lordsutch

Well I'm over my limit and I have no text..

If I had to guess it's one of those things that doesn't kick in for customers until your next billing cycle starts, to simplify the programming logic.

I only stuck it out with Sprint in Blacksburg because I had two lines on my plan (one not in Blacksburg) and wasn't expecting to be there more than a year or so. I'd have probably bailed too (although probably not for nTelos - why reward them for failing to live up to their agreement with Sprint?).

Thought this might be of interest to some folks: http://www.olemisssports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/082014aaa.html

 

The Ole Miss football team has gotten better each year under head coach Hugh Freeze, and in 2014 the Rebel fan experience will do the same with the addition of a new state-of-the-art Wi-Fi network from C Spire at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Officials plan to have the network ready for use in time for the Rebels’ home opener Sept. 13. The high-capacity network will feature the latest Wi-Fi and fiber optic technology with over 700 access points strategically located throughout the stadium.

C Spire and Ole Miss will use the school’s first two home football games to test and optimize the network. Connectivity will be provided at no cost to any fan choosing to access the network during the Rebels’ games vs. Louisiana-Lafayette and Memphis.

Beginning with Ole Miss’ Southeastern Conference home opener against Alabama, C Spire will provide free network access for its customers who attend the game. Fans with service from other wireless providers will also be able to access the network for $4.99 per game.

Maybe C Spire will throw a bone to the customers of its RRPP partner Sprint too, and let us on their WiFi network free.

Alas, I haven't been back in Oxford since the nearby tower went 4G live to see if Sprint's LTE network holds up in the stadium on gamedays. Sprint CDMA was always a complete disaster on Saturdays in the Grove and in the stadium too.

NEXTEL | Done

I didn't even realize they were still around! Here in Eastern PA Cellular One became Cingular and then AT&T

Cellular One was always a "brand" that the various A side* wireless operators used rather than a single company. For example, when I lived in Oxford MS I had "Cellular One" service from a company called Rural Cellular Corporation (until they had an outage at their core and I switched to Sprint in disgust); eventually they stopped bothering licensing the Cellular One name and renamed their service Unicel but kept using the same font. An incomplete version of the sordid history of Cellular One is here at Wikipedia.

* The original cellular A block was reserved for non-incumbent wireline operators, while cellular B was designated for the incumbent wireline operator (usually a Bell System company, i.e. the precursors to today's Verizon and AT&T wireless divisions).

Short of G-Block, does Sprint have any PCS holdings for the market?

According to http://specmap.sequence-omega.net/, Sprint has the PCS B block. Apparently they subleased it (or at least some of it) to AT&T before, but that sublease has expired.

An interesting development out of the impending Cellular One (MTPCS) shutdown in MT and WY:

Cellular One has indicated it plans to cease offering wireless service in the states of Montana and Wyoming. Cellular One has advised its customers there to find an alternate provider before August 31, which is when it plans to halt operations. ... Sprint has assumed Cellular One's cell tower leasing rights, though it hasn't purchased any of Cellular One's spectrum, equipment, or customers.

FierceWireless adds:

Sprint spokeswoman Crystal Davis confirmed to FierceWireless that Sprint has purchased Cellular One's tower leasing rights in Montana, but she said Sprint has not purchased any of Cellular One's customers, spectrum or retail locations in the state. She declined to say how much the transaction is worth.

So that looks positive for some Sprint NV buildout in those two states in the not-too-distant future. Based on these maps it looks like the towers are mostly on I-15, I-90, and I-94 in Montana, with just a small dip into Wyoming.

It looks like MTPCS will be concentrating in the future on the Gulf Coast-area markets where it has 700 spectrum as part of Verizon's LTEiRA program.

(Oops, sorry I didn't see this thread was already in the NV forum. My bad.)

Nope. We have no idea. The only thing that has been "leaked" to the public is design and size. I've looked all over the interwebs and haven't found a single piece of information mentioning b41. My assumption, which is probably right, is that it will have spark. It would be a big loss for them not to have spark especially if sprint really gets into pushing the new "spark" network. 

 

edit: that and I'll be livid. I would switch to android because of that. 

I think Apple is increasingly in the position where they have to play ball with Sprint and other carriers, even if that means "boutique" bands; they're no longer in a position where everyone who wants a smart device will drop what they're doing and stand in line at the Apple Store for an iPhone 7, much less will they switch carriers for one, which means carrier marketing is increasingly important.

If Sprint wanted to bury non-Spark iDevices at the back of the store or online in favor of pushing Galaxy devices and HTC and LG, they probably could now and not lose a lot of customers. They'll eventually sell whatever they guaranteed Apple a few years back either way (in iPads if nothing else).

Like others have said, I think Hesse made about the most he could out of a bad hand and deserves to go off into retirement with his head held high. I'm sure the plan was to stick around until the merger was consummated; without a merger, though, you don't need him as the steady hand at the wheel to offset Legere's, uh, eccentricity among the more sober minded.

As for the network, I think going forward the priorities have to be (not that any of these are particularly innovative ideas):

1. 2.5-2.6 rollout and PCS rebanding where NV is at approaching or at capacity, if necessary incentivizing long-term subscribers to upgrade to new equipment; in particular, try to get devices that can't do ESMR 1x off the network so some data and voice channels on PCS can be rebanded to LTE.
2. Get 800 LTE tuned and up to full power to get reality up to what the LTE coverage maps show.
3. Get interim backhaul (microwave or non-scalable) in place where they haven't been able to secure the ideal backhaul, and finish the GMO upgrades to get 1x800 and LTE 800 into the rural areas where it can cut down on roaming expenditures and gain cash flow from CCA partner roaming that's going to Verizon today. Stop LTE upgrades being on the legacy backhaul providers' timetable.
4. Build out or enlist CCA partners where Sprint is going to lose preferred roaming coverage in 2015, using ex-Nextel towers if still under lease anyway. "There's a map for that" marketing isn't going away.
5. Build out PCS G block in the western markets where they're in a use-it or lose-it situation.

Of course a lot of this is already underway, but Claure needs to light a fire under Saw to get these items done so they can rebrand after (not before) the network is up to snuff.

Interesting opinion - it seems like their lower churn, improving margins, strong customer growth don't really support your facts...

My sense of things is that while all of those things are true for now, it's because T-Mobile is at an unusually good position in its network upgrade cycle: the network is reasonably up-to-date and with the MetroPCS merger relatively underutilized, so they can bring in new customers for now and they'll have a relatively good experience in most urban (e.g. WCDMA or LTE) markets.

The problem is that they're selling service below their long-term cost of CAPEX to maintain or improve the current network; building out A-block 700 and whatever they get from the upcoming auctions won't be cheap, and I think they're going to be caught with a lot of customers not under contract who can easily switch to AT&T (and in the future as VoLTE rolls out Sprint and Verizon), all three of whom could more sustainably match or beat T-Mobile pricing while keeping their networks operating smoothly (VZW and AT&T because customer adds are a drop in their bucket, Sprint because of the ability to evolve NV).

It seems very likely T-Mobile is going to hit a wall soon maxxing out the backhaul and facilities they built for WCDMA late last decade along with MetroPCS' bolt-on LTE. Sprint's new network is being built for 2020; T-Mobile's is largely being patched up to get through 2015-16 (with a good chunk still built for the pre-iPhone era, lest we forget).

Not to mention: who knows how much T-Mobile has held back on network investment during its dalliances with AT&T and Sprint? If Legere thought he was going to slap RRUs and 700+AWS antennas up on each Sprint NV tower to evolve T-Mobile LTE through 2020 (since the existing NV equipment could be firmware-upgraded to add T-Mobile's band 2 LTE and WCDMA in PCS) and turn off their current equipment in overlapping areas, T-Mobile is going to be in a world of pain.

Cspire has everything to gain here. Sprint has been providing roaming revenue to cspire, helping balance cspires roi for all of the rural coverage it has in mississippi. Doubling the size of the roaming partner helps pave the way for cspire to take lte to every site it owns

One thing that wouldn't surprise me though is if CSpire divested their Memphis MSA PCS and customers to Sprint and sold its AWS outside their footprint to T-Mobile; they're gonna be fifth in the game to launch LTE in Memphis (maybe even sixth; dunno if MetroPCS or Cricket launched LTE in Memphis before they were merged), and I don't see how they stay competitive in that market when they can be far more profitable focusing on areas where AT&T and VZW are weaker and Sprint & T-Mobile are largely nonexistent.

Besides which, if they wanted to be bought out in whole I'm sure they would have sold to Verizon years ago; for the longest time VZW didn't have any native coverage south of Batesville or so... it was all extended network on Cellular South.

We know that C-Spire customers in Mississippi already roam on Sprint LTE. But Sprint customers have yet to be allowed to roam on C-Spire LTE. So it may happen that nTelos customers end up on Sprint LTE networks before Sprint customers end up on nTelos networks. We won't likely know until it happens.

My understanding is that C-Spire customers only have access to Sprint LTE outside of C-Spire's native footprint. Notice the giant black hole in 4G coverage around Memphis, for example, where C-Spire has licenses and deployed CDMA + EVDO but no LTE: http://www.cspire.com/coverage/#data. You'll note that the advertised LTE coverage only corresponds with Sprint LTE outside that area to the north, west, and east, while to the south you can see where C-Spire has rolled out LTE on its AWS or PCS (E-UTRAN band 4 or 2) spectrum.

Similarly, I'd imagine that nTelos (or Sprint) won't allow its customers to use Sprint/Shentel LTE in its licensed area (possibly to avoid FCC trouble over anticompetitive behavior in markets where they are competitors rather than partners), so they have to deploy their own LTE for their merry band of customers.

+1 for SwiftKey. And, it has the comma on the main keyboard.

You can get numbers on the top row with the Google Keyboard by adding a "PC" style keyboard under Advanced Settings ➡ Custom Input Styles.

And comma was just added to the default keyboard layouts a few days ago, along with moving the voice typing icon to the completion bar.

Ah Maybe future devices will include Both GSM and CDMA bands ready for use. Wouldn't be surprising. I thought Most phones come with GSM/Wcdma 850 cellular, and PCS ready for use internationally? 

Yes, although the firmware on Sprint devices is usually is set up to deny access to US GSM/WCDMA networks (or at least those of the major carriers). However, with Sprint's pledge to sell unlockable phones going forward from Feb 2015 there will be a bigger pool of devices that can access WCDMA/GSM in the U.S. beyond the Nexus 5 (which is always unlocked, even if sold by Sprint) and possibly a few others. Plus they're going to need 2G/3G voice access on the new Band 4+12 capable devices to give voice coverage in roaming areas without VoLTE. In any event I do think Sprint should at least put in place the GSM/WCDMA roaming arrangements now even if not everyone benefits right away.

The beginning of the end of T-Mobile's network.

http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobile-confirms-speedtest-data-no-longer-counts-against-data-allowances

Via PhoneScoop: http://goo.gl/uHR5Sq

I guess the roaming deal T-Mobile got as part of the breakup with AT&T wasn't as great as they made it sound at the time.

I called Sprint retentions expecting to be sent an Airrave, but they actually did not even bring that up. They said I have been using this one tower primarily, and it is being "upgraded" as we speak and should be completed by July 1st. They also put in a network monitoring ticket for my phone for 2-3 days and will let me know the results by today or tomorrow. I think the only thing that could fix my issue is 800SMR, so hopefully that's included. 1900 isn't working too well in this neighborhood unless they somehow repointed those antennae.

For what it's worth, unless things have changed recently you can't get an Airave in nTelos-land. I tried when I was living in Blacksburg and it was no go. In fact even if you got one somehow, it'd refuse to work due to your location (the GPS locks it out; you have to be within 35km as the crow flies of a Sprint native tower due to the FCC's rules on femtocells). Unless they've worked something out with nTelos in the meantime, of course.

You could get a third party signal booster though, like one from the Wilson line.

To an extent, you want Sprint customers to have access to data to check the web or their email as they're passing through. But as AJ noted limits need to be imposed to prevent arbitrage opportunities from happening. I just randomly picked a company from the press release. James Valley Wireless is in a portion of South Dakota. Here are their phones. http://jamesvalley.com/residential/cell-phone/residential-cell-phones/

 

Not a great selection. Free of any roaming caps, if I lived in James Valley's territory there wouldn't be much to stop me from signing up for Sprint, getting a better selection of devices (and possibly a much cheaper framily plan), yet use James Valley's network 100% of the time.That isn't fair to James Valley.

Don't forget the 50% roaming usage limit for voice and data effectively forecloses this option, and I don't see that going away except in cases where Sprint deepens these roaming relationships to the wholesale level that nTelos is at. Which might not be a bad idea for some of these outfits.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

You can easily disable updates via mobile networks in Google play settings.

True, but that's an all or nothing setting. I don't care if I get a few <1MB updates each day, some of which are pulled while I'm away from work or home WiFi, even on my capped T-Mobile plan.

There used to be a 50MB hard cap on update size over mobile networks, but that went away years ago.

Anyway this has gotten way off-topic for the thread. As long as there's a reasonable roaming cap with warnings or no risk of overages without user opt-in, as has been the case with EVDO (given its slower performance), I'm OK with it. But Google (and Apple and MS) really needs to add finer-gained control of roaming data, particularly as separately-capped roaming becomes more common in the industry, to better empower users. Heck the stock Nexus 5 even lacks the separate domestic/international data roaming setting that is buried in the framework and available on other Sprint devices, which is important for border-area dwellers.

At least in Georgia I look forward to our new SouthernLINC roaming partner's rollout, which will be desperately needed once AT&T and Verizon cut off most of the old Alltel areas, and CSpire LTE will help fill in an important 1X-roaming-only gap for Sprint on I-22 between Tupelo and Birmingham.

Deliberately clicking download on a 1GB file isn't background data nor is it a surprise.

The point is *I didn't deliberately do it*. I only found out it was downloading from the notification bar when auto updates kicked in. If I'd been roaming I'd have been screwed. Particularly on LTE when it would have only taken a few seconds.

What besides application updates from Google Play are going to get you anywhere near the current 100MB - 300MB roaming limit without any user knowledge? I get maybe 100-200MB of total background data use for an entire month, I don't see the roaming limit being much of a problem unless you are streaming or purposely downloading files.

I've seen 1 GB+ application updates for games on occasion (EA FIFA 14 had a big one last month). Not the sort of thing you want to happen on a capped plan or while roaming, even if you normally would accept most updates as a matter of course.

Really all you'd need is a "no background data while roaming" setting to avoid nasty surprises, although separate data restrictions for native and roaming data would be better.

On "unlimited" data, a roaming cap is required because we have a lot of people whose attitude toward wireless data is the proverbial "if possible, then necessary."  If LTE is available, they have to use it out the wazoo.  Cannot…resist…streaming audio…watching video…and downloading...large files.

 

Ah, but they can resist.  They just choose not to exercise self restraint.  So, a roaming cap effectively imposes it for them.

My only critique of this argument is that devices can consume a lot of background data without the user knowing it, particularly since Android by default doesn't have any settings that allow fine-grained control of what happens while roaming versus native, just the global "data roaming" and "background data" settings. AFAICS you can't even set a hard data limit on roaming, just overall mobile usage. Maybe some manufacturer skins do better in this regard.

Does appear to reflect Sprint's LTE, but it's like 6 months behind on launched markets.

C-Spire has had LTE roaming in most Sprint markets (except where C-Spire has native CDMA, like Memphis) for quite a while now, although they are very aggressive in going after people with excessive non-native usage.

I don't see the satellite radio precedent as particularly compelling. XM and Sirius were both drowning in debt and weren't really competing to retransmit the same product; instead they were both independently producing 100+ radio stations, with a minority of content coming from third parties.

As for Comcast, as Fraydog points out cablecos, almost as a rule,* are either in a terrestrial market monopoly or (in the areas with U-verse or FioS) otherwise low-competition market. For example, Marion County FL is divided up between Cox and Comcast, yet there's probably not a single address in the entire county that you can choose between them. If Cox and Comcast merged, there would be no loss of competition on the consumer side. On the other hand, merging AT&T and DirecTV (or a hypothetical Dish-VZW, although Charlie has never indicated any interest in selling his baby at a commercially reasonable price) does lead to a loss of competition for consumers, just as a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile would.

My prediction: post-merger, Legere would just coast on his "rock star" image, much as post-AirTran Southwest has given up on aggressively competing with the big players, coasting on its image as the low-fare option when it no longer really is (and dismantling one of the airlines that did aggressively compete with the majors, for example by offering an affordable first-class product, in the process).

* There are rare exceptions, but I've lived in over a dozen cities and never had a choice of landline cable company.

I was looking for the updated app link. The drop box link didn't work. Maybe I missed it?

This link should work: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6qpa3tbs31zr5dg/SignalDetector.apk