4ringsnbr

You hit the nail on the head, Jeff. I was with Sprint from October 2002 until February 2012. I put up with 22 months of sub-20kbps daytime data speeds and no 4G. I filed trouble ticket after trouble ticket, emailed Dan's office (executive care group) and spoke with them numerous times... hell, I had the TRV escalations direct dial number in my phone. 1 or 2 small bandaids and now, almost 2 yrs later, the speeds are still below dial-up-- unusable data all over the city. I was paying $81 a month for what was basically useless. Now with Verizon, I have basically the same plan (including AMAT), pay $8 / mo more with taxes and my speeds are over 1000x faster and consistent.... the data is ALWAYS usable. When the EVOs start coming off contract in June, Sprint is in trouble in many areas.

eHRPD is just the EVDO carrier routed through the eNodeB's IP interface (the LTE gateway and the traditional EVDO HA Gateway are different). The handoff won't be totally "seamless", your handset would change IP addresses between Sprint's and Clearwire's networks in a similar way the WiFi to 3G/4G handoff works today. The gateways and IP networks are totally separate and would have to remain so. It's just to clarify the "aggregation" term everyone keeps using-- by its own definition, that isn't possible between two separate networks, though you could possibly switch between them. It's an "or" versus an "and" situation.

That looks like typical performance for the past 2 years there-- sectors 348, 351, 345 are all horrible-- channel 100 is the worst, 75 the best, and 175 somewhere in the middle, but none ever see greater than dial-up speeds. I wonder how well SDC PTT works with that ping? Late at night and early (before 6 am), the pings get down around 500 ms or so on EVDO. I'm at my office on Coursey and just ran this test at 11:00 am to kick off the lunch hour... Lte is sweet... though this is the slowest speed I've seen in this part of town to date.

If you had a device that would work with Clear's 2.5 GHz LTE and Sprint's LTE, you could still switch back and forth between them -- essentially roaming on Clear's network, but you could never use both networks to provide a greater bandwidth. LTE-Advanced aggregation works like EVDO Rev. B or MC-- it combines numerous carriers using them all simultaneously for greater bandwidth-- but this will not work if the data is coming through two different subnets since your phone can't have a split personality. You'd still be able to use one OR the other but NOT both at the same time-- so aggregation can't work, but their network could augment Sprint's so you could use either one; however, I doubt you'll ever see a tri-band LTE device until it no longer has to support CDMA at all-- the radio electronics and antenna requirements would be too much.

Yes-- carrier / capacity upgrades, but all the FUTURE data SPEED upgrades have been removed.

Obviously we're all guessing what the future will be and only time will tell, but I do know that Verizon is planning VoLTE only feature phones (flip phones) for next year. When they do this, it would make a lot of sense to have them on LTE in AWS. The higher frequency means much smaller antennas and much less space required between the receive diversity array since 700 MHz LTE has a wavelength of 42.5 cm and the receive (2100 MHz) AWS is 14.2 cm. As far as their current LTE loading, I've heard that speeds in NYC and other crowded areas are occasionally dropping below 15 mbps on LTE, so they'll probably be looking to do something sooner rather than later.

Well last week, there were still future data speed upgrades shown in various places. Now, there are NO future data speed upgrades shown anywhere I see in the country (haven't checked EVERYWHERE yet). There are still SOME future data capacity upgrades shown (though they did eliminate the Coursey/Sherwood one and the Downtown one), but NONE of the data speed upgrades are shown anymore. Obviously I can no longer follow and report on the current speeds at Sherwood, but I'll bet they're still under 50k all day long.

They also cancelled the March 31 proposed 4th Ev carrier for the Coursey / Sherwood tower that digiblur posted the wonderful 66kbps test on this weekend (at night). That could be very bad or very good news I suppose...

If you go on the network,sprint.com, all the planned "data speed upgrades" (band-aid T1s) are gone-- everywhere.

Because their standard PRL has scans for almost all the channels in the block-- if they tested in any block other than G, customers' phones could see those carriers and sync-- hence my testing PRL...

Yeah-- Sprint sold 10 MHz of the A block they had here in Baton Rouge since they weren't ever going to use it anyway...

The primary reason for iPhone's better battery life is the small screen size. The greatest battery drain on any phone is the display. As the diagonal screen size goes up, the area goes up even more (it is a squared relationship)... i.e. a 4.3" vs. a 3.5" screen has 50.9% more area to power. As soon as the iPhones have decent size screens, their battery life will plummet.

Since LTE is not approved by the FCC for use in ESMR, it CANNOT be used in a FIT test. Its use would only be allowed in an RF shielded laboratory environment. In the FIT tests, they're actually broadcasting on public airwaves, so LTE use in PCS would be allowed as would CDMA/EVDO in ESMR, but they wouldn't allow any LTE broadcasts in ESMR until that approval happens.

Yes-- all LTE-Advanced does is combine the various bands and channels your phone can use into one data pipe, which is why it WON'T work with Clearwire's 2.5 GHz LTE since that network will have a different subnet, IP & gateway. But on Sprint, if they run say a 5x5 carrier in G block PCS and a 10x10 in A block PCS, the phone could use its single PCS antenna array to combine the two carriers and offer a peak speed of up to 108 mbps. If they ever approve LTE in ESMR and the phone had separate electronics and antenna arrays to work in that band and a baseband that supports inter-band aggregation, then you could combine an ESMR and a PCS LTE carrier in the same way-- as long as your signal held on the PCS channel of course. But the phone would have to be capable of both bands on its own first with hardware (and FCC testing of course).

If they need to use 3x3 carriers in PCS, they should retest the Viper and GNex. If you noticed the bottom and top frequencies tested were center channels of a 5x5 at the bottom of PCS A and top of PCS G. In order to consider a 3x3, the bottom tested frequency would need to be 1 MHz lower (for a 3x3 in A block) and the top one would have to be 1 MHz higher (for a 3x3 in G block). Since a couple of Ev carriers will carry more data in a 2.5 MHz swath than a 3x3 will (in 3 MHz), this wouldn't be a smart move.

It isn't a matter of retesting. The LG Viper and GNex do NOT have the preamps & LNAs (or the independent antenna) to do LTE in any other band besides PCS. In order to do any other band, they would have to have a preamp/LNA, diplexer & filter transmitter IC added to the circuit board then either new antennas added or possibly share the CDMA/EVDO antennas if the Rx diversity spacing is correct for that band. These two phones tested do not have the physical hardware to ever support any other LTE bands.

You're forgetting that with the SDRs (post-NV), changing from EVDO to LTE (or vice versa) on a radio is a remote flash operation (supposedly). It will take them no effort at all to turn on and off EVDO carriers to maximize their use of their own spectrum when time / conditions demand-- for example, when iDEN is still running, but you can corner it down to use half of the band and afford to run 1xA and EVDO in ESMR for a year or so-- this would be easily done with the new gear and wouldn't require a truck roll or hardware change to go back-and-forth between EV and LTE as needed (in theory). Also, you're giving Dan Hesse too much credit for even being aware of what's going on-- he's a CEO. Remember the CTO that works for him (Stephen Bye) famously said in an interview that Sprint's network was ready for and could handle the iPhone with no issue and that their partnership with Ericsson made them able to respond instantly to carrier / backhaul needs. I literally ROFLMAO when I read that-- their network can't handle the phones they have now (pre-iPhone), and it took them over a year after initiating an upgrade "project" to even touch our towers that were running under 10 kilobits! These execs aren't always in touch with all the details-- they're big picture guys.

Verizon is trying to buy 20MHz or so of AWS on the west coast from the cablecos right now... But, VZW could also use PCS for LTE. In my area, they aren't using any PCS (they have 30 MHz of PCS here), since they run 9 carriers in their Cellular 850 spectrum here, so they could do either (or both). The problem is the difficulty of making an LTE device that supports more than one (or maybe two) bands due to the physical limits for antenna & RF hardware. Apple will have to make two different models for AT&T and Verizon already as it's not presently possible to make a single device work for both bands without interference exceeding FCC limits. I assume they'd use AWS as the "other" LTE frequency since that seems to be headed toward the universal band for that here in the U.S., but time will tell.

Except that transmissions in the ESMR band are governed by FCC rule 90S versus cellular band rules of Part 22H. I believe the EIRP limits are different and that's why they're still treated seperately (and tested seperately) to this day. As long as the FCC governs these two bands separately, there will have to be additional precautions made in the devices.

I'm always hopeful of the multipurpose adaptable handset that is polymemetic ala T1000 and the TX... but by then we'll all be in hiding from the machines that have taken over the planet...

The problem as we've discussed before is that the software has nothing to do with it. The problem is the analog RF IC preamp/LNA & Diplexer / Filter. We still don't know how to make these totally adjustable parts. The SDR (software-defined radios) that Sprint will use still have analog IC electronics that make the transmitter work-- the software part simply lets them load (flash) an LTE or CDMA 1xA or CDMA EVDO Rev. B/A/0 carrier on whichever transmitter that is built into the device. The software and baseband processor are easy-- we're already there. Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone who has designed an analog diplexer/LNA/filter that is totally programmable, software-adjustable, and can meet the tight emission standards of the various FCC standards (90S/24E/22H) necessary to be approved for use.

That would be a bad idea-- in that space, they can run a 2x EVDO carrier setup for better performance. Also, EVDO is approved for use in ESMR and has about a dozen handsets in the field that support it. LTE is not yet approved in ESMR and there are no devices presently planned to support LTE in ESMR. I would think that IF they ever do any LTE in ESMR it will be after 2013 and it will be a 5x5 alongside a 1xA long after iDEN is gone. Between now and then, the 1xA is there and if they have enough holes from iDEN decommissioning, EV carriers can make good use of that space. Based upon VZW's experience, Sprint shouldn't expect more than 5-8% LTE penetration per year initially. This means the majority of the handsets in use as late as the end of 2016 will still be 3G EVDO only, but will support it in PCS and ESMR. Time will tell.

I'd be really surprised if the iPhone 5 will do LTE in PCS anyway. They already have to make two different versions in LTE: one for AT&T and one for Verizon since they can't make both bands work in a single device due the filtering issues. The third version would be similar to the "world phone" iPhone 4s they have today except it'll probably also support AWS to let T-Mobile join the party. I would also think the two LTE versions (AT&T and Verizon) will also do LTE in AWS, since AT&T will have to use AWS from the get-go and Verizon will likely be cranking up their AWS LTE with the phase 3 LTE rollouts early next year as they finish their whole footprint.

I think that's the plan-- start with a 5x5 in PCS G-block and slowly add more LTE carriers in PCS as you can transfer folks from EVDO there. That's also one of the reasons they're likely to run EVDO in ESMR-- it is more efficient than LTE in smaller spectrum slots. Sprint could pretty easily run a 10x10 LTE PCS carrier in addition to their G-block PCS carrier if they need more bandwidth, especially if 80+% of the Sprint handsets can use 3G/EVDO in ESMR (like they can today).

This guy's analysis was strictly based upon a 4G LTE spectrum point-of-view with the assumption that the iPhone 5 will be at a disadvantage on Sprint. It remains to be seen what the new iPhone will support. Based upon the new iPad, we could assume they'll make 3 versions of the iPhone5: one version for AT&T/regional lower 700 LTE + AWS LTE, a second version for Verizon upper 700 LTE + AWS LTE, and a third version that is GSM/GPRS/HSPA/CDMA/EVDO 850/AWS/PCS for everyone. I don't know how many versions Apple will want to keep track of, and they've given no indication of supporting ESMR 800 MHz band in any way whatsoever. I would think the iPhone is a non-issue. If I were sounding stock alarms for Sprint, it would be due to their high debt level (over $22 billion now) plus the $15+ billion Apple obligations and $5-6 billion unfunded NV future costs over the next few years. Sprint does have a rough road ahead, and any significant churn, loss of subscribers / revenue, or future loan / bond sale disruptions will really hurt them.