeed and do well but so far their actions haven't been able to gain them the escape velocity they need to take off from the position they're in.

...

 

Yes, many feel that Sprint is doing it intentionally. But they are publicly proclaiming that they cannot. I think Apple would, or will, argue otherwise if it is not true. But we know this much, Sprint is SIM unlocking iPhones for qualified subscribers who ask for it, and they still will not work with other domestic providers after the SIM slot is unlocked. So this is a device control. Sprint cannot add anything to the iPhone.

Since Sprint has been open about receiving some devices that are capable of switching networks (like the Nexus 5), wouldn't it make more sense that perhaps the limitation is likely Apple's? Maybe Apple agreed to permanent domestic locking because of pressure from the Duopoly? Perhaps they think that they may be able to sell another iPhone if a domestic subscriber switches providers?

 

The Feb 2015 date is because that is the joint date that CTIA members agreed to. Not an arbitrary Sprint machination. So it may be that the next iPhone will not have this block for CTIA members (which includes AT&T, Verizon, Tmo and Sprint).

There are lots of feelings. But Sprint has stuck its neck out on the line by publicly saying it does not have the ability to make a Sprint activated iPhone to be used on another domestic network. And until that point can be proven otherwise, I will give them the benefit of any doubt.

Robert

Sorry, no pass from me to Sprint on this one.

First of all, with respect to the doupoly argument... that one doesn't hold water since no one but Sprint does a domestic lock. Verizon hasn't locked their iPhones for years and AT&T and TMO do lock but they do the normal lock, without any domestic restrictions.

Second, Sprint already asks the OEM to do weird, unusual things for them with respect to device locking. Like for example the domestic lock business which no one else does. Another example is the remote unlocking process for say Samsung Galaxy devices. I mean, who does that but Sprint? No one. All the other carriers in the world can live with providing a code to be entered by the user when a foreign sim is inserted but Sprint has to be "special" and come up with an unlocking mechanism unique only to them.

My point is that the OEMs are already going out of their way to accommodate Sprint's silly & unusual locking policies so if Sprint asked, I am sure they could also accommodate removing the domestic lock as well (which they will be doing but only come February). Putting the blame on the OEMs on this one is not cool in my opinion.

OK, so here's what I don't get... If A1586 has all the bands that A1549 has, plus the TDD LTE bands, then why make two models and not just go with A1586 for everyone?

As for this...

Sprint has said they will unlock iPhones after off contract or subsidies have been paid for.  But they say they are unable to get the iPhone to work on other domestic carriers due to OEM constraints beyond their control.  Currently, Sprint iPhones will only work internationally when SIM unlocked.  Sprint does commit to doing this on all future devices after February 2015, though.  That would not include the iPhone 6/6+, though.

 

Robert

My personal feeling is that, at least for recent devices, if Sprint really wanted to be able to unlock devices for domestic use they and the OEMs could come up with a solution to do so but they choose not to (at least not until the "magic" date of 2-11-2015). In other words, I don't really think it's an OEM restriction like Sprint claims, but rather Sprint's choice not to pursue it at this point.

Thanks for the article.

I would personally say that the very first bullet in the "to capitalize on the following advantages:" section should be -

• Allow for simultaneous voice and data connectivity.

All the other stuff you mention is very important, yes, but from a marketing perspective, the lack of simultaneous voice and data is a significant missing feature of the Sprint network compared to its competitors. Personally, I think this should be the number one reason why Sprint should be looking towards VoLTE (if anything, for this reason I would say that Sprint needs VoLTE more than any of the other carriers, but appears to be the last to obtain it).

Does this thing support LTE channel widths other than 5Mhz on band 25?

So no single-SKU for North America with Sprint being the odd one out. However, the Sprint variant does appear to be fully compatible with the other three carriers (but not vica-versa). Unfortunately Sprint will likely continue to lock their hanset for other US carriers use.

An almost single-SKU North American device. Nice!

Not advocating for it either way but if Sprint and T-Mobile get too many of these kind of devices on their networks, merger rumours might start popping up again. It will also be interesting to see what band support the upcoming iPhone 5S will have.

BTW, technically one could say that the device supports 4 FDD bands since band 5 is a subset of band 26.

I'm going to assume that this handset also supports GSM900/1800 and UMTS2100 and therefore as for SVDO... given that it does have SVLTE, I would rather take the availability of having fast 3G when using the phone overseas over having SVDO on CDMA if that's the tradeoff here.

So AT&T has LTE support for AWS bands....so what? Maybe AT&T begged Apple to add the AWS band and paid a lot of money for it because they plan to deploy LTE on AWS really soon even if it is only for part of the country. Verizon on the other hand probably didn't care that the AWS band was not included since their 20 MHz in the 700 MHz band is still sufficient at until next year and didn't want to pay the money to add it. Remember that in order for a band class to be added to that phone, that carrier has to have spectrum in that band so that it can be tested by the FCC and even then its up to the carrier planning to sell the phone on whether they want that band class tested. Now you might say, well why does the Sprint iPhone have LTE support for the Cellular (850 MHz) band if it doesn't have any spectrum to support it. Well that is only because Apple is only making 2 versions of the iPhone (CDMA and GSM) and since Verizon has Cellular (850 MHz) spectrum which at some point, Verizon is going to convert that spectrum to LTE.

...

Verizon, even before the deal with the cable companies was announced last year, already owned a large swath of AWS spectrum, plus, they knew that there was a chance for them to acquire more AWS spectrum from the cable companies, and they knew that nearly a year ago (in other words, they were actively pursuing additional AWS spectrum for LTE). Therefore, it is reasonable for Verizon to have wished that the AWS band would have been added to the phone (just like AT&T obviously did - even though AT&T too had not yet deployed LTE on AWS). Therefore, it is not unreasonable to wonder why it was omitted from Verizon's variant.

... The G band is an additional 10 MHz, not 5 MHz.

...

The G-band is an additional 5Mhz to each link (upload and download), located contiguously with the rest of the PCS band on each link direction. If I were to have counted both the upload and download links together then I would have said "add 10Mhz to 120Mhz" instead of saying "add 5Mhz to 60Mhz". in any case , adding 10Mhz to the existing 120Mhz is a rather trivial effort technically, which means that it is not unreasonable to wonder why did Apple not just go ahead and put LTE band 25 in AT&T's version rather than band 2.

To your first bullet point, why should the iPhone 5 include support for LTE at AWS frequencies when the FCC just approved it late last month? Do you understand that it takes months of testing out the antennas for the AWS frequencies and Verizon nor Tmobile has yet to deploy LTE on AWS frequencies so why the rush? Not only does it take months to test out the antennas for AWS frequencies, it would need to be FCC approved at least 2 months before deployment and the iPhone 5 has been in final production for at least over the past month or 2. I don't think you have an understanding at all at how complicated it is and its not just as simple as adding some band classes to a phone on the fly.

Ahmm, yeah, everything you just said might have a point if it wasn't for the fact that the AT&T variant of the iPhone 5 does have the AWS band. So that kind of blows away your theory on that one. Plus, AT&T got support for the AWS band despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, like Verizon, they haven't even deployed LTE on it yet. Oh, and Verizon already owned a bunch AWS frequencies before the latest FCC action. The "approval" they got was for additional AWS spectrum they purchased from the cable co's (part of which they sold/swapped with T-Mobile).

To your second point, why should AT&T have PCS 'G' block support for LTE? Sprint is the only carrier that has access to broadcast LTE in the 'G' block and is a CDMA carrier so it makes sense to me that the CDMA version of the iPhone 5 should only have band class support for the PCS 'G' block. I don't understand at all why you think the AT&T phone should have this band class included. I think you need to do a lot more research to find out more about how band classes and phones work.

...

Why? Because adding the G-band means adding just 5Mhz to the tail end of an existing 60Mhz-wide band. So from a technical perspective it might actually be simpler to go ahead and create one device that covers 65Mhz rather than two devices; one that covers 60Mhz and another 65Mhz - since it is essentially just one contiguous band with no gaps and the addition of the extra narrow band is almost trivial from a technical perspective.

I think there are definitely valid reasons behind the observations I made with respect to the iPhone 5.

Some general notes/observations:

• S4GRU said: "So the AT&T edition of the phone is actually a better fit for providers like CricKet, MetroPCS and US Cellular...if not for the glaring omission of those carriers’ 3G network technologies (and VoLTE)."
  

• With respect to CricKet, Metro, US Cell, etc... It should be mentioned that their traditional roaming partners are the CDMA carriers.
  

• One interesting thing to note (as I mentioned in another thread) is the potential for Sprint to extract some additional roaming revenue from Verizon iPhone users thanks to the inclusion of the SMR band (assuming Big Red doesn't disable it on its iPhones). That could be an interesting turn of the tables as far as these two carriers are concerned, especially in rural areas.
  

• It's stooopid that AT&T didn't get the G-band included on their phones. I mean, geez, it's only 5Mhz more, can't be that hard to include.
  

• Crazy that there's a whole $100 price differential between the 16GB and 32GB variants. The consumer street cost difference of high-speed flash memory sized 16 and 32 Gs is like what nowadays, 5-10 bucks? Talk about some markup! Oh, wait, I forgot, there's a symbol of a fruit on the back of the phone, so it must be worth it! Plus, you get the pay extra for the omission of an SD-card slot... It's like Jeans with holes in them - you pay more for being stylish
  

I wonder... with the 800Mhz band and the 850Mhz band being essentially one single band, does it really makes sense to provide two sperate figures for each, particularly since the "extension" of the cellular band to include the SMR band is only 10Mhz? Seems kind of silly that for CDMA operating under ESMR the FCC just doesn't go ahead and count it all as one single band. I can see back in the days when iDEN, with its guard bands and everything that you'd want to separate the two bands, but if you're gonna be deploying the same technology in ESMR as in the cellular band, the FCC should give Sprint a break. That might also convince other carriers to include Sprint's band on their phones and Sprint could generate some roaming revenue from that.

I spoke with a Sprint representative today and here is my conversation: You: By any chance no if LTE is coming to Virginia Beach anytime soon? If so maybe i'll stick around to see if I get service. Megan: You will expect to have the LTE in Virginia Beach at the end of this month. You: That would be fantastic! Megan: Sorry at the end of this year. You: well that works too I suppose!

I wouldn't be jumping for joy just yet becuase a. Sprint seems to be somewhat behind in other cities with respect to deployment so it may very well be that they will be behind in VB too. b. note that upon initial launch, according to the map above, there will only be 7 sites active in Virginia Beach (and this is for a very spread out city with nearly half a million residents). So, even when it is launched, don't expect a whole lot of coverage, at least not initially.

In my opinion, 3G in Jacksonville isn't too bad compared to other Sprint markets becuase there is reasonable 4G WiMax coverage so part of the network load is being offloaded to WiMax (for those users who have older Sprint 4G devices), thus freeing up 3G.

In any case, speaking from a general prespective, compared to the other carriers' 3G, Sprint's 3G is atrociously slow. However, once they get 4G LTE going, that should improve the 3G coverage for two reasons: 1. like with the WiMax situation, they'll be offloading users' data onto LTE from 3G and 2. as part of the LTE deploymnet they are also improving their 3G service.

I see, thanks.

BTW, as part of Network Vision, supposedly Sprint is also making improvements to the 3G network. Do you know what they are doing in that respect or point me to somewhere that describes that? On Sprint's website it just talks about "a new 3G network" but gives no specifics. I wonder what are they doing? Do they mean the 800Mhz overlay? Surely they're not putting in EVDO Rev.B, are they (that would be cool ?

Thanks for the clarification Robert. What you say makes sense.

Question: Sprint has that network enhancement site that they maintain, network.sprint.com, is what shown here related to the expected work shown on Sprint's site? It's hard to tell. It almost seems like there are two network efforts going on - the NV and what's on the sprint site.

To be hoenst, this is not all that impressive. In what I would consider the true Jacksonville metro area there are only about 23 sites. Surely that can't be approximately half the market. From looking at the map it looks like there would be no towers touched in the Southside, Intercoastal, or the Beaches and only one site in Mandarin. If anything, one would think they would hit those areas first. I mean, no LTE in St. John's Town Center (aka the temple of shopping in N. Fla) or the acres of giant corporate office parks around it? Given this I would think most locals wouldn't consider this market "launched". Hopefully Sprint has an agressive rollout schedule to complete the rest of the market.

Congratulations!

Makes sense for them to light up Kansas City first since that's their home market.

I agree. However, this is the very first Non-WiMax market to start LTE deployment. So you folks in SE Virginia must be happy about that. We here in the Albuquerque market are envious. :)Robert

Yeah, well, granted though the Hampton Roads MSA has about twice the population of the Albuquerque MSA. Sprint's 3G network here in SE Va. is absolutely horrible (since data isn't being offloaded to 4G, except in those tiny spots where there's some 4G coverage now, limited as it may be). Yeah, like I said, right now this is Sprint's largest 4G "hole" on the East Coast so it makes sense for them to built it out sooner rather than later.

BTW, do you know if the equipment Sprint is deploying will allow them to also one day light-up LTE in the SMR/iDEN band? And if so, do you know how much channel bandwidth they plan on deploying there? If I recall correctly, in the 1900Mhz band they're only planning on deploying 5x5Mhz.

Thanks for the update.

Sprint really needs to get moving in the Norfolk/Va. Beach/Hampton Roads market! It's the largest metro area on the East Coast where they hadn't launched 4G. WiMax deployment in this market was halted about a year and a half ago when Sprint stopped paying attention to Clearwire's network.