RedSpark

How do you like it? Any 5G visible yet?

Interesting article. Sprint’s off to a good start.

How about that...

Justice Department may sue to block Sprint, T-Mobile merger: CNBC

Heard on WMAL this morning that Hans Riemer plans to reintroduce the cell tower bill (which was actually taken off the agenda last Fall) for Montgomery County, MD this Fall. Even so, Sprint appears to be making tower improvements in the County: https://montgomerycountymd.gov/cable/towers/home.html Click on “Actions”. 7/10/2019: https://montgomerycountymd.gov/cable/Resources/Files/Towers/notices/2019/2019_July 10 _TFCG action notice.pdf Based on the description in the document, are these Massive MIMO upgrades?

It’s never made sense to me how and why sprint is so bad at engaging with customers on social media. There’s no reason for these executives to be so detached from the customer base, And frankly, a number of Sprint’s current issues arise from just that. That analyst is a terrible representative of Sprint on behalf of the company. What a shame, especially when the issue was brought to the attention of a senior level executive.

A couple of interesting reports.

Arlington to Allow Small Cell Facilities on County-owned Streetlight Poles This is a big deal for your part of town @Trip!

Any word back?

You’re welcome! Doing speed tests and network mapping while walking around town is a great way to get exercise and explore new areas. It’s also pretty cool seeing how Sprint’s improved in certain areas. If you experience slow speeds when testing in an area, you should report the issue in the My Sprint App.

Go into the App settings and make sure that the background “Baseline Data Collection” toggle is enabled and set to upload over any network. This updates the “Best Technology Found” Map Layer in the background as you travel. You can also run speed tests continuously for the “Fastest Speed Found” Map Layer. This is under the speed test settings. I’m not sure how speeds tests are counted across the hexes. I believe that download and upload data results are treated separately, such that you can have a download result in one hex and an upload in another hex from a single test cycle, if you’re traveling. I’m not sure if downloads and uploads extend across hexes, such that a download result will count for multiple hexes. I’ve seen hexes update with my speed tests within a couple hours. If a hex has no data points, I believe it takes a few speed tests to get results registered on the “Fastest Speed Found” Map Layer. I believe these speed tests also apply to the “Best Technology Found” layer as well. If you plan to run continuous speed tests in the App while traveling, you should do it while your device is plugged into a car charger or plugged into an external battery pack.

And now there’s this... Boost Mobile marketing team hit with layoffs – report

State AGs fighting T-Mobile, Sprint merger say October trial may not be possible It never ends...

Excellent observation. Curious what the network issue in Denver is because that’s way off the scale low.

Yeah, good point. Perhaps Sprint would have to sign long-term bandwidth contracts and it doesn’t want to commit to those right before a merger. However, if this merger doesn’t go through, it’ll have to commit funds for additional backhaul and Massive MIMO sites when the 5G network gets loaded. I predict this happening with the iPhone annual upgrade cycle in Fall 2020, assuming that’s when Apple releases a 5G iPhone. I don’t see Apple releasing a 5G iPhone this year given the currently available modem chipsets and limited 5G deployment by carriers.

That’s certainly peculiar given that. Perhaps they’re limiting the costs associated with the 5G deployment, such as limiting backhaul costs, until the merger goes either way? I’d love to see a backhaul deal with RCN in the DC/MD/VA Market area: https://www.rcn.com/hub/about-rcn/where-we-service/dc-metro-service-areas/

Did Sprint actually add any backhaul for these Massive MIMO sites for 5G or was it merely an equipment swap? What would Sprint have to do to provision additional backhaul to these 5G sites? Would it have to run/light up additional fiber or is it a matter of just paying more money on the existing lines for additional backhaul capacity? How much backhaul is Sprint actually running and how much does it cost? How much more would it cost to bring Sprint’s backhaul up to competitive parity with the backhaul of the other carriers? It seems to me based on what you’re saying that Millimeter Wave as used/deployed by the other carriers is not only faster because of its inherent spectrum properties, but also because there’s more backhaul capacity running to those sites than Sprint utilizes.

Would the speeds increase if additional backhaul was deployed to these 5G sites, or is this the real-world threshold of Sprint’s 2.5 Spectrum?

Very nice!

I really enjoy using Rootmetrics on iOS.

USA Mobile Network Experience Report (July 2019) https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2019/07/usa/mobile-network-experience Here’s where Sprint stands. Lots of work to do... although Sprint was only .1 behind AT&T in 4G availability percentage.

We’ll see how this marketing approach works out for Sprint. So far so good it seems!

Sprint to test aerial HAPSmobile system for LTE connectivity FCC Docs: Pretty cool!

I ran multiple Rootmetrics App speed tests along the route. I utilized different servers and ran the tests multiple times. At certain locations while on the tracks, I was able to pull 100 Mbps down. At other locations it dropped out completely for a couple minutes, dropped to 1x or it was barely hanging on to 1 bar of LTE as we went along. It did this repeatedly. I ran speedtests when it did that and I reported the issue in the My Sprint App. Given that I received a mix of good and essentially “zero” speeds in locations, I’m not sure that signal degradation was the issue. I believe it’s more due to poor tower spacing and congestion. Based on my experience yesterday, Sprint’s service along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor needs some major improvement, because honestly I was left holding a brick at times. Emails wouldn’t load. Links wouldn’t load. You can’t market a service like this.