dkyeager

Normally the licenses with the overlapping geographic service areas "split the football" by straight line of the intersection area of the two radius circle areas for just the shared frequencies.  However private deals between the parties are also possible, and have been encouraged by the FCC in some situations when the service areas overlap by more than 50%.  The special conditions section on the admin page of the NW Spectrum leases can be said to support this: "This spectrum lease does not include all of the geographic areas/spectrum from the underlying call sign."  The NW Spectrum lease does not include 2608-2614 MHz withheld by the Department of Education, Archdiocese of New York.  In terms of specific areas per license, in the various notes are references to engineering files in general, but I know of no specific public links to this type of information.  T-Mobile's lease is from The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, Debtor-In-Possession. 

An FCC staff member has told me that license changes are normally reflected in the Online ULS in 6 to 8 weeks, but can take 6 months in special situations. Thus I would go with field data where you have it.  In another major city that I am aware of, the field data was three months ahead of the Online ULS.

Disclaimer: This series is designed for hobbyists. This question is likely best answered by a lawyer who specializes in FCC administrative law and precedent.  There are plenty of exceptions for given situations, which have varied over time.  Knowing the right person inside the FCC, asking the parties involved, or going the Freedom of Information Act route may also help the hobbyist.  There are also trade associations with numerous webinars and conferences targeted to various knowledge levels.

5 minutes ago, chaddy0122 said:

Does anyone have any updates for Expedience sites that never got the upgrade to WiMax, like Dayton OH?

A few of these expedience sites did get upgraded to triband sites a while ago.

5 hours ago, Joski1624 said:

In case anyone wants to know, there's 142 original standalone Clear sites in the Cleveland market.  A vast majority of them are in Cuyahoga county, but a handful reside between Lake, Lorain and Medina counties.

Excellent work on finding 10 Clear Triband Conversion sites!! 

I like your offer of free sponsorship for those who help to find more!  Most people don't realize that 1/2 of our finds are from people with android phones just going about their everyday lives with SCP Pro logging enabled which just records the lat long of the best signals.  Then you just send in the log every so often. 

59 minutes ago, lilotimz said:

Only Samsung Clearwire sites show up in SCP and those are capable of up to 4 LTE 2500 carriers. Many of them were upgraded with the 3rd B41 carriers in the past year.

Given the vendor contracts dividing up the country, these Samsung Clear sites will likely go through the same process mentioned above.  They were mostly located in the south and east coast, but it should be noted that many of them were converted to Mini Macros.

So if you see Clearwire third carrier LTE 2500 in Signalcheck Pro, it is still worth checking out the site for equipment for Tribanding.

33 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

This is awesome! There is a Clear Band 41 site about a block away from my home in New York that would be an insanely strategic infill site if it were converted to a triband site.

I am about in the same position at a mile away.  I can get around 100Mbps of LTE 2500 in portions of my house from a Clear Mini Macro site.  Historically my LTE 1900 and LTE 800 were pathetic and dropped calls on a regular basis (fortunately I rarely make calls).  Recently it has been better since the closest Network Vision site was upgraded to Next Gen, but nothing to brag about (definitely essential to have if the Clear site goes down).  My LG V20 phone can handle VoLTE, but Sprint is going at a slow pace in terms of VoLTE on specific models.  I have many other phones without VoLTE capability so better CDMA would be great!

Hopefully my permitted Clear Triband Conversion home site does get upgraded and also retained by T-Mobile (given a merger).  Without the site AT&T is my best option, T-Mobile is acceptable but slow, Verizon is much worse. I live inside the beltway in a very competitive market.  At various times all carriers have lead the Root Metrics Columbus market ranking for network reliability and call performance in recent years.  Hopefully this will make it Sprint's turn again!

2 hours ago, stlman314 said:

So here is one of the New Clear GCIs since changing

The EARFCN does line up with what is LTE 2500 3rd carrier in most markets which is not possible with Mini Macros or the Clear LTE equipment. Definitely worth a look at the site for equipment for LTE 1900 and LTE 800.

Edit: except Samsung Clear Equipment which can handle four carriers [credit: lilotimz].

26 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I've seen a few Clear to Triband conversions in the Seattle. I reported a few a couple of weeks ago. 

Sorry I missed that.  I only saw discussion of new LTE 800 in the Seattle thread going back to November.  There have reportedly been some Clear to NV conversions a few years ago especially in the upper peninsula of Michigan, but most were isolated cases.  Many of these sites were basically public protection sites, but they did do a good job of covering their small town in the WiMAX days, often before any other carriers had LTE in those areas. Most of the Clear sites outside of major metro areas in Ohio were completely removed after the WiMAX shutdown, although one was later converted to LTE 2500 in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Just now, stlman314 said:

So the thing about that is when you see the GCI in SC. It still says Clearwire. I will have to get pictures from one of the sites. And it is also all of our sites here. So I doubt we are that far along. But I could be wrong

In the Samsung markets (Midwest, northern West Coast) we have also seen the LTE 2500 GCIs change to match that of the LTE 1900 and LTE 800.  The GCI sectors go to being sequentially ordered by sector across all bands. This is step 10 for the Samsung markets.

1 hour ago, stlman314 said:

In the Missouri Market I have notice that the GCI for Clear towers have changed within the last month or so. Is this a part of this process?

It is quite possible you are at step 8 of the process so far as we understand it:  1) permits obtained, 2) tower improved if needed (plates added for strength, safety ropes changed, etc.  3) trenches dug and conduit installed,  4) concrete poured and cured [or metal grate expended according to some permits], 5) cabinets arrive and are positioned, 6) antennas installed then cables, 7) wait, 8)LTE 2500 Carrier Aggregation switched from Mini Macros to 8T8R, 9) LTE 2500 third carrier is soon added [sometimes next day], 10) LTE 1900 and 1x900 CDMA and then LTE 800 and 1x800 are added [uncertain of exact order].  Ultimately coverage of the new triband site and surrounding sites will need to be fine tuned which could take as long as a couple of months.

You would want to find the site by GCI and look and/or take pictures to be certain.  The first site in Cleveland was picked up around Thanksgiving in logs so your dates are reasonable.

3 hours ago, Skypr said:

By the way, it seems there is no B26 in PR or at least, I haven't seen it. Most of the time it's congested B25.

Which is why it is good that Sprint reached this deal on Band 13 (700Mhz).

The timing of the hurricanes occurred before Sprint decided to put band 41 on every tower.  Being now run by the joint venture, the Sprint sites in Puerto Rico may no longer fall under this edict and instead operate more like Shentel.  A quick search of ED and BR licenses indicates that Sprint has enough for 20+20+15 over the entire island and then some.  Virgin Islands appears to be not so lucky.

4 hours ago, Terrell352 said:

It's funny to read this 5 years in the future to see how band the b41 strategy backfired

The real issue that remains for Sprint network improvements is cash flow.  The reality is Sprint is really just part of a conglomerate, rather than being integrated into Softbank.  Thus Softbank will help them on the edges,  but it is really up to Sprint to improve themselves.  Masa likely told Marcelo to reduce the B41 rollout, after all he admitted he lost heart in Sprint.  The current round of upgrades was approved by Masa, but the money was raised by Sprint.  Unless this money is in the debt covenants, Softbank could decide to use it elsewhere once again. 

With data usage doubling every 18 months, refarming could only go so far, thus B41 expansion was the only real choice at this time. It helps when one of your competitors recommends that strategy for Sprint.  5 years ago they did not have the cash.

I would assume so for Dallas.  Chicago is Samsung and Los Angeles is Nokia, both of which are likely going through the same approval process at this time.

From earlier today, another Sprint Next-Gen 10 port 800/2.5 upgrade in progress at a Crown Castle site near Mansfield, Ohio:

Several more of these sites were confirmed, along with a 16 port Triband site, making Cleveland the first market in our region with two confirmed Next-Gen scenarios. The contractors said they have done 10 sites like these.  This does not include the other tower companies possible work.

6 hours ago, nexgencpu said:

It's kinda surprising that Massive MIMO equipment (from any vendor) still hasn't passed FCC considering Sprint's push for April launch of some markets.

Having Ajit Pai at the helm of the FCC just makes me uneasy with them approving anything that gives Verizon competitors any sort of leg up or big advantages.

3 hours ago, IamMrFamous07 said:

I just realized that too. We are probably looking at a June launch

In the first article, from RCRwireless, it only mentions that the first Massive MIMO deployments will begin in April.  Sprint has 26 days left.  One site in each of the first three cities would meet their criteria.  Assuming FCC approval, which typically means going through a private testing lab to meet established criteria, they should be able to make this target. 

To meet our expectations is a totally different matter.  5G can not come soon enough.  In reality it will occur one step at a time.  At least we know Sprint has raised the money for these projects and Next-Gen work has begun in many places.

23 minutes ago, Kevster1321 said:

In the article you mentioned Connecticut. So does that mean CT is one of the  states getting these new tower upgrades?

Yes. There are many Next-Gen Permits making their way through the Connecticut Siting Council or approved.  Besides those mentioned in the footnotes, here are others that I found:

10 port 800/2.5 Antenna: http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/ems/montville/cookrd/sprint/em-sprint-086-180124_filing_cookst.pdf

http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/ems/newmilford/boardmanrd/sprint/em-sprint-096-180305_filing_boardmanrd.pdf

http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/ems/westhaven/derbyave/sprint/em-sprint-156-180226_filing_derbyave.pdf

16 port Triband Antenna: http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/ems/manchester/hilliardst/sprint/em-sprint-077-171204_filing_hilliardst.pdf

http://www.ct.gov/csc/lib/csc/ems/manchester/lakest/sprint/em-sprint-077-171214_filing_lakest.pdf

This in not an exhaustive list.

Almost 20% of the dual band 2.5/800 permitted sites in the above table are locations that already have 2.5.  I would assume the dual band 2.5/800 scenario will be targeted to sites that need more 800MHz capacity whether or not they already have 2.5.  The 16 port Triband scenario is strongest with band 41 only sites.  This may vary by market.

Sprint also has one or more Next-Gen Massive MIMO configurations, but we have not seen the details other than Sprint will have 64T64R*, there was discussion of horizontal and vertical oriented units,  and Sprint will deploy thousands of Massive MIMO radios.  Once they become certified by the FCC, we will know more about the Massive MIMO units.  Given that Sprint has not publicized the 800 MHz enhancements that frequently occur with the known Next-Gen configurations, I feel they will likely include such improvements with the Massive MIMO scenarios.

Outside of band 41 only sites getting the 16 port Triband Antennas, Columbus has no Next-Gen permits for its densest areas or its many high capacity sites.  Being America's 14th largest city**, and access to virtually all band 41 spectrum to make a transition to 5G quite easy, we are hopeful that we will see Massive MIMO configurations soon.  With its far greater density and vertical challenges, New York City likely ranks higher on Sprint's list for Massive MIMO.

* https://www.rcrwireless.com/20180305/carriers/sprint-cto-massive-mimo-secret-weapon-tag17

https://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/sprint-to-turn-massive-mimo-6-cities-april

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17057502/sprint-5g-lte-antenna-rollout-gigabit-atlanta-chicago-dallas-houston-la-washington-dc

https://www.ericsson.com/en/news/2018/2/ericsson-a-key-partner-in-sprints-5g-ready-massive-mimo-deployments

http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprint-unveils-5g-ready-massive-mimo-markets.htm

https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2018/02/sprint-readies-5g-plans-massive-mimo-deployments-6-cities

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/sprints-bid-to-have-5g-in-2019-using-massive-mimo/

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20170620/news/sprint-and-samsung-set-to-roll-out-massive-mimo-tag4

https://www.nokia.com/en_int/blog/nokia-sprint-trail-blaze-5g-massive-capacity-blistering-speeds

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-cfo-5g-will-allow-sprint-to-finally-change-perceptions-about-its-network

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

You have the same RRH configuration with two 800 RRHs, a 1900 RRH and a 8T8R.  The antenna housing is slightly different.   Likely a Commscope variant, but if you wanted to be 100% certain, we need photos of the bottom ports or a part number.  I understand that in some cases, your sites have two 1900 RRHs so five RRHs total per sector would then also be acceptable.

No CAx3.

So disappointing. LG can no longer run with the big dogs.  Reduced to staying on the porch.  Samsung can prevent rooting with no LG competition on its S7/S7 Edge.  Without CAx3, the LG G5 will likely be a launch failure unless the VoLTE is actually implemented soon.

Hopefully the first of many such deals.  How do these rank by number of counties affected?

Of course most will focus on the fastest speed.

Any word on CA uplink speeds? I assume 2x.  While most will focus on the fastest speeds, I like the turbo-charged snail speeds at the edge -- this covers far more geographic area. Ready to do battle:

I think Sprint has many more options with this than are detailed here. In many markets Sprint will have more than 3 B41 carriers.  Another possibility is to use some of these additional carriers to supply signal to these small cells in some quasi-dedicated fashion.  Perhaps using another PLMN and/or another mode (data centric etc).  Then it just becomes an issue of backhaul at the donor site and any added delay.

This is awesome!! However, it will allow you to burn through your roaming allowance ten times faster.  Any word on if Sprint will adjust its plans or at least allow you to buy more roaming data?