Rawvega

I agree wholeheartedly. Barring a merger, neither T-Mobile nor Sprint will challenge the duopoly's coverage in Montana, the Dakotas, etc. On the other hand, Sprint has a reputation, warranted or not, as an interstate carrier. So if that's the case they might as well be the best interstate carrier that they can be. Bridge I-90 from South Dakota and link it to their coverage in Idaho, finish covering I-94 until it runs into I-90, extend I-29 & I-15 up to the Canadian border and show I-80, I-25 and I-70 some more attention. Granted, some of that may soon be addressed by their NetAmerica partners, but do something about the parts that won't be covered by them. Between SMR and eventually 600 MHz spectrum I can't imagine that it would even take an enormous amount of new cell sites.

Cool to see although AC is a little late. The Sprint support site lists the release date as 6/18. http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update_the_software_version_on_your_Samsung_Galaxy_S_5/WServiceAdvisory_542_GKB69808?INTNAV=SU:DP:OV:UG:SamsungGalaxyS5:FindAndUpdateTheSoftwareVersionOnYourSamsungGalaxy

Seems to be working for me now. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Yeah I've been getting connection errors with wifi calling on my Note 3 since yesterday. Perhaps they're tinkering with the back end in preparation for supporting international wifi calling... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Note 3 I'd guess. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Lol, seeing some of that guy's comments, not just on this particular story, it's safe to say that that dude is truly an idiot.

I hope Ericsson scores both deals! Of course, I'd be willing to bet that neither of them will put with Ericsson's shenanigans for too long.

The M8 already supports Direct Connect, both the regular and Harman Kardon versions. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qualcomm.qchat.dla&hl=en

The Duracore phones are pretty crappy in general though.

Right. Sprint already had a 3G CDMA network which had to be a part of their Network Vision upgrades making the cost of stepping up to 1x Advanced and HD voice incremental at most on the network side. It's not as though they're, for example, going from analog to the EVRC-NW codec. Some may claim that adding support for these technologies is costing Sprint of the handset side of things. However, Qualcomm has included support for EVRC-NW in every one of their chipsets since at least 2012 thus, if anyone can clearly support that claim with documentation, I'd certainly be eager to take a look. I don't see the competition's use of VoLTE being that big of a deal unless they can show a significant quality advantage over Sprint's implementation. Until inter-carrier VoLTE calls can be established all of the carriers are stuck in the same boat i.e. HD calls can only be established if all users are on the same network. Until the time comes where inter-carrier VoLTE is up and running seamlessly, will users really care if their HD voice is courtesy or EVRC-NW or AMR-WB? Given that it's been well established that an LTE signal is more fragile than a CDMA signal, Sprint's interim solution would seem to hold some advantages for its users especially until they can further densify their network with more macro and small cell sites and amplify their coverage with more low band spectrum e.g. 600MHz. The author seems like another member of the techno-razzi so eager to suckle on the Legere teat that he doesn't even bother to touch upon the biggest actual flaw of Sprint's current HD voice approach-the lack of simultaneous voice and data, at least for tri-band devices.

That's all putting it very mildly. However, he does tend to swoon over most anything that T-Mobile does. To be fair, he did make mention of the net neutrality implications of T-Mobile's "music freedom" promotion. Not surprisingly though, he gave it the kid glove treatment. I doubt that he would've pulled any punches had it been, I dunno, AT&T.

And another one bites the dust.

What's interesting about that announcement is that back in April Sprint released this: http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-accelerates-progress-on-americas-newest-network-delivering-faster-4g-lte-speeds-to-225-million-people-and-41-new-cities.htm So...if they say that they eclipsed the 225 million POPs mark back in April, I don't see how they can launch 28 new markets and still only claim over 225 million POPs.

Hesse should've worn some skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors and a yellow T-shirt with a big S in the middle of it and maybe flown onto the stage like he was Superman. Then, topped it all off by dropping a few F-bombs and regardless of what was announced, the techno-razzi would've been in a lather.

Despite some blog sites' early reports, access to the CDMA network was never a requirement. Just a GPS signal during initial setup to verify that a user is within a Sprint licensed area.

Thank you. I actually had meant to give Ole Roger a shout out in my post but got distracted. I shudder every time one of his columns appears on Fierce because I know it's going to be absolute tripe. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

And of course the first analyst they quote is Muppet. 'Three-player markets don't tend to have lower prices than four-player markets'. How insightful..Going by that logic,a five-player market would have even lower prices. Yet,I don't recall all of this angst about VZW and AT&T divvying up Alltel which is the transaction that people really should've been protesting. However, since their CEO wasn't a pandering 50-something year old still trying to dress like a hipster and tossing four letter words around constantly for attention, I guess most people couldn't be bothered enough to care about that. /shrug

To accommodate T-Mobile it would seem to put a bit of pressure on those rural carriers to get VoLTE deployed as well as most of them are currently using CDMA for voice.

Yeah that Tony Chien guy flat out lies. Of course there's a couple of other real winners on there like that other t-mobile fanboy fabian cortez AND our old friend maximus advocating for Comcast (of all companies) to buy up pretty much everything

I dunno. Have people really been waiting over a decade for that? Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Interestingly T-Mobile USA, while faster than Sprint, also falls into their "Poor Coverage and Slow" box.

I'd actually say yes except for the likelihood of having to deal with a recalcitrant Charlie.

I would think that if the DoJ and FCC actually were to sign off on such a deal that one of their major stipulations would be coverage expansion. Especially expansion in those areas that I believe Legere once referred to as "dust bowl states".

I'd wager against that happening. Sprint is already lighting up LTE on Band 26. W-CDMA would be a step backwards. If the goal is to have all customers benefit from voice coverage on that spectrum then I believe a better option would be to accelerate VoLTE.

No, see, this is a really sh*t idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a sh*t idea.