RAvirani

I think it's unfortunate that the combined company is divesting 800. Having 5x5 L800 and 5x5 L700 would probably allow the combined company to use their 600 holdings exclusively for NR. Additionally, Sprint could add 800 radios to T-Mobile's new 600 equipment without an antenna swap. A diplexer+RRH is all they would need.

Mini macros for L2500?

There's plenty of CA where I'm at. L2500+L2500+L2500 as well as L1900+L2500+L2500. No 1900 intraband CA because we have a single 15x15 carrier, but I'm definitely not complaining about that.

Carrier aggregation is live when T-Mobile roaming on certain sites. I'm not sure about international roaming...

Correct. Post merger, MOCN will be implemented the other way (i.e. so T-Mobile users can access Sprint's RAN). This will be a stopgap solution until the networks are fully merged and integrated. After that, there will be no need for MOCN anymore.

^ This. This is correct.

This is incorrect. MOCN is used when providers are sharing one RAN and have separate network cores. This what T-Mobile has done to allow LTE roaming. MOCN is not the long-term plan post merger. MOCN will only be used temporarily in order to allow New T-Mobile users to connect to both the Sprint and T-Mobile's RANs while retaining connections to their respective core networks (where the HSS/billing/account and other servers reside). Post-merger T-Mobile will upgrade their EPC's capacity such that it will be able to handle the increased traffic formerly Sprint users will bring. Then, via OTA updates and backend merging of customer data, they will move devices/accounts over to the New T-Mobile core network.

For those curious about the antenna specifications, here are their model numbers and links to their spec sheets. RFS Celwave APXVBBLL15X-43-C-I20: http://81.3.15.2/WebSearchECat/datasheets/pdf/?q=APXVBBLL15X_43-C-I20 Commscope NNVV-65C-R4: https://www.commscope.com/catalog/antennas/pdf/part/92966|49723|50693/NNVV-65C-R4.pdf @lilotimz feel free to add these links to the original post! Also, both antennas are used in all vendor regions. The Commscope antenna is used where possible due to its better performance, whereas the RFS antenna is used where there are size limitations.

Merger Time

An unmanaged switch just provides more physical ethernet paths through which your devices can connect. It doesn't offer IP routing, NAT, QoS, or any other capabilities.

Source?

T-Mobile needs this merger a lot more then Sprint here. I'm hoping they don't mess the network up here if it goes through. There are a lot of places where Sprint and T-Mobile have sites within 100 feet of each other, but the Sprint site provides significantly better coverage. I'm hoping those don't get decommissioned.

T-Mobile's network is awfully congested in Seattle. And terribly optimized. It baffles me that with at least 1.5-2x the sites Sprint has, T-Mobile can’t provide an experience as consistent as Sprint's.

Definitely cellular equipment. Not Sprint's, though.

You are correct.

I was under the impression that integration was effectively complete. If that's not the case then yes, that could cause delays.

Not substantially. Other than possibly playing with TM parameters due to the fact L750 is a 10x10 carrier, there is little to no extra work to be done.

Is the site you're looking for close to Kirkland Marina or the intersection of 405 and 85th? There are two mini macro sites within range of SE03XC353.

Yes, Sprint was required by the US government to decommission all Huawei equipment due to security concerns. Sprint has historically had issues with the property owner of that Motel 6. It was one of the last sites upgraded to LTE, and it will probably be one of the last sites upgraded to triband. That permit is for the Clear site by Kirkland marina. There is a mini-macro setup on the roof of Evergreen Hospital by Totem Lake.

Sprint doesn't love MM/SC setups, they were just the cheapest way to replace Huawei Clear equipment per government order. That particular site was a Clear equipment swapout. It is scheduled to get triband this year, I believe. Any MM clusters in the area are from former Clear sites. We do not have any MM on NV setups in this area.

Do you mean wifi/ethernet backhaul? VoLTE over MBs is being worked on.

Interesting stuff. I'm excited to hear how performance is, especially latency.

Something else to note is that in NR TDD config 2, all 13 timeslots are flexible. This means cell sites will be able to assign any and all of the timeslots to either download or upload on the fly. This will do wonders for Sprint's speeds when they count. Imagine running a speedtest on an unloaded sector where you used the entire 60 MHz carrier to download and then the entire 60 MHz carrier to upload. That would be fast.

It will most likely aid speeds but I'm not sure how much. At the edge of cell, L2500 almost never gets more than a megabit on the upload in my experience. NR2500 range will likely be slightly greater than L2500. This is because it is significantly easier to take advantage of higher order MIMO in NR environments and because the greater uplink capacity/speeds will allow them to reduce the Qrxlevmin on NR2500 to below that of LTE2500.

Yes SA NR deployment with ENDC on the downlink. UL NR+LTE ENDC will likely be deployed in the future although I'm not sure the exact forecast on that.