hercules rockefeller

Having all these different names for their lte network will do nothing but confuse consumers. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what its called, whats important is that it performs well everywhere or at least in most places.

At this point the main benefit to 3xCA is so that Sprint can advertise insane peak download speeds and claim to be the fastest network in those areas where it's rolled out. In the future we'll actually need 3xCA to run whatever crazy applications we'll all have on our phones one day (assuming our mobile data usage continues to increase on the same pace it has been in the last 5-10 years from now). But for right now, it's really more of a marketing thing than anything else and explaining things in the simplest possible terms is clearly the right way to go (just look at how effective those Verizon commercials are). 

 

I was checking out this page, but dont see the Sprint bands listed in the US model.  Anyone know why that is?  http://www.htc.com/us/smartphones/htc-10/

 

• #WL SKU(America)
• 2G/2.5G - GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• CDMA: 800/1900 with EVDO Rev A
• 3G UMTS
• 850/AWS/900/1900/2100 MHz
• 4G LTE (up to 450Mbps)
• FDD: Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17, 20, 28, 29, 30
• Support Cat 9 LTE, download up to 450 Mbps, upload up to 50 Mbps

 

The Japan model has band 26 and 41 though.

• #UHL SKU(Japan)
• 2G/2.5G - GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• 800/850/1800/1900 MHz
• 3G UMTS
• 850/900/1900/2100 MHz
• 4G LTE (up to 450Mbps)
• FDD: Bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 21, 26
• TDD: Bands 38, 41
• Support Cat 9 LTE, download up to 450 Mbps, upload up to 50 Mbps

 

If the Japanese version has the specs Sprint needs I don't think it will be a problem for Sprint to get HTC to make a version that works for them (possibly Japanese frequency support and american software, or some sort of blend like that). Between Brightstar and Softbank Sprint has the buying power and logistics to get that done. And they'll be able to distribute that to their CCA / RRRP partners as well. 

The FAA doesn't like people on the airport, without a background check and a few other things. My company was at a converted military base airport, no airline traffic and we had to get finger-printed. Background checks and airport id's just to be on the airport. So I can only imagine what the contractors have to go though.

Ever since 9/11 it's been really hard to get security clearance to work at an airport. My father in law retired from United after working there for 30 years and got a part time job for a hotel driving their hotel shuttle, pretty much because he speaks english and his security clearance hadn't expired yet (just for the record, he's also a pretty good guy and all that, but the security clearance is what got him the job). and that's just to drive a van onto airport property; there are higher security levels for other jobs. working on a construction project on the airport would surely require more oversight than that, for the employees involved and the materials they're bringing with them as well. 

And add to all of that the fact that an airport is a huge area full of large steel structures and a swamp of RF signals. the least important of which is whatever's coming out of a private corporation's cell site. Obviously we're talking about different frequencies and there are safeguards in place so it shouldn't be a problem. But there's more scrutiny put on interference issues at an airport than at other towers, combined with the areas that need to be covered and high usage demands the planning phase of the project is going to take longer than other towers.

Variance matters when you're trying to apply the statistics to a real life decision; for example if you need consistent speeds more than fast peak speeds, that might be something to consider. But you've also got to consider the circumstances as well if you want to apply statistics to a real-world experience. With Sprint still finishing up its network vision upgrades I'd expect to see more variance in it's performance. If we were to run the same tests again next week I'd expect similar results; next month or next quarter Its I'd expect better overall results with less variance. That would be consistent with the trend of the results we've seen over the last year or so, and with the fact that we know that network improvements are ongoing. 

I don't know why it won't support B5 right out of the box; I might even be wrong about that (hopefully I am). My understanding was that roaming on band 5 won't be supported initially for any phones, that it's not specific to the G Flex. So presumably there's some sort of compatibility issue that needs to be worked out between the various networks / phones and then it'll be enabled via a software update. Don't quote me though, that's just my speculation

Doesn't the LG G Flex 2 support 5? That should only be weeks away.

You're right, it looks like it does. But it won't be able to roam on band 5 until later in the year. 

I think it was mentioned somewhere that Sprint was gonna require all phones released after a certain date to have LTE bands 2, 4, 5, and 12, (the RRPP bands) in addition to 25, 26, and 41 (Sprint's regular bands), plus GSM.

My understanding was that devices supporting 2, 4, and 12 will be available first quarter and 5 will be later in the year. 

So did upgrades stop ? I live in highlands ranch and i get lte upstars but 3g down stars.

Upgrades are definitely continuing. I would recommend calling Sprint tech support and letting them know the details of the problems you're having. There are a few things that could cause what you're describing, and they can either fix the problem or at least set the right expectations. It's possible that the nearest tower hasn't received any LTE upgrades, and the LTE from another tower is reaching you upstairs but not downstairs, or that you're in an area where you won't get B25 LTE downstairs, but B26 would reach you just fine. In those scenarios it just depends on when the relevant upgrade happens in your area. It's also possible that the equipment installed in your area is capable of getting to you downstairs, but the network needs to be tuned in order to do so. Any time you call tech support to report network problems it helps with the tuning process because the problem location is recorded in a system that's used to identity problem areas (that's regardless of whether or not a ticket is opened when you call).

I got some nice results over the weekend; I had LTE wherever I went (a mix of b25 and b26, my phone doesn't seem to like b41 but my wife's phone connects to b41 here and there. The speed tests below were at the parade of lights and the Broncos game, respectively. I think these speeds are pretty darn good given all the people around. Even the one slow result at the game yesterday was a huge improvement over the pre NV experience at Mile High. All I really want to do from the game is send text messages and get on Facebook without killing my battery and I had more than enough speed for that throughout the game.

Good, I hope they choke on their spectrum. Somehow the FCC has to clamp down on these squatters. Technically, nobody "owns" spectrum. I consider the permission (license) to utilize any RF spectrum as a privilege granted by the FCC, and anyone caught using it solely for monetary gain, and not for the the public interest in any form, should not only have their license revoked, but should be barred from future spectrum holdings.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. the only comment I'd make is that the privilege granted in a spectrum license comes from the people, not the FCC. I realize that I'm getting on a soapbox here, but I feel it's important to emphasize that spectrum is a national resource just like our air, water, minerals, etc. We all own it, and we have every right to insist that it's used for our collective benefit first and foremost. I don't have any sympathy for a spectrum holder who's not using that spectrum in good faith.

It's still hard to say. But I'll take a stab at it. If all the users were just loading static webpages and using apps that pull static data, each sector of a 5MHz channel could support hundreds of users. Maybe even 400-500. If they were each just pulling up a new page every 2-3 minutes. It could probably be pushing a thousand. So long as they all didn't hit ENTER at exactly the same time!

 

And each Band 41 channel can handle about 3x the traffic of a Band 25 5MHz channel. So you can triple those numbers for B41. And Sprint can deploy between 3-8 B41 carriers in each market. Meaning when deployed to maximum capacity, B41 could support from 9x to 20x more capacity per sector than B25.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

In practical terms the difference is going to be even bigger in the long term, because each sector will be geographically smaller than PCS sectors and will therefore be less likely to ever need to serve that many users. I know that's exactly what greencat was asking, but I think it bears repeating that B41's biggest shortcoming (poor signal propagation compared to lower frequencies) will eventually become an advantage, once the network is built out to it's full density.

If they are going in this big in Montana...much bigger than just the build out requirements would necessitate...then can I start to get hopeful about Western South Dakota?  They don't have any CCA/RRPP members here.  And they do also have G Block Build Out Requirements here, and EBS Protection Sites.

 

C'mon, baby!  No Whammies!  No Whammies!  STOP!!!

 

Seriously though, this stokes my fire.  This is much bigger than I ever thought Sprint would do in Montana.  I was expecting just a site or two each in Billings, Great Falls, Missoula and Kalispell.  The old Sprint never would have done this.

 

Robert

I'd absolutely love to see coverage in western SD. My family takes a road trip to the black hills just about every summer, and 3g coverage would be really nice.

I agree that the old Sprint wouldn't have been this aggressive, although I think it was eventually part of Hesse's plan to expand the footprint at some point down the road. 

One of the main towers that supplies service to my home is a GMO water tower site.  About 6 months ago the ground mounted RRUs and new cabinets were installed and the site was operational.

 

About 3-4 weeks ago the site was completely down again for a bit (not showing up on SCP) but about 2 weeks ago it came back online.  I drove by the site and noticed a temporary tower on a trailer was stood up with cables attached to huge concrete blocks anchoring it down.

 

Has anyone else seen such a temporary setup and would this be needed to convert a GMO to a full build?

A temp site can also be used where the existing site can't be upgraded and Sprint has chosen to replace it with another nearby site. if the rest of the cluster is ready to go but the new site isn't up and running yet the temp site allows them to move forward with turning on the cluster.

I'd be interested to see how much this statistic increases after the plethora of 5S' being given out for free.

Unfortunately, a lot of the legacy devices that aren't being upgraded are mobile broadband devices, not smartphones. That's just in my personal experience, but as an account manager for corporate and gov't accounts, I have a pretty good perspective on it. with Smartphones, you've got pressure from end users who want to have the latest and greatest device. But for a mobile broadband device if it's not broken and the end users have enough coverage / connection speeds to get their work done there's not a lot of incentive for the telecom manager to take on a big project and upgrade everyone. And then there's telemetry devices, which are mostly 1x (and will remain on 1x devices for quite some time), so they'll never quite hit 100%

I want to pay the lowest sustainable price that includes proper network growth and maintenance. I know that the lowest prices possible is not always in my best interest.

 

If it lowers it to the point that one or two of the four ends up on shaky financial footing, it's going to lead to less competition. When they go out of business or the Feds do end up allowing mergers to keep one from going bankrupt.

 

I have no idea where that threshold is. We are probably not there yet.

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

I don't think that any of the four major carriers are there yet. In fact, I don't think they're anywhere close. Just look at the ridiculous gross margins posted by AT&T and Verizon ( IIRC they aproach 50%). T-mobile may be extremely agressive in pricing, but they've also eliminated phone subsidies, which allows them to stay profitable even with lower pricing. Sprint posted a profit this quarter despite continuing to lose post paid subs. If / when Sprint gets to the point where it's not spending boatloads of money on network vision (or next year's spectrum auctions) there will be even more room for agressive pricing. At some point Sprint and T-Mobile will start to really compete with AT&T and Verizon, and that's when we'll see pricing come back down to more reasonable levels throughout the wireless industry.

Thanks all for the continuing updates on the progress. Just wondering if we have anything to look forward to prior to the June deadline set by Sprint recently. It's so frustrating to have little to no usable data coverage in the middle of downtown Denver, I know we're all experiencing the same thing and it will (hopefully) be worth it once we finally get turned on here. Thanks!

I noticed they quoted Smith, A Sprint General manager. It sounds like this is just some corporate store manager quoting some talking point they received that I have heard from my local store reps a few times now whenever I ask about the upgrades. They always talk about how Sprint is building from the outside in to make sure capacity is there or something unlike the other 3 carriers who build inside-> out and are all overloaded or something. 

No, Jonathan Smith isn't a retail store manager, he's quite a bit higher up than that. And he really does know his stuff. I think if he was being interviewed here, he'd have explained it just like Robert did a few posts back. I'm sure he was dumbing stuff down a little bit for the intended audience, and as someone else mentioned above, most of the misinformation in that article didn't come from Smith's quotes.

Does Sprint give you estimated completion dates for specific zip codes, that they let you reveal to clients that call or email in?  From discussions that I've had with clients and friends all over the Denver area, it seems we still don't have 4GLTE turned on yet, like Colorado Springs.  I was one of the people in this thread that made a call to sprint customer care this week. She gave me 4 zip codes in a work order, mine being one, and said that it looked like we would have 4Glte in those 4 areas on April 6th.  Thanks again for your time and consideration. Santa...

Unfortunately you'll probably know before I do... the only specific information I have is after the fact. I have general time frames before hand, and then once the tower is turned on it'll show a specifc date for each upgrade. We used to have expected dates, but in the wrong hands that information does more harm than good, becuase we'll end up setting unrealistic expectations with the customers. So unfortunately there's not that much info I can provide to the board in terms of predictions. But I'm happy to help clarify some of the information that care reps or retail sales reps may be providing.

Can you give me a link where I can ask you something about that. I am a sponser, and am not sure what questions I can ask on this site. Thanks Dkoellerwx!

You can IM me if you've got a question about those tickets. That's a bit limited, becuase I can't / won't provide information that's not public. But judging from some of the conversations with customer care that have been described in this thread, I'm sure I can clear some things up.

Just got off the phone with Mary from Sprint. She said denver has over 27 tickets out right now upgrading the market for network vision. Each ticket has 4 or 5 zip codes. She tracked down one ticket for me: 80012 80026 80504 80123. she said that these zips are scheduled to  have Lte turned on on April 6 2014. It took so long to get this info out of her. I didn't ask for any other tickets.

I took a look at a few of those 27 tickets and they were each for towers that have already been upgraded. They're opening a ticket for 30 days on every ticket that's upgraded, just to alert care that it's been recently upgraded These tickets aren't really trouble tickets, in the sense that they're being sent to the network technicians to fix a problem with the associated towere, they're more of an FYI only. That way if someone calls in after a cluster is turned on customer care can quickly identify the situation and let the customer know what to expect for the next few weeks.

Like Dkoellerwx said, there's not a ticket opened for the installation of a new tower (at least not in our systems; I'm sure Samsung has some sort of ticketing system to keep track of their progress, but whatever they use, we don't see it). we get a general timeframe of when it's expected, but I don't put too much weight in those numbers. sometimes they're early and sometimes they're late.

Soooo... I had to call customer service today after some lovely individual decided to steal my iPad. For grins, after filing the report, I asked if she had any further info regarding the LTE roll-out here. She asked me to hold for a moment while she looked it up. When she came back she read what she found; It said all towers throughout the metro area are scheduled to be 100% complete as of April 1st. She continued reading her notes which said there is a buffer of at most a month after the completion date for all cell sites to be brought online, fully transmitting LTE. It concluded by saying if at the end of April I did not see LTE then it is a device issue, as the network is scheduled to be fully operational by then.

 

Obviously, we all know the info provided by customer care needs to be taken with a grain of salt. However, because she didn't immediately know the answer and had to look it up made this info seem a bit more legit. Maybe we can get a couple guys from here (Santa, jthawks, I'm looking at you guys) to call customer care tomorrow and see if they get similar answers?

 

For the record, she was nothing but pleasant the whole time. Such an amazing job representing Sprint and setting an example of what excellent customer service should be!

I'm not sure where she's getting this information. The information I have (I'm assuming she's looking at the same thing I'm looking at, becuause it's the tool we should be referencing for the question you asked) doesn't provide specifc dates like that anymore. And generally not every tower will be upgraded at once. I suppose it's possible that one or more clusters would be scheduled to come up before April 1st, but there are generally a site here and there that can't be brough up with all of the others, so I would never tell someone that 100% of the towers in a generall area are going to be upgraded by a specific date. And that's for CDMA; as we've all read previously on this thread LTE follows when backhaul catches up to the towers. Hopefully that will speed up a bit now that the worst of winter is behind us.

As for the 30 day thing, that's a standard timeframe that we're all being asked to quote once a cluster is powered on, but it doesn't refer to the timeframe in which LTE will be turned on, it refers to the rough time it takes to drive test the network and tweak all of the variables to optimize coverage. From what I've seen with my customers in other markets, the first couple weeks after a cluster(s) are turned on may be a bit rough but setting an expectation that coverage will improve dramatically within 30 days is accurate. After that timeframe (or even within a couple of weeks in some cases) my customers have been very happy with the new network. So 30 days may be a standard thing for care reps to say, but it's not just a canned answer, it's a pretty good rule of thumb IMO.

You are mostly correct above, however, you can use 800 in heavily populated area.  Just point the antennas downward and drop the signal down rather than aim it out toward another site.  This has to be done very carefully.   You might need to have 2 sectors pointed downward and the third sector aimed higher to get out to a rural area.  Each site has to be individually optimized to avoid interference to the adjacent sites.   If this it done correctly, it results in a very strong signal near the cell site on 800.

 If this is done correctly, the signal will penetrate into extremely difficult spots in buildings.

However, as you said, there still can be issues if you have too many sites all with a very strong 800 signal. You may have to skip the addition of 800 on a site somewhere if other sites are just too close.

Nextel did this pretty sucessfully in the mid 2000's. They pretty much stopped building out the network footprint around 2001 or so, but that was back when Nextel was growing by leaps and bounds, so they quickly ran into capacity issues (for voice, not data). They eventually solved the capacity issues by adding towers to densely populated areas and re-tuning the ones they had as you describe above. Ironically they ended up having to take a bunch down towards the end of the iDEN network becuase they were so redundant once the iDEN subsciber base started leaving (in some spots there were just as many Nextel towers as there were Sprint towers). But the point is, if Nextel could do it with older technology, Sprint should be able to accomplish the same thing even more efficiently, given the more efficient network management tools available these days.

With many users, couldn't they be on different channels, and if so, what would be the point of joining channels?

 

Would it get a user anything if more than a few people are using their cells on that tower?

 

On LTE in cities now I get 2Mbps in the daytime, which is fine by me.

My guess is that things like carrier aggregation could potentially be used to sell different teirs of speed. Most people will never need speeds on the high end of what will be possible, but some people will be willing to pay a premium price for faster speeds. I don't think that's in any near-term plans, but Sprint has brought up that sort of possibility in the past. It would be a great way to leverage all this new technology to create a differentiated service and grow revenue.

Most chat reps don't really know what they're talking about. I would take anything you hear from them with a huge grain of salt.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Unless they have access to a tool with more detail that what I have (and I have access to all of the network tools that anyone in customer service would need), There's no way they'd have an ETA that shows a specific time like that. We used to have projected dates for various upgrades, but lately it doesn't even have that (most likely to prevent us from promising a specific date to the customer when the dates were always supposed to be a projection at best).

The chat rep may have been looking at something else, like a trouble ticket on a specific tower. Those usually have an ETA with a time and date.

Ive heard from Sprint Employees that Sprint is rebuilding there network from the ground up while other carriers are just upgrading there towers with LTE is there any truth to this? Or is this just some BS excuse to buy Sprint some time and convince customers to stay?

In my opinion most of the real value in network vision is the behind the scenes stuff; not the stuff that gets the attention like new towers, LTE, etc. It's laying the groundwork for future technologies that interests me. There are all sorts of crazy technologies in the works now that aren't available now, and Sprint should be well positioned to take advantage of them pretty soon.