Conan Kudo

Runway Bandits

loose wire

The USCC network does support CSFB. It added CSFB support and "visitor CSFB" (meaning that the USCC system can provision to fallback to a network it doesn't control) to the network after it got the iPhone. Of course, the overwhelming majority of USCC devices use SV-LTE, but with Verizon exiting the CDMA ecosystem (and eliminating all the profitability of SV-LTE with it, since China Telecom and KDDI don't use SVDO/SV-LTE either), the remaining CDMA operators will need to use CSFB to be able to get handsets that they can afford. Sprint and Motorola have already confirmed that Sprint is not getting the 2nd Generation Moto X. US Cellular has confirmed that it will offer the 2nd Generation Moto X independently of everyone. As for the fact it supports GSM/WCDMA, my suspicion is that since AT&T doesn't allow LTE-only roaming, USCC will now begin offering devices with GSM/WCDMA so that roaming on AT&T band 17 networks will actually work properly. And of course, USCC would have the option of using T-Mobile as a roaming partner, too. Like AT&T, T-Mobile doesn't offer LTE-only roaming agreements. The agreements must include GSM and UMTS, too. This is hardly unusual for CDMA operators. The U.S. was the only country where CDMA operators steadfastly refused to set up roaming agreements with GSM/UMTS operators. It was never a technical decision. It was purely a business decision to ensure lock-in to the technology and the carrier.

I'm going to be conservative and say that the fiscal 2Q'14 will have a range of -100K to 100K net additions for handsets. On tablets, I'll say around 150K to 250K net adds. Claure's entrance and changes to Sprint occurred at the tail end of the quarter, and the iPhone launched at the very end of the quarter. Undoubtedly, it will positively influence the results, but the iPhone launch is still only at the very end of the quarter. Next quarter may be much better, though. I'm concerned about FCF. Sprint's FCF has been in the negative hundred millions for several quarters now, and that needs to be corrected. Even T-Mobile has been able to maintain positive FCF, despite all the pundits saying it couldn't possibly do that.

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To their credit, they are usually rather close on the number of handset line losses, though.

The HSPA+/LTE network uses tower-top electronics. And any cell sites getting 700MHz will use tower-top electronics too. That means when those TMAs are removed at the antenna, full multi-band 700/AWS/PCS RRHs go up in their place. The PCS-only ones aren't getting it for now because T-Mobile doesn't want to go up and down to redo the antennas several times in succession. It would be a waste of time and money to do that. So the GMOs are a stopgap until they know for sure about 700MHz in the PCS-only zones and the supply for tri-band RRHs improves, at which point they'll convert to tower-top electronics using the RRH up at the panel (or AIR systems in Ericsson areas). Essentially, the upgrade has been split into two stages to ensure it gets done faster overall. After all, T-Mobile still has to get that AWS deployed at the very least, too.

Since I've been sprinkled into this conversation, I figured I might as well jump in anyway. Yes, the portion of the T-Mobile US network for the Southeast originally used Ericsson. This is because the Powertel network was the basis for it. By 2000 (when Powertel was acquired by Deutsche Telekom along with VoiceStream), Powertel had PCS licenses throughout Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Throughout that region, Powertel used Ericsson's GSM system to power its PCS network. For reference, SunCom used Nortel, Omnipoint used Ericsson, and Aerial used Nokia. VoiceStream used Nortel and Ericsson in select coastal markets, and Nokia everywhere else. The Nokia relationship extended to the Cook Inlet/VoiceStream JV and the Iowa Wireless Services JV. In 2008, T-Mobile started rolling out UMTS using Nokia, Lucent, and Ericsson. Lucent was kicked out sometime later, and NSN+Ericsson remained. By 2012, though, T-Mobile had removed Ericsson from the Southeast. In fact, I had personally witnessed several sites in the Southeast where Ericsson was removed for Nokia and I've been told that it took place all over the region as part of the 3G/4G upgrade and it was happening in other regions too. By now, the only places where Ericsson is in use are the Northeast Corridor and California. In un-upgraded (2G only) territories, Ericsson is still present in the Midwest, portions of the Southwest and non-California West Coast region. In these areas, the BTSes and the TMAs are coming down and are being replaced with new ones from a different vendor.

Sprint's Boost/Virgin also don't have BYOD capabilities like MetroPCS, TracFone, and other GSM prepaid brands. Since most CDMA prepaid brands aren't allowed to activate iPhones, this is notable. What is odd, though, is that Virgin Mobile isn't part of this.