Conan Kudo

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

major chord

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.

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

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.

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. 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.

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).

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, that's what I'm referring to. It's partially determined by middle downlink frequency, but not always.

Wrong. 2600 refers to Band 7, while 2500 refers to Band 41 (according to frequency indication conventions).

The 4x2 MIMO is actually 4x4 MIMO operating in 4x2 mode for compatibility with existing UE. Once UE with 4x4 MIMO support become available, the systems can updated to enable it.

In theory, someone could buy the Ch51 stations and shut them down. There are sufficiently few of them that it is possible. However, it would make the FCC very mad. They don't like stuff like that. The FCC was aware of the issue from the beginning. Lower 700 A block was auctioned at a lower cost (my house costs more than the A block license for my market!) than the others. The FCC dawdled a bit on dealing with it, before finally freezing applications for Ch 51 in August 2011. They haven't done anything since.

Filters/Duplexers are not included in the RF360 solution. The integrated PA switch still requires external filters/duplexers. Most manufacturers use filters/duplexers from Murata. Look them up.

T-Mobile is powerful enough to dictate terms to Apple in terms of banding support. The agreement was negotiated as an amendment to Deutsche Telekom's global Apple device procurement agreement. Deutsche Telekom is definitely more powerful than AT&T. Exactly. And any Band 12 device can support Band 17 through software, since Band 17 is a subset of Band 12. So AT&T LTE roaming would still be possible.

I worry about 600MHz. There are a lot of technical problems with it. One major issue is that 600MHz and 700MHz can't be present on the same device with specialized antennas for each, apparently. And using a 700MHz antenna for 600MHz is less than acceptable (though doable). Another major issue is the sheer number of band plans suggested. I still haven't figured out everything about each band plan that has been presented, but the TDD plans are utterly insane (the power levels required and the amount of RF leakage that would have to be permitted would completely screw over nearby bands). Some of the FDD plans have weird duplexing issues, which means that very tightly designed filters would be needed to ensure that Channel 37 doesn't get blown over. Power levels have to be lower than normally expected, which means that cellular density might be slightly higher than expected for 600MHz or even 800MHz deployments. I would much rather see T-Mobile buy the 700MHz Lower A block and use that, instead. It would be cheaper than the auction, and it would be far less of a headache than what 600MHz is shaping up to be.

Exchanged change

miniature golf

That's very foolish, A.J. The whole point of OS updates is to patch defects in the software to ensure a good experience. The reason why people care is because there are people out there who want to exploit software defects to do bad things to users. Android updates close those holes in the OS. And sometimes, new security features are put in place. You don't have to do that. Just flash the older baseband and keep the OS image up to date. Benefits of both worlds.