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ericdabbs

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Everything posted by ericdabbs

  1. ericdabbs
    Dish can say a lot of things but I doubt rural areas is of their main concern. Dish right now is playing politician making promises like keeping unlimited data and deploying voice and LTE into rural areas to try to win Sprint shareholders over. It remains to be seen what Dish's plans are for deploying LTE in the S-band. When I look at what leadership is best to drive the Sprint ship going forward, I don't see how Dish can do it any better than Softbank. With Softbank's proven record over the best few years to leapfrog from 3rd place to competing for 1st place in just a few years, I feel hopeful that Softbank can turn Sprint into a similar situation. Maybe Sprint could demand Softbank to come back with a competing offer to be similar to Dish but I feel that Softbank and Sprint are more aligned in terms of their strategy outlook since they have been working together on this since October 2012. I just don't see Dish and Sprint aligning themselves and Dish keeping Sprint management around after a merger. I see Dish being more concerned about selling cable TV services and bundling it with wireless services than they are about building out the LTE in the 800/1900/2500 MHz bands. Maybe Dish would only be concerned with building out LTE in the S-band.
  2. ericdabbs
    Well then Ergen should instead focus on putting up that "for sale" sign for their spectrum. Coldwell Banker and REMAX can help Dish with making signs for them. Sprint and Tmobile should both turn Dish down and force Charlie to squirm.
  3. ericdabbs
    Of course Dish is going to say all the right words in its conference call. Its trying to win a battle over Softbank and Sprint shareholders for the rights to Sprint Nextel. If Dish came out and said that they would get rid of unlimited data and not go the TD-LTE route for Clearwire spectrum that would be asinine. Sprint has already made it clear that these are 2 things that are part of their current strategy anyways. Dish would be dumb to all of a sudden come in and disrupt that strategy when its really the only path they can go especially with Clearwire and TD-LTE.
  4. ericdabbs
    NO NO NO. I do not want a Dish merger. I would much rather have the Softbank deal. I don't want Sprint mixed in with Charlie and his management. I believe Son would do a much better job of helping Sprint in the long term that what Charlie can offer on the table. Besides Son actually has wireless carrier experience and Charlie does not. Its a different ball game between offering cable services and wireless cell phone service.
  5. ericdabbs
    I have no idea what Sprint's plan would be to merge their network with Tmobile and MetroPCS given that Network Vision is close to 1/3 done. With Tmobile doing its own "Network Vision" and MetroPCS with its own network, I don't know how Sprint is planning to merge everything even if the plan is to move everything to LTE. I guess with Softbank's funding, Son is definitely willing to pump in as much money to try to catch up to Verizon and AT&T. Would be curious to see how the FCC would look at a potential Sprint/Tmobile merger.
  6. ericdabbs
    I don't think the Bloomberg article mentions anything that Tmobile has a pending merger offer from Sprint. It does mention that Tmobile and Sprint had held talks about a merger as early as 2011 but it does say that the deal fell apart due to both parties unable to reach an agreement price. But that doesn't mean that Sprint and Tmobile are still actively in discussions for a merger as of this moment. Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire are still in a huge debacle with their own merger where Sprint can't seem to get Dish and Crest Financial off their backs for Clearwire. It doesn't make any sense at all that Sprint and Tmobile would be talking at this point. It seems like Dish is the only company in the running for Tmobile. It does mention in the article that Deutsch Telekom is waiting for the Tmobile/MetroPCS transaction to be finalized and that a pending deal for Clearwire is off the table before engaging with any talks with Dish.
  7. ericdabbs
    If Dish buys Tmobile they will have so much spectrum when they also combine Dish's own 40 MHz of S-band spectrum. If that were to happen, would the FCC require Tmobile to divest some of their PCS spectrum. Also if Dish were to buy Tmobile, you can kiss a possible Sprint/Tmobile merger in the future bye bye because good o' Charlie will not want to deal with Sprint. This would really make Tmobile a strong 4th contender in the market with a huge spectrum portfolio. The only downside is that Tmobile would still lack some low band spectrum which could be resolved with a 600 MHz spectrum auction.
  8. ericdabbs
    The Sprint coverage map has already been updated for the major markets of Los Angeles, Memphis and Charlotte. After looking and comparing the NV complete sites and the Sprint coverage map, I would say that the coverage presented in the Sprint coverage map is pretty accurate. This gives me good confidence that the info Robert gets every week is trustworthy.
  9. ericdabbs
    I don't understand the fascination of a Sprint and Tmobile merger at this point when both companies are both caught up in their own transactions to bolster their network and trying to catch up to the big 2. I just don't see a Sprint and Tmobile merger occurring any time soon or if ever. Sprint attempted to buy Tmobile once several years ago before AT&T jumped with a better offer. I think the FCC is happy to have 4 major carriers in the US competing for market share. The problem the FCC has is that Verizon and AT&T control too much of the wireless industry and they need to find a way to help Sprint and Tmobile become a bigger threat to the big 2. As much as I love Sprint, I am glad that there is still Tmobile out there as an alternative carrier that I can jump to that still has unlimited data. I wouldn't want to see Tmobile gobbled up by Sprint and reduce competition. I just think once Sprint and Tmobile catch up with their LTE footprint to be on par with Verizon and AT&T, current customers for Verizon and AT&T would be willing to give Sprint and Tmobile a chance once they see LTE in their town to see if they can save them any money and for the unlimited data. If you ask any current Verizon and AT&T customer why they wouldn't switch to Sprint and Tmobile and a lot will say its because they don't have LTE in their town even if it means they continue to pay higher prices.
  10. ericdabbs
    It could be. The thing is even if Sprint were to improve their offer, at what price would it be satisfactory? Dish has stated an offer of about $3.30/share. Is Crest expecting at least $3.50/share? Hell I hope Clearwire investors are not expecting $8.00 for 49% of the company given the amount of debt they have and how much they rely on Sprint for survival.
  11. ericdabbs
    Crest Financial waging proxy fight to block Sprint deal. Its getting "real" up in here for Crest Financial of their disdain of the Sprint deal and urging Clearwire shareholders to block the deal. I wonder how much effect this will have approving this deal going forward. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/clearwire-shareholder-crest-wages-proxy-fight-block-sprint-deal/2013-04-11
  12. ericdabbs
    Definitely additional antenna panels that support AWS frequencies, carrier cards for PCS HSPA and AWS LTE/HSPA at the BTS, new RRUs that support HSPA and LTE on AWS and PCS. I am sure I am missing some other small details.
  13. ericdabbs
    A lot. I wouldn't worry about it since it won't happen.
  14. ericdabbs
    Interesting information. I assume the antenna panel must be able to handle at least 8 CDMA/EVDO/LTE carriers since I believe each tower has 2 RRUs for each antenna panel.
  15. ericdabbs
    The point was that you could aggregate two 5x5 carriers to create a 10x10 carrier. Sure the 5x5 SMR LTE carrier should stay on its own to provide better indoor coverage and I would not aggregate with a PCS LTE carrier. Call it a bad example if you want. You pointed out saying that Sprint would never do 10x10 because in many places it didn't have a 10x10 of contiguous spectrum. What I am trying to say is that you don't need a 10x10 of contiguous spectrum to deploy a 10x10 LTE carrier in the future because LTE Advanced allows you to aggregate two 5x5 carriers in non-contiguous spectrum to create a 10x10 carrier. I would make the argument that you can make a 10x10 LTE carrier from two 5x5 carriers in the PCS spectrum (one from PCS D and one from the PCS E block which are not contiguous). Again call it a "measuring contest" or what not but the point is that in anything that Sprint has planned for the future needs to have flexibility. What Sprint decides to end up doing, we don't know but to assume it will "never" happen is absurd. I wouldn't look at what Samsung did with its 5 MHz bandwidths as a measuring stick to what Sprint has planned for the future. Obviously the HTC, Motorola and LG phones were tested for 5 and 10 MHz bandwidths for a reason. If there were absolutely no plans for the future for 10 MHz bandwidths then it wouldn't have been tested in the first place.
  16. ericdabbs
    How many CDMA/EVDO/LTE carriers can a RRU and the antenna panel handle at one time? Its certainly not an unlimited number of carriers.
  17. ericdabbs
    By good chunk of LTE devices you really just mean the Samsung devices only. The Motorola, HTC and LG devices have all supported 5 and 10 MHz LTE bandwidths. I understand for the time being that 5 MHz LTE bandwidths are what Sprint will be deploying for additional capacity. With LTE Advanced, you don't need to have a 10x10 of contiguous spectrum that you are argue is needed to create a 10x10 LTE carrier. The idea is that you can take two 5x5 LTE carriers from different spectrum (Ex: 800 and 1900 MHz)and aggregate them to create a fatter pipe. This to me is something that I can see as feasible for Sprint in the future if they so choose to. With RRUs only able to support 5 MHz bandwidths this is a limitation that does not allow for future growth. I can see not needed to test 15 and 20 MHz bandwidths but 10 MHz bandwidth is in no way out of the question.
  18. ericdabbs
    Looks like Dish is stock piling 10 billion in cash to try to make some disruption in the wireless industry which involves either a Clearwire purchase offer OR maybe present a potential counteroffer for MetroPCS to disrupt the Tmobile/MetroPCS deal. Either way I hope in the end Dish gets neither of those deals and that way they can sit on their spectrum and pound sand. I would much rather have Tmobile have MetroPCS than Dish. I would love to see Ergen squirm if he can't land either one of those deals and he raised all that money for nothing. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/dish-amasses-10b-cash-pile-questions-swirl-over-its-plans/2013-04-10
  19. ericdabbs
    I am kinda shocked that Sprint didn't request that all the OEMs RRUs be tested for 5 and 10 MHz channel bandwidths. I can understand not needing to test 15 and 20 MHz channel bandwidths since that wouldn't occur until several years from now or if ever but I don't think that 10 MHz channel bandwidths would have been too far fetched for the near future. It seems like it wouldn't be too difficult for Alcatel Lucent to add 10 MHz channel bandwidth support with a Class 2 Permissive Change request on its RRU. With Alcatel Lucent covering some of the largest metro areas in the US, they will definitely need to be able to support 10 MHz channel bandwidths.
  20. ericdabbs
    End of May can't come soon enough. If the FCC approves the Softbank/Sprint/Clearwire merger what happens next? I assume it still needs to get minority Clearwire shareholder approval and I would assume by then Clearwire has to make up their darn minds. This circus is getting ridiculous.
  21. ericdabbs
    Sprint is trying to save money on operating costs that have plagued them for years for running 2 different networks. In Sprint's opinion, many of the Nextel sites are redundant where Sprint sites provide overlapping coverage, so it makes sense to shut down Nextel sites that do the same thing. Now I agree that in certain areas in the US where Nextel sites cover areas where Sprint coverage does not, it should keep those Nextel sites and convert those to Sprint Network Vision towers. But I would say for the majority of the 30,000 Nextel sites, Sprint should decommission them and save money on operating costs. Sprint needs to cut down its 68,000 sites (Nextel and Sprint combined) to 38,000 sites (Sprint only) and improve its balance sheet. The money saved from decommissioning about 30,000 sites would be much better used somewhere else like expanding the TD-LTE coverage beyond Clearwire's scope of its existing WiMAX footprint.
  22. ericdabbs
    Wow!!! I wonder if Samsung and Alcatel RRUs are able to support 10, 15 and 20 MHz channel bandwidths for LTE use. I am sure you can find this information.
  23. ericdabbs
    Once again Josh you are DA MAN!!! Great finds for the Samsung and Alcatel Lucent RRUs. I live in a Alcatel Lucent market so I hope they start pumping out the firmware update to upgrade these Alcatel Lucent RRUs when they do new Network Vision installs so that it will be ready to begin deploying 800 MHz LTE later on this year.
  24. ericdabbs
    If the Galaxy S4 has removable SIMs which would be the 2nd phone in 2013 to have removable SIM. I don't see a reason why Sprint would discontinue removable SIMs from this point forward regardless if it is single or tri band LTE phone.
  25. ericdabbs
    Good find. I wonder if Samsung and Alcatel Lucent RRUs are certified for 800 CDMA and LTE use.
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