gusherb

So in other words they are actually going to fix the issue. I feel like you kind of ignored half of what I said though, how is it that not being able to get B25 past 1-2 miles is a density issue when it's pretty much proven to be the multimodal radio setup because other carriers with single use radios can far exceed that 1-2 mile limit? You said this yourself before even. and my concern is in suburban areas, I would be surprised if Sprint actually densified where I am because it's already somewhat dense and I just don't see them adding any more sites except maybe on some existing towers. They still gotta get that signal to reach further, they can't build out a tower every mile, even T-Mobile hasn't done that here.

It's a shame that B25 is fairly range limited due to the RRU's multimodal setup. I feel that if they could increase the range of B25 they could increase the range of B26, I suspect the reports of B41 having even slightly better range than B25 could be due to the reason that the RRU's for that are dedicated to the band and can therefore put out more power. If Sprint didn't have this limitation they could easily get B25 to cover quite well up to 3-4 miles from the site in a suburban setting, and probably quite further in a rural setting. I have no problem locking onto B2 LTE from sites 3 miles away on AT&T and my phone even sees B2 from sites up to 5-6 miles away. And I have to wonder what Sprint's solution may be to this matter short of adding dedicated LTE RRU's to each sector, turning off CDMA? I suppose densifying would be a solution, but seems like that would be more costly than adding RRU's. I know there's the small cell build out that's been lurking around the corner for awhile now, but what about suburbia? Outside of that I suppose it will be awhile before anything changes. I for one can't stand the sight of 3G in a generation where LTE is maturing, I can only assume at some point that the less savvy masses will catch on and start to feel the same.

Pretty much anyones best guess, there are some very plausible educated guesses on here but none of them are fact because nobody has actually heard anything from the horses mouth about it really. Unfortunately if optimized low band spectrum is a priority for ones self then moving to a carrier that has it is the best solution, like I wound up doing after being patient for a year.

I don't think you're gonna see any improvement if it's already at -91 outdoors and -105 or so indoors on B25 at 1 mile. You should be hanging onto LTE at a bit weaker than -108 though, at the very least -118 and weaker than that even.

Don't hold your breath, around here sites still aren't optimized after 2 years since B26 was deployed. How far away from the site are you when it drops to 3G?

And there's people out there that think that AT&T hasn't lost focus on its US network just because they've been doing small upgrades in their own cities, adding bandwidth and a site here and there, and buying a couple of spectrum licenses in very specific areas. I call it doing the bare minimum to just barely get by. They really should kick it into high gear and continue on with their LTE build out before they get too far behind again, though if it's anything like their 3G build out was with all those vast EDGE only areas for the longest time, it may be awhile.

I'm only talking about existing sites. It seems silly to use microwave when fiber is already there. Unless the new sites they plan on using would have no fiber, then it makes sense. but that comes back to the original problem - relocating sites in the first place. Will take a lot of resources to do that. Microwave on new builds makes perfect sense.

I've been hearing more and more reports of Verizon users leaving VoLTE on and not having issues like they used to. I personally use VoLTE all the time and rarely have a dropped call. It's starting to come around.

That seems like unnecessary work, basically doing a new build out after already doing a new build out, in areas that have already been built out... Instead they could be focusing the resources on expanding instead??? Unless those leases are actually that expensive that going backwards is actually cheaper? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Moving to microwave backhaul also seems like a backwards move to me. Several of their sites by me are already on government owned property, mainly water towers.

Having band 17 support on Sprint phones is moot if they ever were to strike a roaming deal with at&t as they have MFBI active across their network so any band 12 device will work on at&t.

at&t is pretty darn good here. They have 10x10 B2, 4, and 17 plus rolling out band 30. The network is pretty dense in the city and lots of small cells. Suburbs is good to just OK, density can be sparse in places but for the most part things are tuned well to fill in all gaps with LTE.

Now's your chance to make your move! I remember you saying you won't consider at&t because they didn't offer enough data for your needs. It's a shame Sprint is still having these kinds of issues though, and seem to be clueless as to what's going on. AT&T isnt all kittens and roses itself but I've found far less to bitch about than when I had Sprint.

Albeit a nice option, it's not even worth considering for me. it would only be an extra $10 a month to go from my current plan to an unlimited plan, but the caveat of having to have Uverse or Directv makes it not worth it. We don't watch broadcast TV here, and Uverse only offers half of what we have from Comcast in speed plus it's rats nest of a copper network is inferior to Comcasts as well.

The A block is enough for 5x5. I checked it out while looking up the license swaps and found no activity on it, so nothing as of yet. I did notice that there is a lease expiration date of 3/13/16... Unless T-Mo pulls something out of their hat (like an A block acquistion) they will have to refarm PCS, dismantling DC-HSPA in the process and fire up a 5x5 B2 LTE carrier as well as carrier aggregation. I have always felt that my part of the Chicago area is neglected by the carriers more than the rest of the area (especially by at&t and Sprint) so it's nice to see that T-Mobile gives us something that the rest of the area doesn't have!

Them swapping with at&t here makes absolute perfect sense. AT&T's UARFCN changed in early december/late November from 2225 to 2175, indicating a lower channel, which perfectly aligns with a spectrum swap because T-Mo had the one block below what at&t was using here. The deal was probably so small that there is and will be no way to find any documentation about it, until perhaps the change shows up on the FCC spectrum dashboard (?) Update: I found the documentation: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=9218648 http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=9223903 http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=9223638 http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applMain.jsp?applID=9248621

I'm pretty sure T-Mobile had to swap with AT&T here to make it's 40 mhz contiguous. T-Mobile originally had a non-contiguous 5x5 block that came from at&t (and is one of the blocks at&t continues to own in the Chicago area on the IL side and uses for it's 10x10 block) T-Mobile's contiguous block of 30 mhz is 1740-1755 2140-2155. Their other block was 1730-1735 2130-2135, at&t owns the block just above that (which it acquired through Leap). So I'm guessing T-Mo swapped their block with at&t.

Nope! I noticed about two months ago AT&Ts UARFCN for band 4 here changed to 2175 from I wanna say it was 2225 before. So I'm suspecting AT&T swapped spectrum with them so they could have contiguous 20 MHz.

What kind of person doesn't accept a free phone no strings attached from the CEO himself!? *facepalm*

Anyone from the Chicago area seeing 20 MHz now? This may be specific to Lake County, IN. Noticed higher speeds the other day, then a friend sent me a screenshot showing 20 MHz and I see it too. They owned an extra 5 MHz band 4 license here in my county but it wasn't contiguous with the rest of it so they must've shuffled around with another carrier to get this to happen:

Back on iPhone 6 release day I was halfway through a transaction when they tried to tell me TEP was mandatory after I noticed and confronted him about what he was trying to get me to blindly sign for (on an iPhone nonetheless). Then I confronted him about that and he said "you can just call customer service when you get home and have them remove it". I walked out before I turned into one of those irate customers that destroys everything in the store. That's what started the train for me leaving 7 months later. So they ultimately lost two lines partly because of that. (It was a corporate store). I'm sure many others have left for the same reason.

This has got to be why other telecom CEO's don't lay so heavily into social media, or that's what those other CEO's are thinking. These kinds of charades have to be played out very carefully through the PR department, like at&t and VZW do. Or better yet not blow smoke at all - that seems to be Marcelo's approach. Probably why he's ranked one of years worst CEOs, because he's not putting on a show for everyone like Legere. Interesting to watch the shit hit the fan though, but the drama is already boring. Same old story line but with different character's.

The only system communicating on 900 Mhz in my house is the Honeywell Prestige thermostat, its wireless temperature sensor, and the Redlink internet gateway it attaches to for web access. That's essentially what 900 Mhz continues to be used for these days. I also have a late 90s vintage Uniden cordless phone that runs on 900 Mhz but I don't use it in favor of the newer 1900 Mhz "DECT 6.0" Panasonic phones with caller ID and much better sound quality.

I'm gonna go with it being a carrier related baseband thing as far as signal, and a server issue as far as speeds. With Sprint users mostly, iPhone has a reputation for not holding onto signal very well and overall poor performance but using the same phone on a different carrier can yield much different results. When I took my iPhone 6 from Sprint to at&t it suddenly started performing much better in the radio department. I recently used a Note 5 and found it to not perform as well as the iPhone on the network. It's starting to become a pet peeve of mine for a phone to get blamed for having a bad radio when the same exact model number may work excellently on a different provider. The Nexus 5 was a prime example, worked great on Sprint but was an abomination on GSM providers.

The storm here ended up being sleet early on, then freezing rain, then everything froze over and turned into an ice mess and then it turned to rain and created a horrible slush mess and caused roads to flood in many spots due to ice dammed sewers. Now all the creeks and rivers are at capacity or slightly over. One more storm and we'll have a alot of flooding going on.

Winter just started here at 3:30 AM. Been freezing rain all night and now there's 2" of snow or sleet on the ground. Supposed to have real high winds later.