ericdabbs

Where did you read that? I haven't heard of any Sprint official or unofficial comments on where they want to take Clearwire for TD-LTE deployment. The only thing I heard about TD-LTE deployment was from Clearwire which involves deploying hotzones in 31 markets. My hope is that Sprint would take TD-LTE deployment nationwide to all major markets in the urban areas. Since Clearwire only has ~16 K towers nationwide, the only way I can see Sprint trying to achieve this is through deploying TD-LTE on its own Network Vision towers where it already has the tower leases and backhaul set up in markets where Wimax is not currently covered.

Check this thread out. It has all the information you need. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/

Miami only has 23% of its area covered with Network Vision and not all of it is LTE. Since you are not a sponsor here you can't see which towers have LTE which is why you observe LTE gaps. Miami still has a long way to go but you can see from the areas that have LTE that speeds are great.

When do you guys think this phone will be released on Sprint? Now that the HTC One is being released on April 19th, I think the S4 should be released in mid to late May.

Ehh I don't see how popular this facebook phone will be. I know its called the HTC First but it could also be called the HTC Last if it doesn't draw any market share.

I meant to say that it appears from the Engadget article in the link in my previous posts that the Sprint HTC One supports WCDMA at 700 and AWS bands. The table says which bands it supports and along with CDMA at 850/1900 and LTE at 1900 it says it supports WCDMA 700 and AWS bands. Its probably a typo or the guy is clueless. Either way, I was kinda skeptical too so I was just wanted to throw that out to see if I was just seeing things.

I see that Sprint has WCDMA support for 700 and AWS bands. Which countries deploy WCDMA support in the 700 MHz band. Seems like a weird band to support WCDMA when it would have been better to include 1900 instead.

Yeah this is what I was hoping for. A way to deploy the H block spectrum from the current RRUs and panels through upgraded firmware or new carrier cards without needing to replace the panels or RRUs up on the tower which will take a lot longer and add a ton of costs. I know I am thinking ahead of myself since we don't know how aggressive Sprint will bid on the H block. I would have to think that given Verizon, ATT and Tmobile have been beefing up their spectrum holdings in the past year that Sprint would need to try to get the full 10 MHz in the H block in all the major markets and all of the < 20 MHz markets too and pay what it takes to get it. I am not convinced that the 2.5 GHz acquired by Clearwire will help with relieving strain in the G block and enhancing capacity in metro areas nationwide if the plan isn't to expand into all major metro areas especially ones that were not covered by WiMAX.

Are there conflicting issues if the WiFi and Bluetooth antennas are shared? I guess in practical use, it shouldn't be a big deal right? Unless you plan to talk with your cell phone via bluetooth and use wifi at the same time?

This is good news that the new Sprint LTE phones in 2013 are starting to have removable sims. Hopefully the Galaxy S4 comes with a removable sim to confirm this trend for 2013 Sprint LTE phones. This is the Engadget article that references a removable SIM on the Sprint HTC One. http://www.engadget....-sprint-review/ Taken from the Engadget article "For those of you just getting around to cross-shopping the HTC One against other devices, we'll give you a lightning tour of the handset. On board, you've got a standard micro-USB / MHL port along the bottom edge, as well as a metal volume rocker on the right side, and a micro-SIM tray on the left. Of note, the Sprint One is among the first of the carrier's LTE devices to offer a replaceable SIM. Up top, you'll find your requisite headphone jack and power / lock button, which doubles as an IR blaster. Meanwhile the back side is home to a 4MP UltraPixel camera with flash. Moving back to the front side, you'll find the 2.1-megapixel, front-facing camera, as well as an LED notification light, tucked under the top speaker grille, just above the screen."

Yes I agree. In rural areas, Sprint should take advantage of the 70% bonus coverage option instead of the 4x capacity. Sprint should understand which areas it should take advantage of the 4x capacity and which areas should take advantage of the 70% bonus coverage. Right now we don't have any concrete evidence that Sprint is doing either.

I believe when the tower is upgraded to Network Vision, it should have the 1x Advanced carrier card installed at the BTS. The big question is what advantage did Sprint decide to implement between 4x capacity or 70% more coverage? IMO, Sprint should opt for the 4x capacity so that they can reduce the number of 1x carriers to conserve spectrum and the fact that the cell towers are optimized for 1900 MHz spacing already. I guess people can argue that there can be some areas where the 70% coverage would be the better option than the 4x capacity. Sprint should only have to deploy one 1x Advanced carrier at 800 and 1900 MHz with 4x capacity enabled on each and the saved spectrum should be invested into more EVDO and LTE carriers.

the problem is that Sprint has too many deals going on with the softbank/clearwire merger and the pending UScellular spectrum deal. Also if Sprint did buy US Cellular at a future date that Sprint would want to spend the resources to incorporate the 850 MHz band when its just for the rural areas. Sprint would contend that their 800 MHz CDMA and LTE services would do just the job not only in rural America but all over the US since they have all of the 800 MHz spectrum licenses. A buyout of US Cellular would be useful only for their PCS and AWS spectrum. The 700 and 850 MHz spectrum licenses would be worthless to Sprint and would be better off selling them to ATT or Verizon for efficient use of the spectrum.

Technically a few weeks after the june 30th deadline, sprint can begin to deploy 800 mhz cdma everywhere they can in a massive scale. There r already areas in the US which have 800 mhz cdma deployed so it has already started. I believe the US and mexico already signed an agreement last year about 800 mhz interoperability along the mexican border. It was posted on fiercewireless. Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

None. Only the evo 4g lte phone supports hd voice. Sprint has been very hush hush about hd voice since last march. My guess is that sprint is waiting until more of the sprint network towers are converted to 1x advanced first. IMO I dont expect sprint to have hd voice ready phones until 2014 Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

YES!!!!! Sprint direct connect will work over cdma 800 and 1900 mhz. So this means that you will be getting the same coverage as nextel iden coverage since they both use 800 mhz. That is the point that sprint has been pitching to nextel customers for the last 1.5 years to convert to being a sprint customer. Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

Nice find. You and AJ are so good at probing the FCC database to look for things like this that are important for Network Vision. My only beef about the RRU is why does the Tx operating range only from 2496 to 2658 MHz but Band 41 ranges from 2496 to 2690 MHz. Why didn't Ericcson test the RRU in the full Band 41 range? It doesn't make any sense to me. I guess it only sorta makes sense since 2496 to 2658 is range of 162 MHz and Clearwire has stated that they have around 160 MHz on average in the top markets. It could be a coincidence or intentional.

While this sounds great, I wonder what Sprint is going to do if they win nationwide spectrum of the H block spectrum. Does this mean that all the OEMs will need to create new RRUs to account for the 1915-1920 and 1995-2000 MHz frequency ranges and Sprint would need to buy new RRUs to support it? I just don't understand why they OEMs don't just make RRUs that can operate in a wider range of frequencies. Its not like the wireless carriers are allowed to Tx in frequencies that they are not approved for anyways but the fact that if they end up purchasing the licenses to then Tx in those frequencies the wireless carriers wouldn't need to purchase new equipment. For example, the RRU below is rated for 806-869 MHz. Even though Sprint can only broadcast from 817-824 and 862-869 MHz, it gives Sprint the opportunity for future expansion if for some reason down the road the 806-816 and 851-861 MHz becomes available for wireless services broadcast.

Yeah I am not sure what Samsung is trying to do here with the Samsung Mega and Note series. I am not sure how Samsung is differentiating between the two. I really hope the Note series will not cancelled and replaced with the Mega series. There is no evidence of whether the Mega phones will contain the S-pen.

The problem I see is that the trend for cell phone use has changed in the last few years from primarily using it for voice to data usage. Since more and more people are getting smartphones for mainly the data usage portion that means that fast data speeds are important. With the invention of LTE that can deliver broadband internet speeds on the go, it relies heavily on the amount of spectrum a carrier has and wider channels for each LTE carrier. Unfortunately these smaller regional carriers do not have sufficient spectrum to support the broadband speeds that the 4 major carriers can deliver. Therefore consumers flock to the 4 major carriers that can deliver them the broadband speeds and coverage that they so covet. This is why I believe the smaller carriers like Cricket and US Cellular will eventually be scooped up since they can't compete with the big boys. In the early 2000s before the iPhone and 4G speeds, the regional carriers can compete because the cell phone was primarily used for voice and data was an after thought. Since voice does not require a huge amount of spectrum, the regional carriers could compete with the major carriers without a problem and their major selling point was probably price. Now the idea of paying 70-80 dollars/month for cell phone service turned from a shock in 2006 to a norm in 2013. People are now willing to pay double the price of cell phone charges as an accepted norm to get broadband speed data service. So to sum it up, the two major factors you can say that can lead to the regional carriers demise are 1) cell phone usage priority has been shifted from primarily voice to data and 2) amount of spectrum needed to support broadband data speeds require a lot more spectrum due to wider channels which regional carriers do not have plenty of in the first place.

I get the whole fiduciary duty that Clearwire has to pursue for its shareholders but what I don't understand is if that is the case, Clearwire should not be tapping into Crest Financial or Sprint financing for the time being while they are doing their due diligence. Obviously Sprint, Dish and Crest Financial have money and if Dish was really serious about making a deal with Clearwire, why haven't they offered some upfront money as a down payment to try to secure the deal like Sprint has offered. To me, once Clearwire decides to taps into either Sprint or Crest Financial for funding it should be a clear indication of who they want to go with. I have never seen a potential merger deal like this where the target company is allowed free reign to continue performing activities with other companies which are not related with the original merger agreement. I think at this point, Clearwire already knows the details of the Dish deal and Sprint deal. It already has been 3 months and they are still wavering on this decision.

Besides relying on speedtests for your actual speed, are you seeing any real decline in data speed service as in youtube, netflix or internet browsing. If you ask robert or AJ on this forum, those speedtests are not reliable at all and should not be used to judge your true LTE speed. Those speedtests do nothing but give us a reason to show off to people what speeds you think you are receiving but are not the true practical speeds it actually is using. Even if you get 20 Mbps on a speedtest, there is no way to confirm that you are actually getting 20 Mbps unless you are downloading some huge file and confirm the download speed is actually 20 Mbps. My point is unless you are seeing some major decline in data service, does it really matter???? I wouldn't worry so much about what the speedtest value says because in reality you are never using that full speed amount anyways. In terms of your voice, I don't know what to say other than to call Sprint to file a ticket to see if its truly a tower issue. Have you consulted any other Sprint customers in your building to confirm they are having dropped call issues as well. It could possibly be your handset. It seems like you are relying on a tri-band hotspot for your LTE service which is not the same as having a pure LTE phone.

Only problem is that your speedtests are out in Chicago while the previous poster is located in Houston. It may be his handset but it just seems like potential LTE issues in that part of Houston.

Yes

Once this Softbank/Sprint/Clearwire merger gets approved, Sprint will continue to focus on Network Vision and its 800 and 2500 MHz LTE rollout. This merger is a major distraction but a necessary one that will help Sprint for their future.