Conan Kudo

Garlic Jr

Why would it build it out? It won't work on any phones until ch 51 is moved, right?

I think it'll sell it, rock bottom, rather than build it out to have nothing run on it.

TMO'd probably prefer losing it to FCC than being forced to build it out.

 

Do you think sprint will tell apple to include band 12?

Uhh, because it has to?

The FCC could decide to review all licenses if it failed to build out on just one. That would be bad for any operator, as the "protection deployments" (or lack thereof) would likely not suffice under the current administration. Why do you think Clearwire and Sprint rushed to deploy WiMAX on BRS+EBS? No one wants to deal with that possibility.

So then the next cdma iphone will have band 12 right? And all androids from here on? And all hotspots? I meant at LEAST hotspots. Oh wait they don't.

T-Mobile has more motivation than Sprint to incorporate Band 12 into its device requirements, because it actually owns a license. That said, I doubt it's really a huge motivation just yet, since it is only one license (that T-Mobile is mandated to build out this year, but T-Mobile will likely get an extension).

What kind of precedent is there for piecemeal sales?  US Cellular really has a spectrum portfolio that fits with all the national carriers combined.

Does there need to be a precedent? That said, Alltel was an example of piecemeal sales. It was broken up and split among AT&T, Verizon, and ATNI. Of course, now ATNI is selling those assets to AT&T, so it's really AT&T and Verizon.

He talked about inter carrier roaming on multiple bands. He did not say sprint would be supporting those bands in its own phones.

He simply means: if c spire subs are on 700 a block and they move into a sprint coverage area with band 25, they'll be roaming on sprint's LTE. That's it.

Since C Spire already uses Band 25 for its PCS A-F holdings, that's not even an issue. C Spire has yet to build out a Band 12 network.

Why does it matter if one family owns us cell? Family or not, they care about money not legacy. It's not as if its "Carlson cellular"

They've sold to VoiceStream before. Aerial Communications was the TDS' primary GSM venue (notwithstanding USCC Maine GSM). They could sell US Cellular to T-Mobile or Sprint. I suspect that a sale of US Cellular would be piecemeal. For example, the 700/850/AWS network would probably go to T-Mobile, while the 1900 network would go to Sprint (with maybe some swaps or whatever with T-Mobile for better contiguity and PCS block sanity).

Des Moines market management passed from T-Mobile US, Inc. to Iowa Wireless Services, Inc. at the beginning of this year, I think. Though, I'm not certain if that includes engineering management, since Iowa Wireless Services and T-Mobile US have different deployment strategies.

However, both companies have improved lately, so their investment budgets toward network upgrade and expansion has been increased, so we could see considerable network equipment turnover in the next few quarters.

Are they permitted to do that? Because the US federally licensed the 451-458 / 461-468 MHz frequencies for walkie-talkie operation (classed as Family Radio). I thought trunking systems were moved into the 900 band and the channels of 800 that aren't allocated for commercial services.

Everything Everywhere is a joint venture.  That is very different from a spin off or an acquisition.  Plus, it calls itself Everything Everywhere (and not T-Mobile) for a reason.

 

For another relevant example, look at SoftBank Mobile.  It does not still brand itself Vodafone KK.  Nope, the name went back to the UK when Vodafone sold off its Japan operations to the new entrant.

 

AJ

That's true, and that's because SoftBank felt that the Vodafone name wouldn't help SoftBank. It was probably right, too. In the case of TMUS, it currently licenses the brand on a multi-year term that is automatically renewed unless TMUS decides to tell DT it wants to terminate the agreement. 

You are still missing the point.  If Deutsche Telekom were to pull out, then its brand would go back to Germany, too.  It would not allow an operator over which it no longer had control to continue to use its name in perpetuity.

 

AJ

That's not necessarily true, since Everything Everywhere isn't controlled by Deutsche Telekom at all (nor is it controlled by Orange). EE licenses the T-Mobile brand and Deutsche Telekom is happy to continue letting it do so. I imagine that it will be an option (in fact, I know it is) for TMUS if it wishes to continue to use the brand in the US. And EE is not consolidated as part of the rest of the Group's earnings.

Right-click the box-->Inspect Element-->Delete Node (x2).

 

Something I found interesting is that the "Coverage" link on the consumer site leads to the new maps, but the same link on the business site leads to the old ones (http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx).

 

Maybe they figured the business types wouldn't take pink-on-pink as seriously as green and yellow?

The new Business site isn't anywhere close to being done yet. It takes time to get updated.

And the damn address entry pop in window will not get out of the way.

I just delete the address box. Then I can see the whole map.

See below:

Yep, I liked the VoiceStream name and brand back in the day.  But "voice" is no longer that relevant.

 

MetroPCS is practically apropos for T-Mobile.  Just change it to "MetroAWS"-- and there you go.

 

AJ

There's also SunCom, Aerial, Omnipoint, etc. etc.

T-Mobile is a business; I have a hard time assigning personified traits to it like "Masculine" or "Feminine".

 

And besides, Pink is a manly color. It's the color of YOUR CLOTHES after they've been SOAKED IN THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES.

 

Ahem. Sorry.

 

The color has historically been a color of power, thus masculine. Just as purple has been.

Does anyone know how to modify the javascript - or whatever - on Tmobile's coverage website

 

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-coverage

 

to make it so that you can see the green/wcdma vs yellow/gsm at the zoomed out level?

The zooming requirement is because the map is raster-rendered rather than vector rendered. Same problem as Sprint's coverage map. If you activate the granular coverage markers at that level, it breaks.

Outside of the US and Canada, the AWS band actually includes an extra block, which is 1755-1770 MHz UL / 2155-2170 MHz DL. The superset band class for it is band 10. It's used for both UMTS and LTE. Sprint may be interested in band 10 for its international compatibility and so that it would get into the AWS game as the other three have.

Personally, I think it is a bit of a stretch. Ideally, I'd like to see the 25MHz FDD channel divided into one 10MHz FDD channel and three 5MHz FDD channels. I'd like to see T-Mobile pick up a 5MHz channel contiguous with the AWS F block, and Sprint picking up a 10MHz FDD block placed after that, with the remaining 5MHz FDD blocks being fought over by AT&T and Verizon.

I was thinking of a merger between sprint and centurylinks wireline units but then I thought about Centurylinks reliability issues and said nevermind.

Funnily enough, that's where Sprint's DSL business went. After all, SprintLink wasn't just a backbone network as it is today. It was also a DSL provider for many areas. Sprint spun it off as Embarq after acquiring Nextel, and Embarq was acquired by CenturyTel, who renamed itself to CenturyLink. CenturyLink then acquired Qwest, officially becoming a Baby Bell.

What's Telia's sub count vs. Verizon's?

 

The iPhone's spectrum support is not a level playing field. US operators get things handed to them (BC10 CDMA being one of them, LTE PCS+G being another) that other operators don't get.

One of those numbers "that don't matter" (according to some people) is TeliaSonera's subscriber count: 160 million subscribers as of FY 2012. Definitively larger than Verizon Wireless, I would think.

again follow the money its simple as this Sprint signed a 15 billion dollar contract to make sure the current and future iphones are compatible with its networks. the Clear LTE network has always been apart of that plan. everyone talks about how much Sprint paid for the iphone but no one talks about why , not cause of its is size but the unique devices apple must develop to work on Sprint's networks. if Sprint had the combine power that it has now that contract would not have been as much.  

 

Here's a dirty little secret, if you don't already know this: Apple makes everyone do this (except T-Mobile, reportedly, but I'm a little disbelieving). TeliaSonera, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, SoftBank, C Spire, everyone signed agreements toward massive volume commitments. You can be damn sure all of those operators told Apple to support their LTE networks. But they got shortchanged.

Those networks are in there infancy or non existent, when they become available and more robust. than they will be supported.. and no im not blind , I just follow the money and that's the same thing apple does

So TeliaSonera, who has run LTE on Band 7 in some countries since 2009, and had national, well-performing coverage in most of them since 2011, isn't mature enough for Apple? And somehow Verizon, who launches its LTE network at the end of 2010, and doesn't get national coverage until now, is mature enough in early 2012? I call BS.

 

SoftBank and Sprint combined, which have a subscriber total of ~88M, are dwarfed by the combined strength of Vodafone (450M), Airtel (266M), SingTel (265M), América Móvil (252M), Telefónica (250M), Orange (230M), VimpelCom (215M), TeliaSonera (160M), Telenor (150M), and Deutsche Telekom (130M). All of those operators participate in the GSM/UMTS/LTE ecosystem, and all of them are doing GSM/LTE or GSM/UMTS/LTE with LTE FDD and LTE TDD with Bands 7+38 instead of Band 41 LTE TDD. That is an ecosystem of 2368 million (~2.4 billion) subscribers.

 

Unfortunately enough, SoftBank can participate in this ecosystem and get good pricing on handsets with a swap to Band 41, but Sprint cannot. This is because SoftBank's handsets involve a simple filter swap on GSM/UMTS/LTE devices that support Band 38 to widen to Band 41 (and not include the Band 7 PA, which nearly all Band 38 devices currently do not have anyway). Also, since SoftBank uses bands for UMTS that are the same as the rest of Asia and Europe, there is a higher degree of reuse. This dramatically cuts the cost.

 

Sprint has several counts against it in the ecosystem. While it uses PCS A-F spectrum (which is widely used for UMTS service), it provides CDMA2000 service on that band instead. It also provides CDMA service on ESMR, with plans to provide LTE service on the band soon, too. Additionally, its PCS G block has not yet been auctioned elsewhere because the viability of the ecosystem is considered suspect, so the PCS G LTE network is considered "unusual". While it is true that most power amplifier parts are multi-mode, the procurement of CDMA devices and infrastructure is much more expensive because of the vastly reduced market for it. It doesn't help that Verizon's planned exit of the user device procurement market for CDMA/LTE devices will cause an ecosystem crash (it cuts the size of the CDMA/LTE market by more than half). Sprint will have to spend substantially more per device, which means Sprint has less money to spend on infrastructure.

 

3GPP infrastructure will be much cheaper for Sprint to acquire now, since it can use the combined strength of Sprint and SoftBank, but 3GPP2+3GPP gear will continue to get more expensive. That is why SoftBank wants to convert Sprint to 3GPP-only by 2017. It doesn't want to fund what it considers to be a waste (which it does consider the 3GPP2 gear to be that).

Apple supports carriers and have contracts with carriers that sell iphones, none of the carriers mentioned move more iphones than Sprint and softbank. Apple also supports the technologies of its carrier partners.  

Are you blind? Vodafone Europe (roughly half of that number) alone sells more iPhones. And Apple does not always support all the technologies of its carrier partners. Otherwise the iPhone 5 would have had Band 7 and Band 20 (Hint: it doesn't!). Nearly all of Apple's European partners had Band 7 and/or Band 20 LTE networks, but neither band is supported on the iPhone 5.

The problem with lower spectrum becomes the size of the antenna with sufficient performance in a mobile device.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

That is true, but we've already got antennas that'll work well enough in a mobile device for the 450-470 MHz band in FDD. That's why Brazil auctioned it as part of the 2.6GHz licenses and mandated broad coverage requirements with the band. They also did the legwork to get the band approved in the 3GPP as Band 31. Right now, the band is allocated in the US for walkie-talkies on an unlicensed basis, but perhaps they can be shifted into 600MHz relatively painlessly along with other unlicensed operations.

600MHz on an unlicensed basis for fixed wireless operations would make rural WiMAX much more palatable. I mention specifically WiMAX because it is designed to operate on unlicensed bands. Technically, you can do WiMAX on 900MHz ISM, 2.4GHz ISM, and 5.8GHz ISM bands, too. If 600MHz was allocated on an unlicensed basis, the IEEE would enable it for WiMAX in short order. WiMAX is also relatively cheap to design and build, because of the provisions that the IEEE requires for standardization (which the 3GPP does not require).

I am biased against the way the government has laid out the repacking of the TV stations, but I don't want any cellular carriers in the "600 MHz" band. Fixed services will go faster when there's a demand for them to do so.

I'm actually not happy about the 600MHz efforts as well. I'd rather that the mobile operators be forced to rebalance sub-1GHz spectral allocations to get everyone on more even footing. And I'm rather horrified with how the current plans are structured for 600MHz.

While I'm not a member of a WISP, I do consider them to offer significant value, and I think 600MHz should remain mostly as-is. However, if it were possible, I'd like to see 450MHz reallocated for mobile services. Or perhaps reconfigure the 700MHz band plan to be less screwed up (though I'm not sure if that's possible).

Neal may need to be careful what he suggests.  If economic forces mean that Sprint must convert fully to the 3GPP side of things in the next few years, then it will likely just acquire Neal's beloved T-Mobile -- as many already think Sprint will do.  And that will present the easiest transition opportunity, since T-Mobile will bring to the table a preformed W-CDMA 1900, W-CDMA 2100+1700, and LTE 2100+1700 network.  Move Sprint subs to T-Mobile's W-CDMA network, then refarm CDMA2000 to W-CDMA and LTE.  Additionally, Sprint gets back into the AWS game, which Neal seems to think is so vitally important.

 

So, if we are making unpopular prognostications around here, well, there you have one...

 

AJ

An even less popular suggestion would be that Sprint's subs would drain away, causing SoftBank to make a deal with Deutsche Telekom to do a spectrum sharing deal with T-Mobile and permitting Sprint to use the procurement JV that T-Mobile uses to buy equipment to expand and deploy faster and cheaper. Sprint would get immediate access to PCS WCDMA, AWS LTE, and it can have its spectrum used to fill in the gaps for PCS WCDMA service. With network sharing, T-Mobile's network and Sprint's 3GPP networks would be one and the same, while Sprint would maintain on ESMR its own CDMA1X network. The end result would be that Sprint would be effectively an MVNO, because a merger or business combination of any kind would probably not be permitted by the DoJ (and maybe still even the FCC).

You said an awful lot of stuff that didn't really matter. If pure size dictated what happened in the telecom world, China would rule. However, Japan and the Americas accounted for over 50% of iPhone 5 sales. When one says the Americas, it's pretty much the United States. There aren't a lot of subscribers with enough money to buy an iPhone outside of the States in the Americas. Sure, Canadians have money, but there aren't many of them. There are a lot of people south of Texas, but the GDP of all of the Americas was about $21T, with the US making up $14.7T and Canada $1.34T. That's not an awful lot left for everyone else. If 88M subs isn't enough buying power, you're not likely to ever have enough buying power.

China doesn't matter because it refuses to play in the global space. It doesn't do much in the 3GPP, and most of its operators just quietly use bits of it without really contributing. The infrastructure vendors contribute some, but not nearly as much as others do. The Chinese government also makes the state-run telecom industry incredibly insular by forcing the use of Chinese infrastructure gear and Chinese handset vendors. This makes China's use of Band 40 and 41 effectively irrelevant, because the vendors and suppliers that Chinese operators use aren't often playing the global space.

And strictly speaking, the iPhone is a luxury brand, which means that China is practically off limits for it. The iPhone doesn't sell well on China Unicom and China Telecom, because it costs too much. China Mobile won't ever sell it because of technology and because the customers won't buy it from the operator.

And while there's diminishing returns on scale larger than 200M subscribers, suppliers will still give priority to larger customers. When you can deliver one handset that works for over 2 billion subscribers, you can make a serious amount of money on the operator orders for even a fraction of that 2 billion.

Vendors know to make the assumption that around 25% to 40% of the subscriber base will adopt a new smartphone within 12 months (postpaid contract tenures mainly). This number is higher for cheaper handsets on prepaid, but lower for higher-end handsets on prepaid. This is where having a larger number of subscribers helps. The fewer the number of subscribers, the less likely the operator will order enough to break even. 

And strictly speaking, there is a bit of a balancing effect in the 3GPP. While some operators have more influence than others (VimpelCom, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, etc.), they can't set policy because others smack them down (Vodafone, Telenor, Telefónica, etc.) and force a degree of reasonableness in global affairs. I wish they had with the US 700MHz affairs, but most didn't care since everyone knew that no one would be dumb enough to adopt the US band plan. Until some countries did... *sigh*

Come on now. There is CDMA 1900 and 850 service in Canada and Mexico as well.

 

If you were right, U+ using CDMA 1800 as a lone user would throw a dagger into your previous argument. How does U+ get devices for its network if its such a small fry with a proprietary CDMA spectrum?

Well, it used to run CDMA-850 service until they refarmed it for LTE in 2011. The CDMA-1800 service is largely cell site protection at this point, since U+ has VoLTE deployed on LTE-850 and LTE-2100. The regulatory environment makes it difficult to convert a license for one technology to another, so it is cheaper to just let the network rot.

Iusacell doesn't seem to sell any CDMA service in Mexico to subscribers anymore, so I didn't count it.

The only operators? The only major operators, perhaps. In the U.S. (ignoring the soon to be defunct MetroPCS, Alltel (ATN), and Cricket networks), USCC, C Spire, nTelos, GCI and Alaska Communication Systems are still around. Individually they don't have a lot of customers, but together they still provide demand for CDMA on PCS. There are also still some CDMA operators in other smaller countries. When CDMA does eventually get phased out it will be interesting to see which choose to invest to rebuild their networks and which seek to be bought out.

 

I do think Sprint should dedicate SMR entirely to 1xA and ride that as long as possible for their voice services. LTE can be on 600/1900/2600, with PCS A-F refarmed to FDD LTE. However, even on 600 MHz, VoLTE will have inferior capacity and propagation to 1xA on SMR. I'd be willing to pay a little more for my handset if it means I have superior voice coverage. The only issue that would need to be resolved then is a band plan with Canada and Mexico so Sprint can deploy SMR at full power in the IBEZ.

 

I suppose if Sprint's willing to put up more cell sites it could get the same coverage with VoLTE, but I imagine that'd be more expensive than paying some more for handsets.

 

You're right. I forgot about USCC. However, GCI and ACS are merging their spectral assets into a shared GSM/UMTS/LTE network (called Alaska Wireless Network, or AWN) to better compete against Verizon and AT&T. The FCC recently approved the network sharing and spectral transfer agreements.

nTelos wants to be bought out, and their size makes them irrelevant. I did also forget about C Spire (shame on me, I live in Mississippi!), but at the same time, C Spire is piggybacking off of Sprint's ecosystem, so it isn't doing anything on its own.

As for CDMA 850/1900 in other countries, the networks are gone. Telstra and Telecom New Zealand replaced their networks with UMTS. Vivo in Brazil returned its spectrum to the government years ago in exchange for some 900MHz spectrum and completed its CDMA shutdown earlier this year. America Movil has shut down CDMA across its Latin American properties except for Claro Puerto Rico, where the network has been downsized and merely exists for VZW roaming. There is Open Mobile in Puerto Rico (a divested movistar/BellSouth asset that went bankrupt and came back to life only to buy 700MHz Upper C block for PR+USVI and deploy LTE and VoLTE). 

Seemingly, no one has provided any substantive evidence that Qualcomm is increasing CDMA2000 prices.  Right now, it is just an idea, not a reality.  And since Qualcomm owns the vast majority of CDMA2000 intellectual property, it might as well milk those patents for every last dollar rather than price CDMA2000 users out of the market.

 

AJ

I never said Qualcomm was jacking up its prices for CDMA2000 chips. But it is lowering the prices of chips that don't have CDMA2000 on them, effectively making the CDMA2000 chips more expensive.

If they refuse to make more CDMA, what choice will Sprint have? With Verizon's 100mil gone, it's a losing game for Sprint. Qualcomm, if it can, will raise rates for CDMA chips to make up for !poof! departure of 100mil potential customers. Who else in the world is still marketing CDMA service?

At this point, the only operators that offer CDMA-850 or CDMA-1900 service globally are MTS India (850), Verizon Wireless (850/1900), and Sprint (1900). KDDI and China Telecom use CDMA-2100, and U+ uses CDMA-1800.

His point is that with Sprint's 50 mil, no one would lose anything by making devices just for them.

And my point is that from the suppliers' perspective, the R&D costs aren't made up from such a small base. It's not just parts. It's paying the people to figure out the proper optimizations and arrangements to make the hardware work with a suitably high level of performance. If this was a raw manufacturing game, he'd be right. But he's not because it isn't. It has never been that way.

And besides, of that 50 million, only 25-28 million actually are served by the Sprint brand. And that makes it worse. And of those subscribers, roughly 30-40% actually upgrade to new handsets. That means that the reasonable target is much smaller.