RAvirani

No. Notice the time stamps. The SCC data was almost a day old.

Use imgur.

Not yet, I don't believe.

AT&T uses the radios on the left and second from the right in my market. I would guess AT&T.

The way LTE is optimized in my market, I often fall from L800 straight to 1x800. There is no gain in data speeds when this happens. Additionally, I've never experienced usable EVDO when I fall off L800. I think this is the rule, not the exception, as only either one or two EVDO carriers are left in all major metros today. Lastly, falling to CDMA severely delays the reconnect time to LTE. If your data is going to be useless regardless of which network you're on in that location, it's wiser to leave you connected to LTE so you reconnect to something usable sooner. SRLTE will ensure that voice reliability is not impacted. Good QoS can take care of this, especially with lowband 4x2/4x4 MIMO, which Sprint is aggressively deploying (via RFS/Commscope 8-port dualband antennas and KMW 16-port triband antennas). Recall that AMR-WB only requires 12.65 kbps and that AMR-NB doesn't even require that (as little as just 5-6 kbps depending on configuration). If you ever have the chance to use the TELUS network in British Colombia, you should note their TM parameters. They run 5x5 L800 with a Qrxlevmin of -128 alongside 15x15 L1900 and 20x20 L2100 (note the similarity to Sprint's network in many markets). VoLTE calls work comfortably at -126 on their 800 LTE because their QoS is well configured and the network moves users up to midband quite aggressively.

Just initiated a RDP session from my iPhone on Sprint LTE here in Las Vegas with no issues. There's something wrong with your setup.

They will get it post nationwide VoLTE launch in the coming weeks.

The device software was never finished and fully tested though, if I remember correctly. Yes, I remember reading about this at length somewhere on xda.

The S9 was a phone, just like all the others, which they did not have time nor budget to customize software for.

That's what I've heard and experienced. Band 13 goes for miles from those setups. Do you recall which exact JMA models they are deploying? I'd like to take a look at their spec sheets. That's what I thought. Thanks for the clarification.

For those asking why older devices won't be supported until the nationwide VoLTE launch: To roll out VoLTE on a market-by-market basis, Sprint has added a "VoLTE enabled" flag to each site. This is not a part of a traditional VoLTE implementation and thus, additional software is required on the device end to support this 'hack'. When Sprint launches VoLTE nationwide, all of this will no longer be necessary, and they will be using a traditional VoLTE setup. Adding support for older devices will then be very simple. Interesting side note: some people with rooted Android devices have found a way around the VoLTE enabled flag and have been using VoLTE on Magic Boxes as well as sites that aren't currently officially enabled. The network is ready for VoLTE nationwide, Sprint just needs to flip the switch.

How do the Sprint Commscope/RFS antennas compare performance-wise to the new antennas the big two (namely Verizon) are deploying? Verizon towers 'feel' a lot more powerful when it comes to lowband coverage and propagation in my market, although I haven't been impressed with their midband performance. How is T-Mobile deploying 4x4 600 alongside 700 on the same antennas? I though the antennas had four lowband ports and four midband ports? Are the 600 and 700 transmit paths shared? Or are they using RF combiners?

I know. If you take a look at the sponsor maps, you can see all of the sites that were in planning.

If I were in charge of Sprint and the merger fell through today, here are the changes I would make: Day 1 changes: Drop the L800 Qrxlevmin to -128. I don’t want users falling off L800 at -120 or -122 because: L800 will almost always offer better speeds than CDMA at those signal levels. This will reduce the reconnect time to usable LTE. The pocket 3G problem will be eliminated. VoLTE reliability will skyrocket. Remove the per-site “VoLTE enabled” flag (which by the way is a big part of the reason Sprint is struggling to support older devices) and allow it on all sites and Magic Boxes. This will allow software updates enabling VoLTE to be pushed to ISIM devices in a matter of weeks. Revert L2500 to Config 1 to both increase L2500 upload speeds and effective range. In markets where spectrum allows, split 8T8Rs into two 4T4R transmit chains and run 6 L2500 carriers. Some markets such as Seattle already have this. Short-term changes (within the first 12 months): Contact high-traffic venues (casinos, airports, stadiums, arenas, concert venues, underground train systems, convention centers, etc) and sign onto DAS systems. Begin buildout in high-roaming high-traffic areas such as ski resorts (e.g. Big Sky, MT and Sugarloaf, ME), rural tourist attractions (e.g. Mount Rushmore, SD and Yellowstone National Park) and large cities (e.g. Billings, MT and Chyenne, WY). Identify and begin to close in-city coverage gaps by means of: Implementing a verified coverage map to identify areas without LTE. Allow T-Mobile roaming and possibly even AT&T roaming everywhere and focus on high-roaming in-city areas. Expedite the Massive MIMO rollout to stay at the front of the 5G race. Expedite the tribanding of any remaining single-band/dual-band/non-redundant Clear sites. Look to increase backhaul to high-usage sites. Prioritize interband CA deployment. Prioritize the implementation of dynamic NR UL and move NR to the PCC. Begin talks with Dish to host their 600 and AWS-4 spectrum. This will at least double Sprint’s lowband capacity nationwide and give them greenfield lowband to deploy NR on. Long-term changes (after the first 12 months): Cut EVDO completely ASAP. Run a 1x1900 carrier in L1900 guard bands and maintain the 1x800 carrier. Begin to replace 800 radios with NR/LTE/1x DSS-capable radios. Begin a rural highway buildout in areas where the most T-Mobile and AT&T roaming occurs. The deployment will primarily be lowband. This task is not as daunting as it seems for sites already exist that cover effectively every major highway in the United States. The only thing to do will be to negotiate a reasonable lease. Open up an NR test drive program similar to the one T-Mobile ran for LTE and advertise it heavily.

Yes. VoLTE launched almost everywhere on Friday. They're ahead of schedule for nationwide VoLTE.

No. If Softbank attempts to acquire more than 84% equity in Sprint a tender offer is triggered (this means they must buy the remainder of Sprint stock).

You can under promise and overdeliver with or without money. You just need to make the right promises.

Pretty much everything with respect to their LTE network rollout.

Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Renton and Woodinville are live too. The launch is market-wide.

VoLTE live throughout Bellevue and Seattle, WA this morning.

VoLTE live throughout Bellevue and Seattle this morning.

I see PCS CDMA mostly going away soon. With Verizon CDMA roaming going away at the end of this year and the nationwide VoLTE launch coming soon, they will likely thin PCS CDMA down to a single 1x carrier (for old CDMA-only voice devices) and run it in an LTE guard band. 1x800 is likely here to stay for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if they require OEMs to manufacture custom radios in the next few years that support LTE/NR DSS and 1x800.

I don't think NR will really come to PCS on Sprint as the vast majority of markets don't have more than 10 MHz of contiguous PCS spectrum. It's much more likely that all of Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum will get reframed to NR (merger or not) and 10-15 MHz of FDD LTE will remain on 1900 as fallback. According, I don't really think B25 NR radios are super important right now As for 800, I don't really know what the game plan will be there. DSS could help here, although I'm waiting to see how well various OEMs' implementations perform in the real world before making any judgements.

The carrier tag shows the voice provider on iPhones. As long as you have Sprint 1x, your phone will display Sprint LTE regardless of what LTE network you're on.

As soon as 25+41 CA is live, we should see a BIG uptick in Sprint's scores in tests like these.