red_dog007

There has actually been quiet a bit of BRS/EBS available throughout the years. I've been monitoring this site which is a portal for those interested in buying/selling/leasing spectrum.  They have even held 2.5GHz auctions. There used to be a lot more available through this portal. 

https://selectspectrum.com/2500.html

So we know TMobile will push updates to Sprint phones to brand them TMobile and enable VoLTE for the new network.

I'm curious how far can we expect TMobile to go?  I have the LG V30+ the US998U.  It supports VoLTE on Sprint but not on TMobile.  I fully expect it to get VoLTE update.  However, the US998U and TMobile's V30, the H932 vary on their supported LTE bands.

US998U has B2,4,5,12,25,26,41

H932 has B2,4,5,12,41,66,71

Can we expect TMobile to recertify these devices to enable all New-TMobile's LTE bands?

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Who knows what AT&T can do if it owned both B12+B29? They could consolidate into 1 band. One of the reasons I am advocating that they sell 700Mhz block A is they own just a 5x5 sliver. Consolidate on 600Mhz. Buy Comcast's 600Mhz plus whatever the speculators have. They did a great job offloading 800Mhz to Dish. Ofload 700Mhz to AT&T. I am not talking about right now, I am talking in 2-3 years.

There is no point.  They already have 700 gear up using it.  They can still grab more 600. They won't gain anything from selling it but some cash which they don't need.  The offloaded 800 to help please those needed to make this merger happen. 

AT&T already has B12 and Lower 700D. They could go ahead and moved forward with this new LTE band you want or push for B12+B29 CA.

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

I just don't see them being interested in a 5x5 sliver not even being nationwide. T-Mobile might be if the price is right. Speculators that acquired AT&T's 600Mhz might be interested in selling to T-Mobile to shore up their 600Mhz spectrum position.

Another spectrum play for T-Mobile down the line particularly if they can shore up their 600Mhz position further is selling their 700Mhz band 12 to AT&T. It's not nationwide and AT&T has some 700Mhz A already plus B&C. If they also get Dish's 700 E block they could own the whole lower 700Mhz band (30x30).

Why does it need to be nationwide?  Rural areas will be served plenty fine with existing holdings.  They need holdings for populated areas, just so happens where Comcast owns a lot of stuff.  There are many deal possibilities between Comcast and VZW. I can see VZW picking up 600 only if is extremely favorable price wise and I think Comcast is the only one that could offer them some type of deal. 

No need to sell 700A.  TMobile will be ready for when USCC falls.  

Until inter-band CA in 700 is possible, B12+B29 won't be possible. Though I think we are almost there.  Just saw a report of successful 700+800 CA across LTE and DSS 5G.  

21 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Comcast does not have nationwide spectrum, only in places they offer service. 

As you can see from the map they only own a 5x5 slice everywhere except one market. Not exactly worth deploying it. They can sell/lease to T-Mobile or Dish or to speculators. No Comcast selling it to Verizon will not ease Verizon's spectrum crunch. Verizon will vigorously participate in the CBRS and C-band auctions. That will ease the crunch. I do not anticipate T-mobile participating in those two auctions but I anticipate AT&T, Verizon and the cable cos participating.

I do think VZW pushed themselves into a corner. They have a fantastic network, being the most spectrum constrained, having 65million more customers than uncarrier and still delivering speeds on par with uncarrier.  But damn, New-TMobile is going to have 50 to 80MHz of 5G SA here soon.  😮

It'll take time for TMobile to merge and optimize the additional ~45million and spectrum.

I only see VZW getting this 600 from Comcast if they get some kind of great agreement. But yeah, I think VZW will go big on CRBS and then go even bigger making sure they secure the first available 100MHz in C-Band.

AT&T is at 50 million now covered in 5G.

On 11/29/2019 at 11:38 AM, mikejeep said:

The latest update to SignalCheck Pro will be available on Google Play within the hour! Here is a summary of the notable changes:

• Added limited recognition of 802.11ax Wi-Fi connections.

As always, thank you for your support. I hope everyone has an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend!

-Mike

How do you identify this? Almost all the current AX stuff out there doesn't do OFDMA and even one does OFDMA only on the DL.  Are you able to distinguish the difference and maybe add a note if OFDMA is actually being used?

2 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

So this is my 4 days in review. 

Coverage: I've only been in town. Seems fine. About the same as T-Mo and Sprint. Verizon is better thanks to small cells on the university campus and a couple more sites around town. 

Call performance: Much better than T-Mobile. No call problems so far, call quality doesn't seem to be very good.

Data performance: So the definition of busy in "when the network is busy" is: if there's at least one other device using the same tower as you. I am deprioritized 24/7. Speeds are wildly inconsistent. When the network isn't being dumb the speeds are good. 40-90Mbps down and up to 12Mbps up. Pings are 110ms+ most of the time. 

 

Are you on AT&T proper? You try different APNs?

I thought we were supposed to have some news (a decision) by now? Did it get pushed back to February? 

55 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

There are only 3 options so take your pick.

You are on a ship you don't want to be on and will only jump after a failed merger? Why not just jump now, or a long time ago?

I jumped ship myself recently, but not because of the merger. I had a great post-paid plan but it still sucks paying $102.53/mo for two lines for essentially internet where combined less than 12GB/mo are consumed.  Moved to save money.  Now have 3 lines, pay for Hulu and still save $67/mo. 

Beings that Dish is still supposed to do business as usual as if there was no merger talks, what is the likelyhood the FCC will approve Dish's AWS4 request for extension? Can the FCC take the merger into consideration if they approve the extension or not (if the merger fails).

Can the Judge consider this as part of the case?  With the possibility of the FCC not approving the extension on a failed merger and the FCC revoking 40MHz of spectrum, this would make things interesting. It would also give TMobile other opportunities to acquire more spectrum below 6GHz.

No merger, FCC revoke licenses, TMobile could pick up Dish for super cheap after their stock tanks from losing 40MHz of spectrum.

A Dish without AWS4 will still have nationwide 40MHz and up to 60MHz of 600, AWS-H and AWS-3.  That would put TMobile closer to AT&T holdings with an acquision of Dish, net them 10 million TV subscribers and increase yearily revenue by $13billion.

On 1/2/2020 at 10:18 PM, belusnecropolis said:

T-Mo and VZW hold the 850 licences here and there are no small cells yet. I am also in a T affiliate market. Even though HTC participated in just about every spectrum auction recently, they don't seem inclined to put it to use.

I'm not an expert fully understanding ULS sometimes, but it appears to me that HTC leases AWS A to Tide Mobility, LLC which is a shell for ATT.  Then the 700A that they own they have pending application and likely Farmers Telephone Coop is using for fixed wireless. On 700A, maybe even a deal with TMobile feel through.

I didn't have proper device to test, but is this AT&T?

On 12/20/2019 at 1:50 PM, bigsnake49 said:

It seems that the Justice Department and FCC filed an amicus brief supporting the merger:

"In their filing, the Justice Department and FCC argued that if the states, led by New York and California, succeed in killing the deal the end result will be that rural areas of the United States will be slower to get access to 5G, the next generation of wireless."

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-justice-department-fcc-fight-152453519.html

 

 

TMobile is moving a long pretty quick with nationwide 5G.  I don't think a merger will speed up their nationwide expansion at all.

Plus, what is more important than 5G is rural areas is full spectrum deployments.  Especially for coverage, and if you want to offered home internet. Everywhere I go that is rural and has newer TMobile coverage, they don't deploy all their spectrum and in some cases deploy HSPA for whatever reason and don't deploy their B12 for whatever reason. 

I think what makes 5G lesser of a deal, especially for rural, is competition from services like Starlink. 

Of course Son can pay off Sprint's debt.  Just in Alibaba alone Softbank owns $100+ billion.  He will only do it if it is required of him.  He will let Sprint CAPEX go to $0 though before he does such a thing.  

Son wanted to flip Sprint.  He read it poorly and is having a horrible time. Sprint isn't really hurting his books, but it is taking up way too much of his time and capital.  At this point, he would have been better off buying out 10yrs of Sprint's bonds and getting someone not Claure to run the company from the get go.  Then step back and give the CEO a little freedom.  

With debt cleared, more into capex, and a lot more freedom to operate, just the stock valuation alone I think Softbank would be up with Sprint.  

If they don't get Sprint, they will go all in with C-Band like VZW. VZW wants this merger to go through as TMobile will be a huge bidder if they don't.  They would walk away with 60 to 160MHz of spectrum depending on licensed area. Not considering the subscriber base you get with the merger, dealing with the infrastructure seems like it would be a hell of a lot easier to just buy C-Band, deploy that, DSS and SA 600MHz 5G in 2020.

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

FCC wanted Dish to deploy its spectrum, Dish was hesitant to enter a 4 player market, making it a 5 player market. This merger solves couple of problems. It solves Sprint's capex problems, T-Mobile's spectrum problem and Dish's (and FCC's) spectrum deployment problem. Win, win, win!

What also solves the problem, the licenses lapse and the FCC get to auction off old Dish spectrum that will fetch billions. FCC wins. The people win. Purchasers win. Sprint has been spending capex so that problem is solved already.

If Dish looses half their spectrum, they might have to settle for cheap leasing agreements, so leasees win. 

People like to harp on Sprint for bad numbers, no growth, and small and weak network.  Going from 2 big 2 small players to 3 big 1 non player sounds like great competition!  With the previous history of inaction, doing minimal, spending money to push deadlines vs taking action, Dish will likely do just enough to pump their numbers, pump their evaluation, then sell out. Buildout extensions. 8 million new customers on the cheap.  More spectrum on the cheap. MVNO status. Their evaluation will go through the roof.  They will buildout 'just enough' i.e. protection sites and call it a day.  Unless Dish gets 10s of billions of capex running through them, how in the world are they supposed to compete with 3 large, 100+ million sub companies?

For Dish to have a chance, and for them to be taken serious, imo, they need to buy Sprint's physical network.

I would not be surprised if the merger goes through, we get a reverse takeover from Dish of the New-TMobile in a few short years. Sure they have spectrum, but without a network there is no way for them to survive.  To build a nationwide network from scratch, that is very not Ergen, and likely cheaper to just buy New-TMobile.

A solution to what exactly?  anti-competitive? 

Well when it is to buy or not to buy, the only answer is not to buy. I guess the judge is considering Dish's prospective. Will they get the job done.  I think, with deadlines so near, and them owning spectrum for so long, we have to look at intent.  So far, with the lack of building anything, that shows pretty solid intent right there. 

As soon as the carriers get spectrum, they toss that stuff up on towers asap. Look how much has been deployed for B66, B71, B14. Look how much 5G is already deployed.  Dish, in the last year before deadlines annouced 1, maybe 1.5billion for an IoT network. 

I was actually kinda thinking about this. Dish needs to be willing to buy Sprint's entire network. Sprint essentially stays as is, minus spectrum licenses and postpaid customers. 

If Sprint was on the verge of collapse, like a few weeks from filing for bankruptcy, this case would be a done deal. 

TMobile and Sprint would merge.  They could pitch and absolutely sell that. If a judge believes the numbers, no judge will allow Sprint to just fall off.  

If anything, I think the best thing for Sprint if this doesn't go through is to go private. 

4 hours ago, dro1984 said:

I'm going to jump because my contract will be up... before I buy another phone, I want to be with T mobile.    Better coverage for me personally, and much cheaper for a single plan.   Even if I have to go to Metro... I don't care.   I've been with Sprint since  2000.   I've had enough of them and their continual  struggling and many incomplete promises.  Just me... guess I'm just frustrated with them personally.    

 

2000! Wow. Celebrate your 20yrs by paying off that contract and bouncing sooner rather than later! lol .

I've got one line with a lease on it and actually paying it off today so that phone can get sim unlocked and I be on my way. 

What's the point in jumping ship if they look too weak if the merger doesn't go through? They have looked weak and everyone has been calling for their bankruptcy for like a decade now. If the merger doesn't happen, they will still be around. If you like the service and your plan no need to leave really.

Im jumping ship now because Im adding a third line and want to save money. 

Forced relocation for all current license holders. Proceeds of the auction are/were to cover relocation costs. But I don't even think Congress put a use limitation on it.  Seems like it would be left up to the FCC to do whatever they wanted with it?

33 minutes ago, chamb said:

Maybe you have a NEED for 5G.  I surely do not. Just give me 4G that works well and I am happy.  Right now, I need Sprint to activate 25+41 aggregation. I have plenty of band 41 signals around here but the upload on my S9 just does not work on weaker band 41.

I do not see anybody coming up with an activation date for 25+41 but it is making life horrible without it. HPUE sure was not the answer to band 41 upload issues.

So you do have a need for 5G!  Another solution that solves the UL issue B41 has. 

470-512MHz. Congress authorized the sale of T-Band in 2012 to be auctioned by 2022 with a 2 year relocation process.  FCC is now asking congress to scrap the plan.

https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/fccs-pai-joins-call-for-congress-to-ax-t-band-auction

https://transition.fcc.gov/pshs/docs/T-Band_FactSheet_July2016.pdf

Specifically 11 cities public safety are impacted.  However, I imagine that the equipment would support public safety 450-470MHz.  

Currently 470-512 is not part of any LTE bands.

It also covers TV spectrum channels 14-20. That would leave 16 channels (96MHz) left for TV in UHF.  

On 11/24/2019 at 5:56 PM, Brad The Beast said:

I don't want my 3G trimmed down. I get 2.5Mbps over it! Granted it only works if you have a good signal. 

For me personally, I don't care anymore if EVDO goes away.  When I am out and about, when I actually drop down to EVDO, which is lesser these days, the signal is so weak after LTE dies off that it is completely unusable.  

It also used to be more useful when there was a lack of widespread B41, and LTE overall was less optimized a few years ago.  When <1Mbps was fairly common, disable LTE and in town you are back up to +2Mbps on EVDO.  However, I rarely even do this anymore.