ericdabbs

I think the devices in question can only be two: 

 

Samsung Galaxy Note III

 

LG Optimus G 2

 

Both of these should have the Snapdragon 800 that makes tri-band possible. 

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.

I thought I heard from this forum that a re-release of the Samsung Galaxy S4 with tri-band LTE support was suppose to in the Fall time frame (maybe October along with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 release)?  I hope that is true.  I am not sure how Sprint will convey that message if a re-release of the Galaxy S4 does occur.  Has Sprint had any history of re-releasing a device to support additional cell phone bands?

Also about the Galaxy Note 3, it could have the Snapdragon 800 chip but from looking at the Galaxy Note 2 which came with the Exynos chip, the Galaxy Note 3 may come with the Exynos 5 chip like the Galaxy S4 international versions.

Is 3g also being worked for 800mhz or is it just 1x and lte?

Just 1x and LTE. Not enough spectrum to add 3g to 800 mhz

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

Why? Auction at 700 MHz was in 2008 and VZW launched commercially December 2010; is there something different at 600 MHz?

The 600 MHz auction is still several years from reality because there is no 600 MHz band plan yet. The 600 MHz band is a reverse auction where the FCC is trying to provide incentives and pay the TV broadcasters to give up their 600 MHz chunks. We don't know which broadcasters are keen to the idea or not. So since that variable of how much 600 MHz spectrum will be freed s up in the air, the 600 MHz band can not be defined yet for 3GPP. Once the FCC knows how much 600 MHz spectrum it was able to free up due to the auction, only then can the 3GPP standards be developed for the band classes and such.

Tmobile has proposed a 600 MHz band plan but that is just an assumption of how much 600 MHz spectrum will be freed up. So its still going to be several years away.

Is anyone here on SERO PREMIUM 500? Can you go back and forth from logging in to sprint.com or do you have to contact customer service or corporate sprint store?

I have never done a sero upgrade online. I have always done it over the phone OR at a corporate store (ymmv depending if the reps know wat they are doing)

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Sprint is deploying roughly 80% 800MHz for budget reasons. They think it's a waste of money to deploy on 100% of sites with 800 as it is more than capable to serve two PCS cells in many urban places. And they will go back and fill in 800 in these 20% when and if extra capacity is needed. So the goal is 100% 800 coverage in urban areas, but not 100% sites having it.

 

It's not an interference issue, as they can downtilt and reduce power to mitigate interference in most instances.

 

In some places they are deploying near 100%. Like in Chicago. They desperately need the capacity there. And in other markets, more 800 can be added for capacity as needed.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Thanks for clearing it up. I hope Sprint does near 100% 800 CDMA and LTE for NYC and LA as well . I think NYC especially as a city being mostly urban with thick buildings, I think its important to be able to get a signal indoors so hopefully 100% of 800 CDMA and LTE.

I think no matter what happens with the Sprint/Softbank deal, Sprint will continue to have Wimax service up until 2015. Since Sprint is still selling Wimax phones on its own brand and its prepaid divisions I don't see how they can shut down Wimax before then. Sprint will have to have every tower upgraded to Network Vision with LTE before they even consider shutting down the Wimax network. The longer Sprint can leverage capacity off its Wimax network instead of putting stress on its current LTE network , the better it will be for user experience until they can deploy LTE on every Network Vision tower.

I think with all these current delays and potential future ones, I can see Network Vision not largely completed until end of 2014.

As far as I know the plan has always been to have 800 CDMA on most every tower, but 800 LTE on just something like 80% of the towers. I could be remembering that wrong. With the increased range, you won't notice that it's not on every tower.

I thought I read on this forum that both CDMA and LTE at 800 would be on 80% of the towers due to potential interference. If it was just LTE on 80% of the towers and CDMA at every tower that would make it even less sense. I think CDMA has a stronger airlink than LTE so it won't travel as far. I was just wondering with proper downtilt, can that be mitigated to the point where you can have 800 CDMA and LTE at every tower? If that is possible, I don't see why Sprint wouldn''t do that because it will make each Network Vision tower very robust with capacity.

So is it still true that 800 mhz cdma and LTE will not be deployed on every tower? I hope thats not true...maybe will downtilt control you can have 800 mhz cdma and LTE at every tower.

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Hopefully the LG Optimus G Pro will be a hit on ATT even when it is exclusive. It would be nice to have a formidable challenger to the Galaxy Note phone series. If the G Pro series takes off then LG has more leverage to try to sell it to all carriers.

Well hopefully with the Softbank transaction approval, Sprint should be in better shape financially. I don't really Sprint to get in bed with Lightsquared again after this fiasco. They already have enough spectrum with the Clearwire transaction and if anything they should be relinquishing some of the EBS spectrum which isn't needed.

Is Sprint going to eventually update to EV-DO Rev. B?

 

http://www.qualcomm....gies/ev-do-revb

 

At the very least, Phase 1 - software update on base stations - would seem to be a no-brainer.

At this point, I don't think it is worth the high costs for equipment to upgrade EVDO from Rev A to Rev B nor the spectrum wasted to bond multiple EVDO carriers. Like Robert said, since there are not many worldwide carriers that deploy Rev B so there would not be good economies of scale.

The best time for Rev B theoretically would have been back in 2008 where Sprint could have deployed Rev B to improve 3G as a fallback to Clearwire Wimax. However without Verizon's backing of Rev B and as we now know the lack of sufficient Ethernet backhaul at legacy Sprint cell towers, it didn't matter if you had Rev A or Rev B since the average user did not achieve speeds even close to the theoretical maximum of Rev A of 3.1 Mbps so the costs of Rev B would have been wasted.

It's not a blow. T-Mobile service will end at the City Limits. Sprint is starting in Columbus now and it will be over the entire market. Sprint kicks Tmo's ass in Columbus, and will for years to come. Sprint's entire network strategy is going to really start paying off by the end of summer. When you look at even the AT&T map, you can see the abrupt edges at the cities.

 

The fact that Sprint is going network wide is really going to help them compete. Especially with Tmo. And Sprint is starting to deploy LTE 800 in a few weeks. Tmo has no low frequency spectrum. And that is a darn near requirement for LTE with it's fragile airlink.

 

AWS LTE is going to be even spottier than AWS HSPA+ is. Tmo LTE is going to be very spotty.

 

Robert

What I have noticed is the majority of Ohio cities like Cleveland, Cincinatti, Columbus, etc are in the Samsung NV region but they use Motorola legacy hardware. I wonder if Sprint is going to do anything similar to speed up deployment in these cities like Chicago so that customer service does not suffer like it did initially in Chicago due to the call handoff situation between NV and legacy hardware.

Looks like Tmobile is picking up the pace on deploying its LTE network. It seems to be hitting a lot of high pop cities which Sprint has currently deployed or partially deployed. Honolulu, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Columbus being listed is a blow to Sprint customers since those are cities that Sprint has not begin NV or have any LTE. Tmobile can make Sprint a run for its money and make them a viable competitor. The lack of sufficient backhaul for LTE in place at all Sprint legacy sites is really hurting their deployment schedule.

• Atlanta – Sandy Springs, Marietta, San Antonio
  
• Austin – Round Rock, San Marcos (May Launch)
  
• Part of the Carolinas – Charlotte, Rock Hill
  
• Chicago – Joliet, Naperville
  
• Cincinnati – Dayton
  
• Cleveland
  
• Connecticut – Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk
  
• Columbus – Mentor
  
• Dallas – Fort Worth, Arlington
  
• Denver – Aurora, Broomfield
  
• Detroit – Warren
  
• Honolulu – Maui (May Launch)
  
• Long Island, New York and New Jersey – specific areas unknown
  
• Los Angeles – Pasadena, West Covina, West LA, Metro LA, Burbank, Beverly Hills
  
• Oklahoma City
  
• Orlando
  
• Miami – Fort Lauderdale
  
• Minneapolis – St Paul, Bloomington (May Launch)
  
• New England – Boston, Cambridge
  
• Philadelphia – Camden, Wilmington (May Launch)
  
• Sacramento – Arden, Arcade, Roseville, Fresno
  
• San Diego -Carlsbad, San Marcos
  
• San Francisco – Oakland
  
• Seattle – Tacoma, Bellevue
  
• Tampa
  
• Tulsa – (May Launch)
  
• Phoenix – Tucson (May Launch)
  

http://www.tmonews.c...r-may-and-june/

I am curious what is Tom's view on the spectrum discrepancy among wireless carriers particularly between the big 2. I really hope that Tom will crack down on Verizon and ATT on the amount of low band spectrum they can obtain as well as the total amount of spectrum in their holdings in general. If Tom can help the smaller carriers in Sprint, Tmobile, US Cellular, Leap, etc bring some parity to the big 2, then I would be very happy with this FCC chairman.

Agreed. However, hindsight is always 20/20. Had Sprint Nextel bit the bullet and sunset iDEN a few years ago, the financial state of the company could have been very different today. That said, the FCC did not formally approve broadband operation in SMR 800 MHz until last year, so the the end result may have been little different.

 

AJ

I don't know exactly when Sprint began applying to the FCC for broadband operation in SMR 800 MHz. If it took several years then you are correct in that it wouldn't have made much of a difference since the earliest Sprint could use this spectrum for CDMA/LTE/EVDO is now. However if it was possible to apply back in 2008 with a plan to shut down Nextel in 2010 and could have gotten approval for SMR 800 MHz broadband usage say in 2010 or 2011, it would have been nice to have used 800 MHz to enhance the Sprint network with 800 MHz CDMA and EVDO for better voice and data penetration.

This, though, is a bit too far. Sprint has paid for WiMax access into 2014, and if that covers the area people use, there is no problem with them selling and using it, millions have gone into that infastructure. The thing that might cause trouble is their intent with Clearwire going forward. If they intend to milk the existing network, fine and dandy; but if they ARE going to scrap all the Clear sites, then selling WiMax phones past a certain date smacks of the startSTOPstart that they have done with Nextel over the years. It doesn't hurt for anyone to be using WiMax phones, but it would be less than ideal if WiMax was killed while people on an active contract were using it, and then had to be offered targeted handset deals like the Nextel lot because their service was "adversely affected".

I have no problem with Sprint selling Wimax devices like the GS2 on prepaid with Virgin and Boost Mobile since it is still a decent phone. I just don't want to see Sprint postpaid customers who can be tied for another 2 years with a Wimax handset. While Sprint has the obligation to support Wimax until 2015, the goal isn't to continue to load the Wimax network with new customers but to support those current customers who have Wimax access until its time for them to naturally buy a new handset. Sprint can't add new Wimax customers if the option isn't there. Sprint should be encouraging postpaid customers to buy LTE phones regardless even though they don't have LTE in their area because LTE should be hitting every mid to large city in some scale by mid 2014. Ideally Sprint would want to shut down Wimax sooner if it could and refarm that Wimax spectrum for TD-LTE use so it doesn't have to support 2 different networks. Remember that if Sprint owns 100% of Clearwire, those contracts to support Wimax to 2015 would be modified if Sprint sees fit that it is ready to move to TD-LTE quicker.

Tick tick tick...nextel iden users, time is running out. I can't believe there are people still on the iden network given that they have had over a 1.5 years notice that its going to be shut down in June 2013. I guess people like to ride stuff to the end with no exit strategy. Personally if I was an iden user, I would have either switched to Sprint Direct Connect if I liked the price point or switched to Verizon or ATT with good PTT services. Hanging on for this long hoping that Sprint would suddenly change their mind is ridiculous. Sprint should have added the $10 premium data charge in 2011 to get the iden users off quicker.

Dish won't make a video. Charlie will just pitch a fit and push the national security blah blah crap. Look how dirty they are with their directv ads. Almost deceptive in their commercials.

 

Sent from my Wicked SGS3 dongled with a Commodore 64.

You are right, Dish won't make a video. I think its now up to the financial analysts to look at the presentation and dissect the numbers to see that Son is right and make recommendations that the Softbank deal is better than Dish.

The general public just sees the 25 billion from Dish vs. 20 billion from Softbank and assumes its a better deal due to more cash.

http://webcast.softb...0_02/index.html

 

Watching the video now, great!

Love the video. The ball is in Dish's court now. I would love to see Dish make a similar video to see why they think their deal is better than Softbank and make up for the lack of network expertise and vendor partnerships that Softbank has.

Those 1300 towers have Samsung Dual mode WiMax/TD-LTE RRU's broadcasting WiMax for current users. The towers that are converted are most likely only the ones on the same towers that Sprint is co-located on, but could possibly be on towers that they aren't. Once 2015 hits, WiMax will be taken offline just like iDEN will be in 2 months, and all the old equipment will eventually taken down.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

I hope those 1300 TD-LTE towers that are built are only at colocated Sprint sites. I think that none of the Clearwire only towers should have TD-LTE installed on them. Instead those plans to add TD-LTE at Clearwire only sites should be scrapped and those modified changes should be applied and added to the nearest Sprint Network Vision site. Right now we have no way to tell where those 1300 TD-LTE sites are located at.

I still think that two 20 MHz TD LTE carriers would be better served than to have one 40 MHz TD LTE carrier aggregated pipe. There is no need to have such fast speeds when Verizon, ATT and Tmobile are still deploying 10x10 LTE carriers.

The bigger question is where is Sprint and Clearwire going to build out the TDD-LTE network. Certainly we know it won't be on every single Network Vision site so either way the Clearwire TD LTE network will be limited.

No. As milan points out, you can turn the phone back in to T-Mobile and they'll assess the "fair market value" of the phone at that time and credit that towards the remaining balance on the phone. As I said earlier, I'm really curious as to how they'll come up with that "fair market value" figure, but time will tell.

I don't think the "fair market value" will be that great. I would think that Tmobile's goal would be to offer a lower value to discourage people from just leaving like that even though they are suppose to be the "uncarrier".

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I guess maybe what some might take issue with is the wordplay. They're basically saying that they're not going to put you in a contract with an ETF like their three "evil" bigger brothers. BUT, if you decide to cancel after say 4 months, cough up $400 promptly please but we aren't calling it an "ETF". Now, it's nice that they give you some flexibility in how much you put down and/or how much you pay towards it each month. However, until the phone is paid for, there is a ETF component there, but they just aren't calling it an ETF.

I am just curious, if you do not want to keep the phone on Tmobile after 4 months, do you still have to cough up the $400?

I really wish Sprint would change their 4G icon to 4G LTE so that folks won't get confused between WiMax and LTE. I really like the Sprint 4G LTE icon and it would be awesome if they did it on future phones. ATT, verizon and Tmobile all have unique icons for 4G LTE so I think Sprint should do the same.