greenbastard

That's simply not true. If all carriers had the same amount of paired spectrum, then they would have even more reason to stand out against their competitors. At the end of the day, its all about the money, and Evdo, WCDMA, HSPA, and LTE would have been ways to gain a competitive advantage against competitors. As a matter of fact, our wireless industry started out in a similar way you set your example. Two simple Cellular blocks for each market.

Not necessarily. All major carriers would still want a way to differentiate themselves, so new technologies would have made their way to carriers one way or another in order to take customers from their competitors. Also, you forget that other markets around the world are also pushing new technologies. LTE was first launched in Europe, not the U.S. It's not only American wireless carriers looking for new innovations.

Wait til this weekend. There's supposed to be a sale of buy one, get one free. As far as switching, I would keep the ED1500 as long as possible if you're still using subsidies. Buy a cheap Nexus to carry him over. That was my strategy when my S5 bit the dust last month. I'm up for an upgrade in July and the Nexus seems to be holding a good aftermarket value. I may just take this puppy South of the border since the Nexus ain't cheap down there.

High school project..give the kid a break. If anything, his presentation was quite impressive considering that none of the hacks who write about the wireless industry collect any data. They did pretty good.

As in small rural communities or to close gaps in coverage along highways?

So Monte Carlo now has B41 covering their casino floor and even their hotel rooms (very usable for video, but unusually slow for it being B41). Signal in rooms bounce from same cell that services the casino floor and another tower I probably won't get to locate. I also experienced B41 inside The Flamingo floor which is a good update considering they only had 3G last year. Also, the network in Las Vegas is extremely aggressive at handing off to band 41 from band 25. I'm very impressed by that.

With Band 41, anything lower than 3/4th of signal bars usually means a weak upload. But outside of that, signal bars are pretty useless.

It's also very light, smooth and a lot easier to reply to texts from their pop ups. It's 10x better than that clunky messaging app from Samsung. Best app purchase I've ever made.

Either your nearest cell tower is down or B41 was installed somewhere nearby and you're now getting a weak B41 (since it's more fragile).

Try going to GSM Only inside settings. I know most Samsung have that option. Your internet is going to be slow if you have value roaming on and not Open World. I would suggest calling Sprint International before doing a reprovision (##72786#) since PRL and Profile updates are done via CDMA only (as far as I know) and that is currently not available for you. Don't try doing it until you speak with Sprint International support.

What phone do you have? I know these questions may seem like typical Sprint rep suggestions, but sometimes they do make a difference. Have you checked your roaming settings? Make sure International CDMA roaming is off. Have you tried to reboot your phone? Are you in a rural area (I ask because I've encountered Movistar cells which are just Edge and have no data.) For Apple, the connection should be automatic, but some people on this board have found luck by doing a factory reset (don't know why that is). Personally, all of our iPhone lines have never had an issue connecting to Movistar.

Not really. Sorry if my post was poorly worded, but Telcel and Movistar's LTE is still somewhat in its infancy stage. It's only available in major markets and has only recently started popping up in mid sized markets (I.E. Cuernavaca, Saltillo, etc). It's still not extensive and no highway buildouts are happening. So while T-Mobile can access LTE in Mexico, it is still contained to popular cities. Sure would be nice if Sprint also got LTE enabled through their international roaming partners for Open World. But then again, I'm sure Spring is giving these roaming benefits (and overages charges) at a loss. It's not reciprocal roaming, that's for sure. Not many phones support the SMR, PCS G Block, or the BRS/EBS band. CDMA? Forget about it!

Play close attention to the bold part you wrote. If you still don't understand why ultra high band mobile internet won't happen in the next decade, then I give up.

You don't get it. Sprint could get their ducks in a row and it would still be too expensive to deploy a 60 GHz in every major Street corner. Operating costs would skyrocket. Rent isn't going to get any cheaper. Sprint has managed to put B41 close to every cell tower they have in major metropolitan area in Texas. They aren't having problems securing hardware since B41 is up and running. The network is just not dense enough. Also, you are way over ypur head if you don't think Verizon and At&t will certify their own band just like they did with Band 13 and Band 17 to leave smaller carriers to fend for themselves. Never denied such thing. As a matter of fact, I used LTE as an example. What you don't seem to derstand is that everything that is published doesnt come to fruiton. Nobody is saying they shouldn't try. You're just putting too much stock on mmW and ignoring simple physics. It won't be freed. B41 is currently outdoors exclusive in many areas of Austin, Houston, and San Antonio and B26 is still congested. The best they can with their finances? Well that's all relative depending on who you ask. Sprint is being very secretive with what they're doing, so it's hard to tell if NV really did cut costs or if they are making an early case for a merger with T-Mobile. I've never said 5G won't work. But I did say that ultra high band spectrum won't work. As far as I'm concerned, 5G will be a new standard, not a new band. The costs of executing a deployment to blanket just the Los Angeles-San Bernardino-Aneheim area would cost so much, add massive operating expenses, and not relieve current LTE airlink. It's just not worth it, even as an outdoors only network. B41 is currently an outdoor network (never seen it drop below 15 Mbps even with a weak RSRP) and it still doesn't relieve indoor congestion. EVDO is currently faster than B26 in most areas.

You still have to pay rent and utilities. And Sprint doesn't have enough subscribers to cover the costs of adding and maintaining thousands of new cells. These aren't a plug and forget setup, this is something Sprint will have to pay in perpetuity. It's not financially viable. It's just not. Pipe. Dream. So you see the current mess that Sprint has had to deal with since launching Spark (2.5 GHz) and you think 60 GHz is viable???? Seriously? How so? Why would it take longer? LTE was first considered in 2004 and rollout began in 2009 in Europe and came to the U.S. in 2010. You keep talking about papers, but that's all they are. You know how many of these papers never come to fruition??? Hell, we are all still waiting for Artemis' P-Cell after they released their paper. What you want for wireless carriers to do is a financial nightmare. It will never work, not even for Verizon. Sure. You can make the argument that you will only deploy '5G' where needed, but that's not something consumers will like or take kindly to. Remember how many pissed off people there were in Phoenix, San Diego, and El Paso for being sold '4G' but not having it in their region? Pipe. Dream.

And who's going to pay the operating expenses of this new equipment and cells? You do realize that densifying a network for 60 Ghz is nothing like densifying for 2.5 Ghz? The costs and operating expenses will add up. Backhaul isn't cheap, neither is rent. Especially if these small cells won't be used that much since they are outdoors only. No, they are not good right now. In its current state, Sprint's network is not dense enough for 2.5 GHz to work. Speeds on B26 are still sub 1 Mbps even though most towers now have B41. If you think blanketing a town with 60Ghz 5G is so easy, then you haven't kept up with the rollout of B41. There are too many gaps in so many places and Sprint has yet to replace Clearwire equipment with 8T8R panels. Ultra High Band wireless is not the future. Operators are just going to have to get together and invest in a new wireless standard that will make better use of their current spectrum. That's how it's been done since the analog days and will probably continue to be done.

The costs of deploying and running these super incredibly small cells looks to be extremely high. Backhaul (for bandwidth that even Sprint doesn't currently get today), electricity, and rent add up. It's simply not worth anyone's time. It's a terrible return on investment since you would have to add millions of subscribers just to cover operating costs for an airlink that will be so unreliable and degrade as soon as you start walking away from it (which you would want to if you don't want to get burned). Ultra High band 5G is all a pipe dream for mobile users. I can maybe believe that it could work for fixed locations if they were to set up a complex antenna in their roof. But not mobile. For 5G, wireless providers will probably just end up repurposing their current spectrum for a new standard of wireless that is more efficient than LTE.

Well, not a problem if you want to sterilize yourself.

It would be awesome if Sprint rolled out VoLTE as an opt-in trial program in which some users can sign up and test out the network for them. It would be a quick way to collect data on network performance and network gaps. I'm sure VoLTE can be turned on and CDMA turned off and vice versa through a profile update just in case people decide to leave the program if its not working for them. I'm mostly interested to see the limitations of LTE. I've had B41 stick to my phone as low as -130, yet SMS still worked perfectly (both inbound/outbound). I'm sure VoLTE can still work reliably way beyond the the usual cut off line of -117 RSRP Sprint has set for its LTE threshold before our phones go to 3G EVDO. I want to see at what point does VoLTE really start to fail if QoS is implemented.

There's a difference between going live and having phones support wide band, ultra high spectrum. 600 MHz band will be ready faster than any '5G' technology is rolled out.

To secure spectrum that will provide reliability and better peak speeds. A low band 10x10 slice of spectrum can do that. While 2.5 GHz can be densified and fix a lot of the issues, it's not going to penetrate every building. I've seen many stores/buildings that sit adjecent to B41 towers, yet there is no B41 inside. Sure, you can argue that in those cases that B26/B25 should be offloaded by then. But unfortunately we live in a wireless environment that is judged by peak speeds, and a 5x5 slice of B26 can't produce those speeds expected by the critics. Yes, we are getting carried away. All we have is speculation. And even if they are making breakthroughs, it will take decades to see this high band '5G' implemented in the real world and into smartphones. One of the tests held by Verizon had a van driving around in circles at a limited speed of 10 MPH. I'm not saying that they are wasting their time, but a lot of folks are really getting carried away. The 5G they are testing will likely be for fixed wireless solutions for homes and businesses. It will take decades before we see these wide band-ultre high frequency spectrum in our phones. No argument here. As they should. But Sprint just lowered Capex.....so... We always excuse Sprint's actions with excuses like slow permits and local restrictions. Let's just pretend that this is true for the sake of argument....Why hasn't Verizon, T-Mobile, or At&t run into the same issues then? Because if they had, then they also would have lowered CAPEX. But yet, I've seen T-Mobile densify parts of Houston and suburbs. Sprint has yet to start adding cells to the newer subdivisions in town. Lowering CAPEX means one thing; Either Sprint isn't confident in densification or Son is going for a merger under a (gulp) Trump presidency.

320!?!? Geez. I have the same plan and the same number of lines and pay 260! First. Get rid of leases. They are the biggest ripoff John Legere ever came up with and sold as Gold. Your plan came with subsidies so take advantage of them. See if you can return those leases and get back on subsidy. You're paying extra (if you have credits, they're bound to expire bte) for a 2 year lease when in reality you could be owning a phone outright for 1/3 of the price and get to keep. Break those phones you currently have, and you'll be paying out of pocket for them. Second, check to see if anyone in your lines works for someone that offers discounts through Sprint. Heck, even some Credit Unions offer Sprint discounts. Take advantage of these discounts.

Oh, it can be done. But not anytime soon.

It doesn't help that people in Mississippi love their C-Spire.

I don't think you read my post on its entirety. I did acknowledge that 2.5 Ghz can definitely work in a dense network. I think we are all getting carried away by this 'high band 5g' discussion. We don't even know if it will actually work in real world scenarios. There is a reason why there are so many tests going on by all 4 national carriers and vendors. As far as we know, they may just all give up in the coming months due to the complexity of using these ultra high bands. Remember that small cell planning and deployment (to some extent) at Sprint is happening now and if you are telling me giving Sprint a head start of 4 years (assuming 600 MHz deployment is at the earliest late 2020) is not going to equate to much is ridiculous. Its like Sprint being late to the LTE game in 2011/2012. Had Sprint deployed LTE in 2009/2010 with even a LTE 5x5 G block just like when Verizon/AT&T started deploying LTE the growing pains experienced in 2011-2015 the poor reputation and the loss of customers would not have been as dramatic. Yes, network densification is happening. Nobody is denying that. What I am arguing is that Sprint has aggressively gone after customers with ridiculous promotions and have very little to show for it. With the growing debt they have added recently to their already massive debt, can Sprint really afford to add more operating expenses without adding customers? Sprint doesn't seem to think so because they've lowered CAPEX. At least on paper, Sprint is showing that they aren't confident in the future. Whether that's all being done to make an argument for a merger is another discussion.