4ringsnbr

Maybe so, but it won't change the fact that there are about 15 million EVDO ESMR capable handsets in operation today on the Sprint network. No LTE ESMR handsets are available or even planned (as far as we know). It is logical to deduce that 2-3 years from now, there will be 15-20+ million EVDO ESMR handsets out there when the first (possible) LTE ESMR handsets hit the market or have maybe 1 million devices in use. If Sprint has any sense, they will run EVDO in ESMR for a couple of years at least until the LTE needs present themselves.

One peculiarity with this phone as compared with all other Sprint ESMR handsets I've noticed. Every other handset has been approved from 817.9 - 823.1 MHz (channels 476 - 684). The HTC EVO LTE was approved only up to 822.75 MHz (channel 670). It would not be capable of using EVDO/1xA (CDMA) channel 676 should Sprint ever deploy a carrier here, although every other ESMR-enabled handset would.

The largest LTE carrier supported is 20 MHz x 20 MHz with a raw data rate of 108 mbps download (100 mbps download after overhead). LTE advanced will be able to aggregate numerous carriers (up to 20 x 20 each) together.

Until the FCC approves LTE in ESMR (if it ever does), I would expect an EVDO carrier or 2 in ESMR since almost all Sprint phones sold the past 18 months do support it and it will help the capacity constrained markets. And not a single planned LTE phone from Sprint supports LTE in 800. Plus, it will take a couple years of LTE availability to have sufficient LTE market penetration to warrant more than a single carrier (the PCS G block being the primary carrier).

Try Boric Acid-- works quite well and is harmless to humans-- to reassure your houseguests...

The 9600 bps rate is what is actually sent to the base station when you talk on the phone with 1x. It is the standard rate prior to spreading and encoding. The EVRC vocoders will be transmitted as a 9600 bps data stream to the base station that contains your phone call, error correction bits, and power control bits (from the base station to the phone). The sampling bitrates for EVRC of 8.55 kbps, 4.0 kbps, 0.8 kbps, or 2.0 kbps (for EVRC-B only) are vocoder rates compressing the analog speech signal down to bits for encoding and transmission. Only the older QCELP 13k rates took more than a single 9600 bps data frame to transmit. Basically the past few years (since EVRC has become standardized), all voice data rates use a single 9600 bps data frame for the call. It's the difference between what is encoded as a voice stream and what is actually transmitted (including error checking bits and overhead).

Sprint owns all usable (allowable by FCC regulations) ESMR spectrum nationwide except for SouthernLINC's holdings in the southeastern U.S.-- and that is the ONLY area in the U.S. where cell phone emissions are allowed below 817 MHz. There are no other usable holdings for Sprint to obtain. In other words, IF Sprint bought out SouthernLINC, they could use an additional 5x5 MHz of space in the Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, and north Florida markets. FCC only allows the 812.5 - 817 MHz cellular usage in these areas (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, north Florida, and parts of S.C.) The rest of the country has 817 MHz as the lower limit (which Sprint holds the entirety of the ESMR space).

That wouldn't be possible except in the southeastern U.S. The FCC rebanding of the ESMR forbids any cellular phone usage below 817 MHz except in the southeastern U.S. where it is allowed down to 812.5 MHz due to SouthernLINC's existence. Public Safety was relocated to the lower part of this band and significant restrictions were put in place to eliminate potential interference. This is why Sprint had to agree to reduce the EIRP allowed as their frequency drops lower in the ESMR band. They also had to agree to a 1MHz guard at the bottom (816-817 MHz) of the "new" ESMR band with NO transmissions at all.

Could be worse-- you could be with AT&T or another GSM carrier and have horrible voice quality even with a great signal...

1xA's default vocoder is EVRC-B, which is the standard for Verizon in most areas. Some people prefer it over EVRC, and it does sound very good, but I personally prefer EVRC. AT&T uses an AMR vocoder though upgraded from GSM's horrible original versions, it's still very, very poor in comparison. There are newer AMR versions with "HD voice" capabilities that Verizon plans to use when rolling out VoLTE this October.

The voice quality using 1xAdvanced carriers will be the same on PCS 1900 as well as ESMR 800. NV will replace all 1xRTT equipment with 1xA in both frequencies. As long as you have better than -105 dBm signal on PCS, your voice quality will be great.

The length of the antenna and the spacing between receive antennas on LTE for the Rx MIMO are dictated by the frequency used (actually by the wavelength). The wavelength is calculated as the speed of light divided by the frequency; therefore, the higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength (thus, smaller antenna and less space between MIMO elements). For 750 LTE, the wavelength is about 15.75 inches. A quarter wavelength will be used between the MIMO elements, so approximately 3.94 inches will have to separate the two receive antennas for 750 LTE. This means the AT&T and Verizon iPhones (two different models) will have to be bigger than the current device to fit the antenna array properly. If they do AWS and/or PCS LTE, the spacing requirement is less than half that much. This is why Verizon is looking for AWS to use LTE in the upcoming VoLTE only flip phones-- much smaller antennas for much smaller phones.

FD-LTE is always symmetrical up and down-- i.e., 1.4x1.4 or 3x3 or 5x5 or 10x10 or 15x15 or 20x20 configurations. TD-LTE will offer different up and downlink time spreads-- these systems use the same frequency up and down but split the signal into timeslices-- so many up and so many down-- these systems are flexible in terms of up and downlink timeslice percentages.

All 1xRTT PCS (1900 MHz) carriers will become 1xAdvanced carriers when the tower is upgraded. 1xAdvanced is backward-compatible: when a capable handset links, the carrier will grant service option 75 with RC11 forward and RC8 reverse links. The same carrier will use the standard RC3 config 1xRTT service for handsets that do not support 1xAdvanced. Once the tower is upgraded, there will be NO 1xRTT at all-- only 1xAdvanced (handsets for both systems will work at the highest service they can).

Hadn't noticed that one before-- looking at the FCC approvals for RF exposure, the thing has 6 antenna arrays! The whole thing looks like an antenna. CDMA/EVDO arrays are all tucked together in the bottom left corner. The top left corner has all LTE bands Rx and Tx. The 2nd Rx for LTE bands 5 & 12 is bottom right corner and the 2nd Rx for LTE bands 4 & 2 are midway on the right hand side. BT/Wifi and GPS arrays are separated from these others. Bands 4 & 2 (PCS & AWS) should be able to use similar array spacing so sharing the locations shouldn't be an issue. Similarly BC 12 (lower 700) and BC 5 (Cellular) are also close in frequency to each other, so the antenna spacing is similar (but twice as far as the other pair of arrays). There is no filtering incompatibility issue or duplex issue with Lower 700 / Cellular / PCS / AWS, so it's just a matter of squeezing all the antennas into one (fairly large for a phone) device.

The use of required was a poor choice of words. Technically, EVDO can be done without receive diversity; however, receive diversity improves real world downlink throughput by 35 - 45% and SINR by 4-4.5 dB. This is why it is used in almost all EVDO devices (phones and aircards) for the past several years. Keep in mind that the Rx diversity is NOT MIMO, so the antenna spacing isn't as critical and these antennas may be right next to each other. In the LG Viper, I think they shared the Rx/Tx with CDMA and used one of the LTE Rx antennas for the 2nd Rx EVDO-- but I haven't looked at it in a while so I don't remember exactly. I do know it used separate antennas for Rx diversity on EVDO, but didn't necessarily share the same spacing as the LTE MIMO Rx antenna spacing. The Rx diversity just helps with multipath issues and primarily improves signals in fringe areas, though all areas do benefit from it. Technically 1x Advanced doesn't REQUIRE Rx diversity either, if 3x RTT's capacity is all that is desired; however, to get the full benefit (4x capacity of RTT), you have to have Rx diversity on 1xA. Again, I would expect manufacturers to treat it as a must-do like they do currently with EVDO Rx diversity.

I think it was released about 2 weeks ago-- I didn't really pay attention-- I'm married to my MAXX for now...

They may go up, but the carriers will eat it with subsidies. They will only charge what the market will bear-- in other words, whatever AT&T charges for a device of a certain class, Sprint, Verizon, and even T-Mobile will be largely tied to that cost range. A good case in point is the new Verizon LG Lucid. This is essentially the same phone Sprint will call the Viper. Verizon charges $79 for the Lucid on contract. Sprint can't afford to move much above $99 for the same basic device. They only have additional leverage because this is their only LTE device (right now). Verizon has dozens of LTE devices-- but the concept is the same. It wouldn't surprise me to see all iPhones go into the $249 - $349 on contract price range with the LTE generation since the carriers' profits are really hurt badly by the steep Apple subsidies, which are significantly higher than other phone manufacturers.

Well there will have to be a separate AT&T and Verizon LTE model as you cannot combine the lower and upper 700 LTE spectrum in the same device with the FCC filtering requirements. The third model would probably be a pentaband phone like the GNex but have LTE in AWS and maybe PCS for other carriers-- but I don't know if the demand will be sufficient for this. I would basically expect at least 3 versions just like the new iPad. Lower and Upper 700 LTE will NEVER be interoperable-- the way they're setup and the filtering requirements to protect public safety upper and lower and channel 51 will make that a non-starter. The FCC's current investigation of LTE interoperability focuses on the Lower 700 bands 12 & 17-- the AT&T and regionals should be able to be interoperable with no issues. Band 13 (upper band used by Verizon) is totally incompatible with the rest of 700 -- it is duplex inverted, has different filtering requirements and has net neutrality requirements too.

I was on Sprint from October 2002 until mid-February 2012. I endured 2 years of dial-up 3G and no 4G with Sprint in this market since they lost native EVDO roaming on Alltel. I've switched to Verizon. I'm paying about $9 more with taxes and fees per month, but have 4G all over town and excellent coverage in places I would roam or float on 0 bars with Sprint before. Every market is different and everyone has to do what is right for them, but Sprint will have to build a bunch of towers in Louisiana and Mississippi to fill their coverage gaps to get me back.

GSM and WCDMA can be done with a single Tx and single Rx antenna and the U.S. / European 850/900 and 1800/1900 GSM/WCDMA bands have long been incorporated together in a single device. The IMT 2100 WCDMA support is a little extra compared with the standard fare, but the antenna can be shared with the PCS array. The problem is LTE since it will require 1 Tx and 2 Rx antennas (with precise spacing) to function for EACH band it supports. All of AT&T's recent devices seem to support 2 LTE bands and 2 GSM/GPRS/WCDMA bands. This device (actually two models, QMNRM-808 and QMNRM-823 is no different. It essentially supports 4 bands. The problem when it comes to other carriers is EVDO (and 1x Advanced). EVDO requires Rx diversity too, so an extra antenna is needed per band on top of the CDMA / 1x antennas. This makes it significantly harder to engineer a multi-band CDMA and LTE device. I would imagine the first multiple band CDMA/LTE devices we'll see will be the next wave of smartphones from Verizon. They will likely support CDMA/EVDO in 850 Cellular & PCS 1900 as well as LTE in Upper C 700 (BC 13) and AWS. These will be four band devices too, but the EVDO in 850 and 1900 will require extra antennas as compared with AT&T's quad-band devices.

Judging by his signature information, apparently an Evo 3D.

yeah-- the PRL should jump to the standard PCS scan if it loses the ESMR signal (goes below -113 dBm)... but it will ALWAYS search for the ESMR carrier first and constantly-- even if it has a good PCS carrier signal. You should be seeing significantly lower battery life-- SORRY!

I reviewed all their reports before making my decision to jump to big red. I was on Sprint 10 years, so carrier moves are something I don't take lightly. I'm a little upset that Verizon didn't win 1st place in Dallas, but that is the one market they don't have cellular 850 in-- only PCS A block there... but at least they won every other market.

You're on the FAR edge of that cell-- you must be 5 miles from that tower! Signal is weak, but you're on ESMR. Service Option 0 may mean you're not actually in service... The big question is whether your forward link is set to RC-11, which would indicate 1xAdvanced versus 1xRTT, which would be RC-3.