Conan Kudo

Yes, WCS is much closer to commercial realization than is 600 MHz.  WCS could start showing up as early as next year, while 600 MHz is at least three years distant -- if ever.

 

AJ

According to the 3GPP, the work item for WCS has been completed, as of June 11. The final draft documents for the band spec were released on June 20. It is expected to be formally included as Band 30 on July 14. Once it is released, AT&T will begin modifying its RFPs and RFQs to vendors for 2014 deployments to include WCS. Handsets released by mid-2014 (summer launch), should include WCS.

There are still rumors that AT&T will drop AWS for WCS, but it may not happen now, because of Canada and Latin America. AWS has become so important as a band that AT&T cannot afford to drop it now. Sprint is the only stick-in-the-mud, but it'll be forced to include it too, at some point.

No way.  I strongly disagree.  I have had many years to think this through and come up with logical, systematic designations.  There is no standardization, but my methodology is among the best that I have encountered.

 

As for the + operator, it needs to be reserved for carrier aggregation.

 

AJ

Except everyone already uses it to refer to FDD allocations. n+n MHz is used all over the world by regulators to indicate FDD allocations, as well as standardization organizations and operators. Though lately, the 3GPP has switched to using 1xn MHz or 2xn MHz to indicate TDD/FDD allocations.

Functionally, there's no real reason to refer to carrier aggregation differently unless you have a particularly good reason to do so. In the end, the aggregation is still going to give you merged pipelines of a particular size.

Paynefanbro, I was teasing you a little bit with those previous posts, but I am trying to make a serious point.

 

We need to be consistent with, for example, 20 MHz x 20 MHz or 20 MHz FDD terminology.  Those two are acceptable.  But "2x20" just leads to potential ambiguity and confusion.

 

So, I am going to edit the title accordingly, also spelling out that "EE" refers to the Everything Everywhere partnership in the UK, as not everyone here is familiar with it.

 

AJ

20x20 is even worse, since 20x20 could mean you have 400 MHz of spectrum being used. And spectrum allocations are not multi-dimensional, anyway.

20+20 is more accurate. 2x20 is just another way to refer to the same thing.

n MHz FDD == n+n MHz == 2xn MHz

nxn MHz != n+n MHz

nxn MHz != n MHz FDD

I don't know.  Blame the FCC for the names they give it?   AWS spectrum is usually allocated to 1700/2100 but yet the new convention seems to call all the new spectrum AWS for Advanced Wireless Services.  I am just guessing it is called AWS since that is the purpose of the spectrum.  Maybe they are calling it AWS since LTE/HSPA+ is considered an advanced wireless service.

It's called AWS because it falls under the Advanced Wireless Services rules (Part 27). The FCC will not release new spectrum under Part 24 rules.

According to Samsung, it does support quad-band UMTS: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SPH-L720ZKASPR-specs

 

A rumor got started that Sprint specifically disabled the 850Mhz band, but I never saw that substantiated. Perhaps someone got it confused with the HTC One which does lack 850/900 UMTS radios.

 

The APN can be edited, but I'm not sure exactly how (I have to get my phone unlocked first!). Unlike the S3 though you do apparently have to root.

The HTC One does have UMTS 850/1900/2100 radios, but UMTS 850 is disabled, and I'm not entirely sure what's going on about UMTS 1900. I've heard reports that it is disabled and that it isn't quite disabled. UMTS 2100 supposedly works, though.

Samsung has confirmed with me before that the Sprint Galaxy S4 has fully working UMTS 850/900/1900/2100, especially after I caught them on an error that said it supported UMTS band 12 (which is impossible for a Sprint phone). The page was fixed shortly after I inquired.

APNs are stored as an XML configuration file, if I remember correctly.

It should be under /etc/apns-conf.xml

It also coincides with T-Mobile's massive AWS W-CDMA overlay push following the 2006 AWS-1 FCC auction.  Hmm, that is worthy of investigation.

 

AJ

It wasn't until 2010 that T-Mobile actually switched to reusing sites a majority of the time for UMTS deployment. Prior to that, UMTS and GSM sites were separate, which dramatically increased the number of cell sites.

You are asking Sprint to do something that no one has ever done. Build a nationwide network organically. VZW and ATT haven't even done that. They bought those networks to expand their coverage. Sprint would lose a lot of money doing it.

 

Sprint's name is mud right now. Building new coverage in new areas will not mean new customers enough to justify the costs. They need to reduild their brand first. Then when they show up in new places, they might have a chance to compete and take customers away from the duopoly.

 

I can tell you the old Sprint had no interest in expanding new coverage into new areas, except when it made sense because roaming costs in the area was high. However, the New Sprint under SoftBank may have a desire to branch out further. But if they do, it will be because they see a path to making it profitable.

 

And that's the bottom line. The New Sprint will probably be open to all kinds of ideas, but there has to be a return on it. They are going to he very competitive with the duopoly, no doubt. And coverages are going to improve, both within the existing network and outside. But the scale is not known yet. And it probably will be less than what we'd prefer.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

But Verizon Wireless is building a new network somewhat organically. It is deploying LTE 750 (Band 13) throughout its footprint. While it doesn't have to construct new towers, usually no one has to anymore. The United States is damn near the top in terms of cell tower density (India and China beat us, though maybe a couple of European countries do too).

It all depends on whether Sprint is willing to go through that difficult process. I don't see it ever happening without some massive network changes, but perhaps it'll happen anyway.

Definitely not T-Mobile's

I recognize those panels. They're not cellular, 700MHz, AWS, or PCS antennas. They are specialized ones. Probably for FM or satellite.

Yup, ABQ is a 10Mhz market, I'm still trying to figure out if their LTE is A or F block there. Wish you've had a TouchWiz based phone, impossible to tell on a Nexus. 

Unless you can send commands to the baseband and query for the EARFCN for downlink.

Would Sprint allow any devices that connect via LTE over either bands 25 or 26 in the future?

I'm doubtful. Despite how "generous" it is, it's hardly a bastion for BYOD. It would require some serious changes for Sprint to be comfortable with BYOD.

It's interesting that band 13 is included. Verizon is the only carrier using that band anywhere, right? Is Canada planning on auctioning that spectrum soon?

Yes. Band 13 being included is likely because Verizon Wireless has a mandate imposed on it to allow any device supporting Band 13 to operate on its network. Google doesn't have to do anything with Verizon Wireless to release such a tablet.

Sprint owns 54% of Clearwire, and it now looks like SoftBank will challenge DISH directly for minority control. So SoftBank is not giving up on Clearwire.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Where did the extra 3.2% come from? Last I heard, Sprint still has only 50.8% of Clearwire.

Where does it say that?

 

For everything I read, all they did was ADD more cash?

How do you figure that?

According to the announcement by Sprint/SoftBank, that's the key point on how they raised the extra money.

Softbank ups bid for Sprint to $21.6 billion.

 

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100804702

And it does so by taking away over $3 billion of investment for Network Vision. Not incredibly happy about that...

major chord

Are Sprint's licenses critical to AT&T?

If so, could Sprint extract some more PCS or $$$ out of AT&T?

While the licenses are critical to AT&T, there is no way that Sprint will get any PCS from AT&T. It'll likely be a cash transaction, just like the acquisition of the US Cellular markets was.

For CDMA it might be 50W. For a 5Mhz WCDMA channel:

 

"The radiated power of base stations is dependent on the cell size, the services offered, the number of simultaneous radio connections and the distribution of handsets within the cell. Today, for compatibility calculations, one assumes a maximum effective radiated power (ERP) of 300 - 400 W. Here again the average radiated power is well below this maximum value."

 

http://www.bakom.admin.ch/themen/technologie/01178/index.html?lang=en&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ad1IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCDdX12gmym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--

 

So let's say 50W per 1Mhz. For a 40MHz it is 50*40=2000W.

Here I thought that CDMA2000 uses 20W transmissions.

As for WCDMA, each panel (transmitting 5 MHz channel) uses 60-80W transmissions with T-Mobile's modernized equipment. A three-panel arrangement for NSN modernized equipment used by T-Mobile is 240W, and three sectors of three panels is 720W.

Lady Echo

Since band 14 is for public safety there wouldn't be much point in that, but if 12 (with 17 support) and 13 with 4 and 25 that would take care of US LTE for next couple years, and that sounds pretty good to me.

 

This could change in the future with sprint and softbank plus last i heard one of china's telecoms was considering using 41, so that would seem to me like a pretty good ecosystem.

China as a whole is considering going completely TDD in the future. It is considering using APT 700 TDD, which is Band 44 (which is insane, in my opinion). It is going to use ITU Option 3 (band 41) for 2.6GHz. The US switched to Option 1, while still messing it up enough that Option 1 configurations are not doable.

No offense, but we're already there. Manufacturing of devices has been done in China for a long time. Same for network equipment. The Old AT&T made everything in the US. AT&T eventually split off Lucent after divesture.

 

I may be calling for spectrum globalism here, but I'm not calling for the US to lay down on its interests. What interests would we be protecting with bad spectrum policy? I can understand the military interests... That makes perfect sense (see DCS vs. PCS, IMT vs. AWS). We've had lots of time to shuffle that spectrum around. Time for it to move.

 

To be fair, the most dominant nation in the UN right now is the United States.

The only thing stopping a reorganization of PCS+AWS to DCS+IMT is the 1755-1850 MHz still currently in use by the government. Once that paired AWS-3 spectrum (1755-1780 MHz, 2155-2180 MHz) is freed up, it would become possible to reband to IMT, but not DCS without more spectrum freed up.

IMT uses 1920-1980 MHz for uplink (UL) and 2110-2170 MHz for downlink (DL).

PCS (A-F) uses 1850-1910 MHz for UL and 1930-1990 MHz for DL. G block adds 5 MHz to UL and 5 MHz to DL. H block adds another 5 MHz to UL and another 5 MHz to DL.

DCS uses 1710-1785 MHz for UL and 1805-1880 MHz for DL.

AWS uses 1710-1755 MHz for UL and 2110-2155 MHz for DL. Paired AWS-3 adds 25 MHz to UL and 25 MHz to DL.

With the AWS-3, PCS G, and PCS H frequencies released, the following frequency ranges would be available: 1710-1780 MHz, 1850-1920 MHz, 1930-2000 MHz, 2110-2180 MHz. 

Rebanding would permit a partial IMT allocation: 1930-1980 MHz for UL, and 2120-2170 MHz for DL. If the PCS duplex gap frequencies can be allocated (1920-1930 MHz), then a full IMT allocation is possible.

DCS would still not be doable. The 1805-1850 MHz under DCS is allocated to the federal government for research and military use at this time. On the other hand, the reorganization could allow the government to shift federal use to previously occupied frequencies for PCS to enable DCS. But this would be quite challenging. I'd say it would require 10-15 years of work to do it.

Efforts are better spent fixing bands that have frequencies already allocated. 2.6GHz and 700MHz are better deserving the effort to fix them than PCS and AWS. Besides, PCS and AWS have large ecosystems in their own right. US 700MHz does not, nor does Band 41 2.6GHz.

Ah thanks, so would it be possible to make a band to support all of US 700 band plan or would that just make a mess of things?

Impossible. Bands 13+14 have an reversed duplex configuration from Band 12. That means that not even a cascading duplexing scheme would work, as the relative positioning of the downlink and uplink channels is flipped for half the band. There was little to no planning actually done in the development of the 700MHz band plan, which is why it isn't that efficient and does not promote the development of a large ecosystem.

However, there is no reason a device can't support bands 12, 13, and 14 separately in one device. Meaning, that there would be a duplex path for band 12 (with subset 17 supported), and a duplex path for bands 13+14.

I'm not an expert but if i'm not mistaken then bands 13 and 17 are subsets of band 12. If that is indeed the case then wouldn't it be easier to just tell VZW and ATT to use band 12?

Band 17 is a subset of 12. Bands 13 and 14 are separate bands altogether. Band set 12-13-14 (US band plan) and 28 (APT band plan) are mutually exclusive (meaning both cannot be supported, only one or the other).

How many bands in Europe are currently planned for LTE?  Do those bands overlap with the US?  I feel that we aren't seeing this problem in Europe yet because they are just beginning to deploy LTE in the new bands.

Of all the bands planned in Europe, only two technically could be implemented in the US: Band 7 (2.6GHz, IMT-E FDD) and Band 38 (2.6GHz, IMT-E TDD). Despite the FCC mandating a transition to ITU Option 3 in 2006 (which enables Band 7+38 operation), the BRS+EBS licenses weren't refactored to make the band easily usable.

No, no, no, you are playing with revisionist history, Ryan.  For background, read this article:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_band_plan_in_the_700_MHz_band

 

The FCC put the wheels in motion for 700 MHz mobile use fully 15 years ago.  None of what is happening now -- as the Eurasians are just finally getting around to it -- could have been anticipated.  Plus, much of the rest of the world differs greatly in its TV spectrum allocations.

 

So, as I have said before, the rest of the world more often needs to follow the spectrum planning of still the most important country on the planet.  But the Eurasians seem to like to wait and see, then stick it to the Americans.

 

As for international roaming compatibility, I could basically not care less.  It is a red herring for nearly all of the US population nearly all of the time.

 

Not to mention, local differences can serve as protectionism that is good for the national economy.  It served Japan with PDC for many years.  And, for example, the Motorola/Google X phone is supposed to be built in the US.

 

AJ

Just because you wouldn't use it, or many customers don't currently plan on using it, doesn't make it a useless feature. And there are many of those who do use it. And since operators make quite a lot of money with the international roaming capability, it isn't something to ignore. It would be ridiculously foolish to ignore it.

And by the way, Japan actually did have international capabilities with PDC, though it was only to China and South Korea. That being said, the only reason they didn't switch to GSM was because Japan (and China and South Korea) use technology-specific licensing. It is incredibly difficult to get licenses converted from one technology to another.

However, all operators in Japan are undergoing this process to make room for UMTS and LTE services. Band 41 in Japan is only possible because Willcom (now SoftBank WCP) went through the process to convert the WiMAX license to an LTE TDD one. Other bands are being converted as we speak.

Protectionism is foolish as well. It leads to situations like in Canada, where everything is so much more expensive (airing TV, mobile service, etc.). There are a lot of economic problems with protectionism.

For an industry that is incredibly reliant on scale, things like this hurt a lot.

I couldn't think of a more arbitrary and awful banding system for spectrum than what exists in the United States. It is awful. It is sociopathic. It is insane. I hate it when otherwise intelligent people defend it, I assume to defend the CDMA2000 standard.

 

The idea of a global banding system is an idea whose time has come. The US will pretty much be the only country using the awful 700 MHz plan. Even Canada has delayed their 700 auction. A switch to the APT plan would not shock me.

Sadly, Canada isn't switching. The only reason for the delay was so that the companies can adjust their bidding strategies because of the government's rejection of the TELUS/Mobilicity deal.

Two countries out of 196 are using US 700 band plan. The remaining 194 have almost universally agreed to APT 700. Some are still deciding, but it's almost a given that they'll use APT 700.

Eh, I question that, as I have not seen any official documentation.  And even if there is official documentation, I would call it baloney.

 

For me, I have standardized on 2600 MHz because it is closest to the center of the band.  Call it a happy medium.  But I definitely agree with Robert that people use 2500 MHz, 2600 MHz, 2.5 GHz, and 2.6 GHz all interchangeably.

 

AJ

Personally, I use 2.6GHz to refer to all three bands, but unofficially the official denotation for Band 41 is 2500. The official denotation for Band 7 is 2600, and Band 38 is undecided, though leaning toward 2500 as well (though handsets that support 2500/2600 are referring to Bands 38+7 being supported). Using frequency indicators is a rather annoying way to determine banding for devices, though...

Parts that support Bands 38+7 and 41 simultaneously are coming, though. Fairly soon, the frequency/band class thing may become merely an academic thing.

Ok... sorry but does the above info from my post indicate that GS4 ACTIVE will be tri-band?

The Galaxy S4 Active supports the following:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900

UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 (bands V, VIII, II, I)

LTE 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600 (band classes 20, 5, 8, 3, 1, 7)

The AT&T model swaps UMTS 900 (Band VIII) and the LTE band set for:

LTE 700/850/AWS/1900/2100 (band classes 17, 5, 4, 2, 1)

So, no. This device is useless with Sprint, since it doesn't even operate a UMTS-1900 (band II) network or a LTE band 2 network, much less an LTE band 7 one.

Also of note: if a device supports both 2500 and 2600, then it supports bands 38 and 7, not bands 41 and 7 (normally). At this moment, there are no parts that support BC 7, 38, and 41 simultaneously. Band 7 and 38 can be supported, or Band 41 can be supported.