ericdabbs

Yup and the more Clearwire taps into Sprint for financing, the more voting power it should get for the deal from all the shares purchased. I can't wait until May to read a press release saying the Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire merger has been approved by the FCC. It would be such a glorious day.

Hopefully shortly after that the US Cellular spectrum deal will be approved by the FCC because Chicago badly needs that extra 20 MHz of PCS spectrum.

They're building it out, I know. But LTE was projected to launch what, 6 months ago in LA? Its almost April with no launch window in sight. As a consumer, its annoying. I can hope and dream for LTE on 800mhz. Its an amazing thought. But lets get real, its not happening ANY time soon, regardless of what they say.

There is LTE deployed in many places in Los Angeles. I mean who honestly cares if you see a press release that says LTE in LA is live when it has been live for many months now. Sprint has been lighting up completed Network Vision sites as soon as they are ready and if you go to the LA Metro market thread you will see a ton of ppl reporting LTE sightings. They are not blocking LTE sites until a formal release date.

Unfortunately you have to be a sponsor to this site to find out the specific cell site locations. What city do you live in and I can check if there is LTE coverage near you.

We have no information about the 800Mhz FIT or any testing. I think the only confirmed 800Mhz LTE info is that one FIT was going to be somewhere in Montana. Sprint is skipping Dual band LTE for Triband LTE, so it will be end of the year for phones with more than PCS A-G LTE.

From looking at the Sprint press releases from 2012, the last few high end Sprint LTE phones released late last year were the LG Optimus G on 11/11/12 and Galaxy Note 2 on 10/25/12. Hopefully this year these same 2 LTE phones will contain the tri-band LTE support that we are all hoping for with the LG Optimus G 2 and the Galaxy Note 3. I think the chances of the iPhone 5S or 6 with tri-band LTE support is less likely.

 

I could see the Note 3, but if I had to put money on it, it would be the next iPhone. It already has support for CDMA 800 and LTE on 850, so I could see the next one adding 800Mhz LTE support without too much trouble. Softbank has TD-lte on 2.5Ghz being deployed, China Mobile has been in talking with apple for quite some time to offer the iPhone; and I believe it was mentioned that they could possible share the antennas that broadcast wifi on 2.4ghz with 2.5/2.6ghz. Lets not forget that Qualcomm announced their global chip, which can support 40 LTE bands. I am pretty sure Tim Cook has wet dreams about being able to call the iPhone the worlds first LTE world phone.

 

 

Of course their decision to not update the current att iPhones to fully support T-mobile makes me hesitant.

I hope you are right in that the next iPhone depending on when it will be released contains 800 and 2500 MHz LTE support. It doesn't seem like Sprint is leaning towards releasing dual band LTE phones at this point and opting to jump straight to tri band LTE phones. Since the iPhone has now been for the last 2 years released in the late sept/early october time frame, it makes sense that it could be the first tri band LTE phone and if it does become the first tri band LTE phone, I will be so happy since that would mean future phones like the Note 3 and LG Optimus G 2 should have tri band LTE support as well.

With other carriers like AT&T, MetroPCS and Tmobile releasing LTE phones with multi-band support and in some cases as much as 4 LTE bands, there should be no excuse for Sprint not to start doing the same beginning 2H 2013.

In terms of why Apple didn't decide to update the current ATT iPhones to fully support Tmobile, I feel its very obvious. ATT is fully aware that people take their ATT iPhones to Tmobile and use it on their network and ATT knows Tmobile will be deploying their LTE on the AWS band. If ATT provided a firmware update for the ATT iPhone to support AWS LTE, then ATT customers thinking about leaving for Tmobile can easily take their iPhones to Tmobile and pay $70/mo and get LTE service which makes it really attractive. I think it is in ATT's best interest to intentionally leave out AWS LTE support unless ATT plans to fully support it as their next LTE band which I don't think is the case.

Just as I suspected, the Sprint GS4 went through FCC today and it only has 1900 MHz LTE support.

Clearwire is planning to tap another $80 million from Sprint for financing in April. This will be the second time Clearwire has tapped into Sprint for financing. The last time was in late Feb.

With another $80 million in financing, I would think this would give Sprint more voting power on the deal. Just need to weed out those pesky Clearwire retail investors to vote for the Sprint deal and get rid of Dish once and for all.

http://finance.yahoo...-013726388.html

looks like good rf performance but it's still ridiculous they didn't include 800 LTE

It sounds like Sprint is ditching dual band LTE phones and jumping straight for tri-band LTE phones. So unless Sprint was ready to add BC41 (2500 MHz) LTE along with BC 26 (800 MHz ESMR) LTE support, Sprint will continue to just release 1900 MHz LTE only phones.

I beat you to it by 2 minutes. Post #124

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/3395-the-galaxy-s4-gets-announced-today-are-you-excited/page__st__120

"Looks like bad news for the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S4. The Sprint version went through the FCC today and from looking at the FCC documents, it only contains Band 25 (1900 MHz A-G block) LTE support and supports only 5 MHz bandwidths.

I am very sad about the lack of multi-band LTE support but at the same time I am not surprised about this given the HTC One only contains Band 25 (1900 MHz A-G block) LTE support as well. I just really hope the 2H 2013 LTE phones like the LG Optimus G 2, Galaxy Note 3, Moto X (rumored), Nexus 5, etc contain tri-band LTE support.

I'll be looking forward to AJ's article for further analysis on the Sprint Galaxy S4 FCC documents.

Engadget article about Sprint Samsung Galaxy S4 hits FCC.

http://www.engadget....d-sprint-forms/

Sprint Galaxy S4 FCC filing

https://apps.fcc.gov...c_id=A3LSPHL720 "

Looks like bad news for the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S4. The Sprint version went through the FCC today and from looking at the FCC documents, it only contains Band 25 (1900 MHz A-G block) LTE support and supports only 5 MHz bandwidths.

I am very sad about the lack of multi-band LTE support but at the same time I am not surprised about this given the HTC One only contains Band 25 (1900 MHz A-G block) LTE support as well. I just really hope the 2H 2013 LTE phones like the LG Optimus G 2, Galaxy Note 3, Moto X (rumored), Nexus 5, etc contain tri-band LTE support.

I'll be looking forward to AJ's article for further analysis on the Sprint Galaxy S4 FCC documents.

Engadget article about Sprint Samsung Galaxy S4 hits FCC.

http://www.engadget....d-sprint-forms/

Sprint Galaxy S4 FCC filing

https://apps.fcc.gov...c_id=A3LSPHL720

Feb 16 2013

 

http://seekingalpha....d-lte-in-action

 

 

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Maybe Chicago market is the first?

 

 

 

 

Where did you get that powerpoint slide presentation?

Don't you mean BRS support is predicated on TD-LTE? SMR is the 800Mhz spectrum and has nothing to do with Clear. I also believe that SMR LTE with be FDD like the PCS G Block LTE

I am not sure what he meant by the SMR support is predicated on TD-LTE statement. Also you are correct in that the SMR 800 MHz LTE will be FDD LTE since it uses paired spectrum (817-824 and 862-869 MHz)

There are threads here about it though I've had issues finding them. The outlook isn't exciting and quite honestly pretty grim.

 

Sprint has said they won't have any TD-LTE devices until late 2013 and no real flagships until 2014. Given that SMR support is predicated on TD-LTE support per their comments about skipping SMR dual band devices for tri-band LTE devices, I'm more than a little disappointed in their device strategy.

Now I am even more confident that we probably won't see the Galaxy S4 have 800 and/or 2500 MHz LTE support that would make the S4 phone even more of a must have. The Galaxy S4 will still sell well no doubt but us nerds on this forum will be disappointed in that aspect.

If Sprint follows their word in that we won't see tri band LTE devices until late 2013, I can see the Note 3 being the first tri band LTE phone since it won't be launched until late October (based on Note 2 launch date) or even early November. The Note 3 will have more than enough phone real estate to add the amount of LTE antennas required for tri band support and would fit the late 2013 time frame. Who knows maybe the LG Optimus G 2 may have tri band LTE support as well.

Out of the blue with no notice a few weeks back, an LTE site showed up in the forums maps. I went to the part of St. Cloud, MN where the tower is located and sure enough, connected to LTE. What I don't understand is why they rollout one tower in a town, but then don't add anymore anytime in the near future. For example, there has been one tower live in Monticello, MN for the past 3-4 months, but there have been no other new ones since then. What is the point of deploying LTE on one tower in a market, but no others?

I think its because Sprint wants to let customers know that there is progress being made in that market. This is why when a NV tower whether it is 3G only improvements or 4G LTE ready, the tower goes live so that customers can take advantage of it right away. Also I assume Sprint wants the site to go live as soon as it can just to see how the NV tower behaves once Sprint customers begin to use it and put some stress on it for performance metrics.

Every cell site is different and the cell sites around that area may not have been approved for permitting or completed yet.

Is Sprint still on track to begin using Clearwire LTE sometime in 2013 according to their agreement in Dec 2011? OR do they have wait until the Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire merger transaction is finalized first?

There hasn't been much talk about Clearwire LTE progress other than as of Q4 2012 they have around 1,000 sites upgraded to TD-LTE and still on track to have 2,000 sites upgraded to TD-LTE by June 2013. There is still no word as to which markets these 2,000 sites will entail. Hopefully Clearwire can provide more color at their 2013 Q1 CC.

Sprint/Clearwire agreement in Dec 2011

http://corporate.clearwire.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=629282

I don't think that Dish has any intentions of actually winning the auction. They just want to drive the price up for Sprint.

I agree. I don't think Dish cares at all about the H block spectrum only wanting to make it hell for Sprint to obtain it by driving up the price. Sadly I think Sprint needs to spend whatever it takes to buy up the H block spectrum nationwide if possible since the major markets needs it and all the sub 20 MHz markets need it.

Once the Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire merger is over, Sprint would need to take a look at purchasing Cricket for its PCS spectrum at some point in the future.

Actually, I'll bet Apple's wholesale to TMo for the iPhone is right around $580. Samsung's wholesale for the S III, however, is probably a bit lower than $550.

Now that I think about it, you're probably right in that $580 is probably the Apple iPhone wholesale figure Tmobile buys the phone for. If that is true, this just means that Tmobile is willing to forgo any profit on the iPhone just to entice new iPhone customers to switch to Tmobile service. Only time will tell but it seems like a good strategy if it works out especially if there are fanatic iPhone users who are willing to upgrade their iPhone every year if all it takes is to buy the phone outright. Its about time to spread the iPhone data usage disease amongst all the 4 major carriers and I hope a bunch of AT&T and Verizon iPhone customers jump to Tmobile.

But they are saving money. The price of the phone is less then what you would pay full price. Just using iPhone as an example, it's 100+(20X24)=$580 compared to $650. That's a $70 savings. And they can always sell or trade up if they want to and still pay less monthly.

I did find it strange given that the 16 GB iPhone retail price is $650 but yet they were only charging $100 + $20/mo for 24 months = $580 which indeed is a $70 savings. Its got to be a typo for the iPhone since the rest of the other phones make sense like the Galaxy S3 retails at $550 and Tmobile charges $70 + $20 for 24 months = $550.

There is no way some finance guy at Tmobile USA corporate did not pick up on the $70 discrepancy. Its got to either be a promotion to get iPhone users from other carriers to switch to Tmobile and are willing to eat the cost temporarily OR some how Tmobile was able to get Apple to sell the iPhone to Tmobile wholesale for $580 (which I highly doubt).

Can't wait to see it on my Galaxy S IV.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Don't jinx it yet. I am hoping for it as well . It is still unconfirmed whether 800 MHz LTE support will be added to the Galaxy S4. Hopefully when the FCC OET filings come out for the Sprint Galaxy S4 we can find out more information about which LTE frequency bands will be supported.

Ouch...T-Mobile is going to have LTE ready in 2 cities (Phoenix and Las Vegas) where Sprint currently does NOT have any LTE. That has gotta sting especially in Phoenix where those customers feel burned for not ever getting Wimax and tired of waiting so long just to get LTE as well. I can definitely see some Sprint customers defect to T-Mobile for LTE for this reason. Phoenix is starting to pick up some NV sites which hopefully should turn into LTE soon.

I am curious however to see how much LTE coverage T-Mobile will have in its initial rollout in all these 7 launch cities.

According to Android Authority it looks like AT&T might strike first as the first US carrier to carry the LG Optimus G Pro. Hopefully Sprint will carry this device at some point.

http://www.androidau...s-g-pro-176244/

FCC - It appears it has all the right LTE BC support (700 MHz, PCS, AWS and Cellular) for a AT&T phone

https://apps.fcc.gov...;fcc_id=ZNFE980

OH ATT...reaching now to get a higher market number count.

Good to hear that this merger process isn't being held up due to Dish trying to counterbid for Clearwire. Hopefully there aren't any snags given that the FCC recently approved the Tmobile/MetroPCS deal which is good for competition.

I think it will be great for competition if HTC would make a Galaxy Note like device for 2014. LG has stepped up to the plate in 2013 with the the LG Optimus G Pro device which will compete with the Galaxy Note 2. No word yet on whether Sprint plans to carry the LG Optimus G Pro device which will begin to sell in the US in Q2 2013. If only HTC and possibly a Motorola/Google could also make a competing device that would be great for competition and customer selection given HTC's material build quality is superb over Samsung and LG's plastic phones.

Hopefully sprint begins to launch some LTE towers in the san bernardino market soon. La metro and orange county have already seen some LTE love.

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Not necessarily... from what I understand, most of the equipment needed to make LTE800 happen is getting installed at the same time as the LTE1900 equipment, or at least most of the complicated stuff to install is being done at the same time (e.g. antenna panels, BTS enclosures, fiber, etc.). (Note though that from what I understand, this does not apply though to the LTE2600 stuff.) Therefore, in theory, turning on LTE800 should be a much less involved undertaking than the current work being done under NV. Now if I am incorrect about this assumption then forum wizards please feel free to correct me

 

Plus, it's not NOW as far as an S4 purchase is concerned. The device probably won't be available in US variants before May or June, thus putting it even closer to LTE800 availability.

From my understanding is that in the initial install for CDMA/LTE 1900 for any NV installation, the new NV antenna panels on top of the tower already contain 800 MHz support. I believe all that needs to be done to add LTE 800 is a single carrier card at the base station and some internal testing and it should be good to go. If it had required a new panel then it would take a lot longer to do for each tower since they would have to re-climb the tower to do so.