Tengen31

I personally don't think Dish will buy the SMR spectrum from Sprint. 

...which would be B26. Just like "reconfiguring B4 to include extended frequencies" resulted in B66.
FWIW the slice of B26 Sprint uses for LTE is right next to the bottom of B5, with a center frequency of 821.3 MHz on the uplink. That leaves 200 KHz between the top of the "advertised" 5 MHz LTE band (actually a bit more than that because as I recall a 5 MHz LTE carrier has 500 KHz of guard band built in) and where CLR starts. Then the 1xA carrier Sprint's using runs below that, rounding out their use of the 7x7 of SMR they have.
Catch here is, you'd have to reband the entirety of CLR + SMR to get what amounts to 5 MHz of extra spectrum over what's available in CLR + SMR right now...and that would have to happen across everyone in the band. 'cuz right now you have 10x10 + 10x10 + 5x5...potentially even better spectrum usage for folks who are shimming a 1x channel or some GSM in there (Verizon or rural carriers). You're not just dealing with all three major carriers.
At which point you only benefit spectrum-wise if you drop from three carriers to two in the band...and you can get to two carriers in the band with one of them having 15x15 without rebanding. Hard sell when the two carriers you'd see in that band already have B12 and B13 networks.
I'd much rather see Dish hold onto that spectrum, shunt all LTE users to B12, and replace the B26 carrier with 5x5 NR. T-Mobile can rent the remaining 2 MHz back from Dish for 1xA until they shut down CDMA entirely, allowing T-Mo to drop PCS CDMA (RIP) more quickly. Phones have had SMR CDMA for 8+ years at this point so switching PCS CDMA off shouldn't be a big deal at all. T-Mobile can use the existing ex-Sprint equipment to run the network on the cell sites they're keeping since you don't need nearly the density for 1x on SMR that you need for anything at PCS or higher.
Yes, this assumes Dish will actually launch a network. Holding out hope that that does indeed happen.

I am also interested in what T-Mobile or Dish will do with the b26 spectrum. While Dish has an option to buy it after 3 years and a penalty if they don't, I am not sure why they would want to. I would like for T-Mobile to sell it to the Cellular Carriers (band 5) and have them redo band 5 to they can each have 15x15 allocations.

Ah gotcha, thanks! It's the first and only tower I've seen with 15mhz B2 in the area though I haven't been in either of the downtown area since before the pandemic started, I mostly frequent the east metro area from Woodbury through River Falls.

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Just noticed on the way up from the Twin Cities to Duluth that B2 was 15MHz on one of the towers kiiiinda in the middle of nowhere by Rush City MN off I35. TMO didnt have 15 befoee anywhere, right? Wonder if there were so little Sprint customers to justify larger B25 so they refarmed it for B2 like in some cities?

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I cant believe today is the official last day of Sprint. Not sure if I want to celebrate or cry or both lol

With the Sprint brand going bye-bye August 2nd, does anyone thing there will be any network related changes on that day also?  Maybe something like all Sprint phones being moved to the T-Mobile network that day also?

I was able to go back to this area today to track this site down and do some testing. 



The site is also broadcasting a 20MHz B41 carrier, using a different GCI than the rest of the LTE bands on the site. B2/B66 are on 0064C0xx, B41 LTE was broadcasting on 01A539xx.


B41 only speedtest:

Some other notes, this site is only mapped as 2/4(66) on cellmapper. I didn't think to test but I don't see the typical 600MHz equipment on this site. Not sure why they wouldn't have added that as well, not sure if B12 is present or not either. I did see other B41 neighbors with PCIs different than the 3 associated with this site, so likely there is another site somewhere nearby. B41 LTE did not aggregate with anything else, I had to force my phone to B41 only to connect to it. No B41/N41 at least yet. 
 
 
 

Yeah, will be interesting to see what they do with that.  I haven’t seen any indication that they’re slimming down Sprint B25 here to widen T-Mobile B2, but I’m not even sure if the carriers are contiguous. We’ve only got a 5x5 slice of T-Mo LTE to begin with. 

Hopefully they do B25+41 CA at some point

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Surprise surprise! Finally got the extra 5mhz of B2 on my home site (and probably neighboring sites). It definitely helps since B2 is involved in all CA combinations.

And that is where this potentially gets really complicated pending the agreement in place with them. I would be very surprised if they could just simply both go their own ways in the market as going concerns with any agreement still in effect. We know from the Shentel negotiations right now that with them there are basically 4 potential options: 1) Continue to be an affiliate 2) If an affilate agreement can't be worked out, T-Mobile has the option to purchase at a pre-agreed upon process price 3) If T-Mobile fails to exercise the purchase option Shentel has the option to purchase T-Mobile's network and subscribers in their service area 4) If no agreements on 1 through 3 are reached, T-Mobile has to walk away from Shentel's market. The terms may be slightly different with Swiftel, but I wouldn't be surprised if they very similar.
 
If that is the case, it is quite possible they literally can't go their own ways very easily. This type of situation is what led to the affiliate lawsuits that led Sprint to buy nearly everyone out after the Nextel and to some extent Clearwire acquisitions. As an aside, this is also a market where Sprint only acquired any BRS/EBS very recently due to the SpeedConnect acquisition. And in the case, of Sioux City, new T-Mobile still does not have any BRS/EBS spectrum at all.

Once again I am throwing myself at the mercy of those more knowledgeable that I here on S4GRU.
I mentioned in a previous post that I switched to T-Mobile very recently and using my iPhone I can see I'm on a PCI unaccounted for in Cellmapper and I'm getting a very good signal and speeds so my curiosity is getting the better of me. So today I did a little walking tour of the neighborhood and determined the mystery PCI has a radius of about 1 city block. Too big for a Femtocell I think. Well at the area of highest signal strength (full bars) I found one if these on top of a street light. Might this be my mystery device? There is no apparent data connection just power. 

The fact is that there are more neglected areas than good areas. New York, Las Vegas, KC, Denver were good markets. Everywhere else? Swiss cheese coverage with overloaded B26.

Never a good idea to broad brush the whole network. We know your area struggled, but there were many markets where B41 was essentially ubiquitous, and had excellent capacity and speed. Essentially everywhere I went in KC I was on B41, and rarely struggled with speed. Same with Denver when I visited. Others clearly had similar experiences in other markets.

I can only speak for own market but Sprint's Band 41/n41 network in NYC was significantly better than T-Mobile's current Band 71/n71 network. We also largely avoided the mini-macro debacle and went straight toward traditional small cells which Sprint was continuously deploying up until the merger closed.
T-Mobile would be doing itself a favor if they kept all of those small cell locations and switched the equipment to mmWave capable equipment. Sadly it looks like they don't really want to do that. 

It wasn't horrible spectrum. It was just horribly deployed. Sprint needed a more dense network to make it work, but they never added towers. They really wasted most of that spectrum and never got good use out of it.

Every step Sprint made was the wrong one with the EBS/BRS band. Opting for mini macros in some places was a half-assed attempt at adding capacity. They should have just spent money on better performing 8x8 radios/panels that had more robust coverage and performance. Also, Small Cells wasted 40 Mhz of spectrum because Sprint didn't want to pay for proper backhaul. And the plan to go all in on small cells was a joke. Thinking that macro towers weren't needed was just a huge swing and a miss.

Sprint did everything they could to cut corners, and it showed by the Swiss cheese coverage of B41.

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I find it funny that all the T-Mobile fanboys are pressed over Sprints b41 all of a sudden and wanting to use it. But when it was used on Sprint, it was considered horrible spectrum and that T-Mobile was better positioned with spectrum. If T-Mobile isn’t using it then it’s no good. The same goes with DSS. Right now they’re trashing it but as soon as T-Mobile implements it, it’ll be the best thing since sliced pie.


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T-Mobile must've heard my complaints about n41 because I ran into it a bunch of times today in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. I've also seen a bunch of sites that have n41 panels installed but that aren't active. A few of the sites with inactive n41 also have those new Ericsson AIR 3446 antennas that support mid-band FDD 5GNR.
Fun fact for people wanting to test n41. If you're on the Prospect Expressway in Brooklyn, there is a site that is eye-level with the highway that has n41. Here is a speed test from it and take a look at that signal strength and upload!

https://www.fiercewireless.com/operators/verizon-s-cbrs-3-5-ghz-deployments-rise-rootmetrics

New T-Mobile seems really aggressive with the rollout and I am sure the executives realize that any advantage they have on VZW will surely dissipate. VZW is almost ready to rollout their own mid band spectrum and we know AT&T is not sitting idle either. Factor in the Note 20 and iPhone 12 launches, New T-Mobile really needs to keep up the pace to keep churn down!


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Talk about someone who is clearly misinformed. Once the big metros are all set, the nationwide rollout will kick it into overdrive and should be almost wrapped up by Christmas! [emoji2363][emoji1787]


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Of course they did. One of Sprint's primary justifications for the merger wound up being its lack of low-band spectrum. How self-fulfilling and ironic.

So far T-Mobile has executed this merger brilliantly, and during a global pandemic too!

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[/url] So that's a wrap on that. This merger was the best thing to ever happen to Sprint to be honest at this point. We're finally getting the network that we deserve.
Flashback (11/30/2016): https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-cfo-robbiati-600-mhz-spectrum-past
Sigh....

It really is b/c Sprint could have been that wireless carrier. Especially in the 5G realm. All SoftBank had to do was build out 2.5 nationally, participated in the 600mhz auction and upgrade the back haul.