ericdabbs

Are they using all 3 LTE bands for VoLTE?  It would be interesting to see B41 VoLTE.

Better late than never but hopefully the Tmobile/Sprint merger goes through and Tmobile will help complete the VoLTE rollout faster than Sprint ever could.

I wonder if Sprint phones in 2017 for the engineering menus will be updated to state "Primary Serving Cell", "Secondary Serving Cell", and "Tertiary Serving Cell"

Sprint has been making some weird choices for the GS7 and G5?  Why make the G5 VoLTE capable but not the GS7 while at the same time make the GS7 3xCA capable but not this one.

I guess if 3xCA won't be a widespread reality until 2017/2018 then its not really a big deal.  2xCA is pretty fast enough but it would be nice if Sprint kept things more consistent with their flagships.  I am not curious what the HTC M10 will provide.  Hopefully it contains VoLTE capabiltiy and 3xCA capability.

What do the colors mean?  Yellow is what Sprint ended up receiving?  Green is current holdings?

Green is the G-block so yes that is what Sprint currently owns already.

That is definitely true.  

Oh, OK. So, I would assume that this would have necessitated a firmware update at some point in order to enable and Sprint has had those released to the affected handsets by now, correct?

I think AJ is saying after a certain point (I want to say all 2014 Sprint LTE phones and beyond) all contained FCC testing of 10 MHz bandwidths.  It wasn't a matter of the chipsets not capable of supporting 10 MHz bandwidths. 

However those older 2012 and 2013 Sprint LTE phones (especially Samsung phones) will never get 10 MHz BW support.  Sprint is not going to pay money to recertify those older 2012/2013 LTE phones to support 10 MHz bandwidths.

Either way hopefully those 2012/2013 LTE phones are phasing out so now anyone who upgrades will have a Spark enabled phone that supports 10 MHz bandwidths.

Hopefully this is the start of more PCS spectrum swaps to align itself to expand their 5 MHz carriers to 10 MHz carriers.

I would love to see B41 3x CA being implemented as part of the NGN upgrades.  Also at some point would like to see some B25 2xCA.

Great article Tim that helps explain the LTE UE Relay functionality.  It will be interesting to see which markets plans to launch this LTE UE Relay function first.  I sure hope Sprint does a lot of their real world testing and lessons learned in a smaller market first before trying to tackle the Top 50 markets for deployment.

No sale for me and I'm sure many others.  These new Nexus devices are missing Wireless Charging, Optical Image Stabilization (camera) and a MicroSD slot, despite the great feature in Marshmallow to use MicroSD storage as Internal storage.  All of the excitement I had for the refreshed Nexus devices just went down the drain.  Oh well, they have that not so awesome fingerprint sensor (on the rear? Really?) going for it.

You do know that Nexus devices never had a microSD slot so not sure why that is a surprise to you.  Some of the other major flagships don't have that feature either so we just have to deal with it.

I am bummed about the lack of OIS if that is true.  Not sure why that compromise was made.  In terms of wireless charging, that does suck but I don't currently use wireless charging so I don't think of it as a deal breaker though at least for me.

I guess considering it is a metal chasis the RF doesn't seem too bad.  I might have to really consider the Nexus 6P now given the leaked prices of $500 base while the Nexus 5X is $380 base.

Is it possible that Sprint can start reorganizing frequencies where they can put CDMA/EVDO carriers on the G-block and leverage some on the main block (ex: Los Angeles has 30 MHz A-block).  Perhaps they can do a 10x10 LTE carrier in the A-block and then use the remaining 10 MHz in the A-block and 10 MHz in the G-block for all the CDMA/EVDO carriers.  

I don't know how much disruption this will cause but I feel at some point Sprint has to make this transition in order to boost overall LTE speeds.  But then again some of the older devices (especially older samsung devices that supported only the 5 MHz BWs).  Its one of those things that the Sprint management is going to look back and regret why they made that decision at the time.  First generation LTE phones....fine just have 5 MHz BW but starting the second generation LTE phones, they should have all been FCC tested for at least 10 MHz BW.  That way any future Sprint plans can be more easily implemented without having to worry about shutting people out of LTE.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 supports 2x CA, not 3x CA.  Read that article on The Wall.

 

AJ

You are right.  I misread that part. 

I wonder if the Nexus 5 (2015) will support 3x CA just like the Note 5.

Great summary as always AJ on 2 of the flagship phones for 2015.  As for me, I am going to wait until the LG G4 comes out and hopefully it provides some better numbers/features than the S6 and M9.  

Does this mean that Sprint could expand their coverage to Alaska?

I spoke with San Bernardino County about a month ago, and their position was that they have completed the reprogramming of all their equipment and are not holding anything up on their end - eluding that any delay is on Sprint's side, and not their's. I would be interested if someone else finds out other info

Interesting.  Its hard to believe if the SB county folks are just pulling your tail and just BSing you and if Sprint is truly able to start deploying LTE 800.  I know LA/OC/SD counties are still screwed thanks to our friends south of the border but I am hoping that at least Las Vegas is cleared to start deploying LTE 800.

Great research!  I have reached out to the 800 TA for information about San Bernardino County in California, but I haven't heard back from them.  When I have some free time I'll contact the County directly.  (Unless someone has already beat me to it.)

I would be curious about this as well since I would like to know what in the world is going on in San Bernardino county.  I would like to see that issue resolved so it is one less hurdle to get 800 MHz LTE in LA/OC/SB counties.

Hopefully all 2015 Sprint LTE phones are CCA/RRPP compliant.  Since I have an upgrade available in 2015, I am hoping to pick up a CCA/RRPP compliant and who knows maybe the Galaxy Note 5 will include B4, B12 and B17 LTE bands.

AJ, can you explain why the B26 LTE frequency range stated in the FCC document states from 824.7 MHz - 848.3 MHz.  Shouldn't it say 817 MHz - 848.3 MHz since Sprint only has 800 MHz spectrum in the 817-824 MHz range?  Isn't this out of the range of Sprint's spectrum unless its a typo?

So will the iPhone 6 support Sprint's LTE on 800 MHz or no? Wish it would cuz that's very important for in-building situations..

The article states B26 (800 MHz) LTE support so yes of course it will have LTE 800 support.

It will be interesting to see the list of 3-5 cities that are selected.  They could prioritize by subscriber count, ARPU, highest data usage or any number of things.

 

If it's highest data usage the list could be like the one mentioned in this article:

http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/dallas-top-city-for-smartphone-tablet-use/d/d-id/1111993?

Would be nice if LA is one of the first few cities that are blanketed with B41 LTE with 8T8R RRUs.  Sprint needs to shut down Wimax quickly so that those cell sites can be replaced with 8T8R RRUs.

Carrier Aggregation can only occur at Sprint B41 8T8R sites.  Existing Huawei and Samsung dual mode WiMax/LTE Clearwire sites cannot do CA. So Sprint will have crews running around the accepted 8T8R adding additional carrier cards and implementing CA sometime around the turn of the year.

This brings up another question I have.  Will Sprint go back and re-deploy new 8T8R RRUs for sites that have Samsung dual mode Wimax/LTE RRUs?  The Huawei ones I don't worry at all since they have to be replaced anyways.

Interesting read.  However I am a bit confused about the overall B41 strategy now.  I get the desire to shift the B41 deployment priorities to get the B41 network active in markets that are overburdened and need capacity relief but is the ultimate goal still to overlay all 39K NV sites + 16K Clearwire sites + more sites as needed?  

I don't mind if Sprint shifts its resources for now from having its crews start in every market to sending them to overburdened markets that they need help and just go blitzkrieg to get the B41 network up.   Claure is right in that Sprint internally desperately needs those "early wins" but more importantly Sprint needs the consumer confidence in the Sprint brand again.  This would be a good start if this can be pulled off.  I'll keep my eyes peeled for that.

No they don't. They're missing Band 12.

Whoops...your right about B12.  I wonder why the AT&T/Tmobile/Verizon version of the iPhone 6 doesn't have B12 support either.