ericdabbs

Let me just clear the air a bit on my last two posts just so we don't get the wrong idea here . Both my last two posts were stemmed from responding to previous posters and not some new sense of hostility towards the NV project or its vendors.

What you're really saying is you wish they would wait and not let the complete technology be usable until they all are ready at a site. Because that is what would happen if they tried to do what you want them to do. I don't want that at all.

 

Also, don't assume that just because one technology is accepted, doesn't mean they both were not installed at the same time. In most cases, the hardware for all technologies are installed at the same time. For instance, almost always at Samsung sites, CDMA 1900, CDMA 800 and LTE 1900 are all installed at once.

 

In your frustration, you are making faulty assumptions.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

I am not advocating at all that Sprint wait until 3G/800/4G are live before Sprint gives the ok to fire up the tower. I am very happy that Sprint is allows us customers to be able to reap the benefits of the NV upgrades even though the market has not been officially launched yet. I am not sure if you understood what I meant by if sites can be accepted 3G and 4G at the same time. You are absolutely right and I was aware from reading in this forum thanks to your information in the past that at most sites all the vendors do install all the hardware for 3G and 4G at the same time. Because of that fact, this is why I even thought that asking this was a fair question in the first place of whether 3G and 4G can be accepted at the same time. Why not accept both 3G and 4G at the same time when possible given the backhaul is present. Just typing out my thoughts, I just figured the reason most of the time 3G and 4G can't be accepted at the same time is because perhaps by the date of the first inspection, backhaul might not be ready so 4G can't be accepted. I could be totally wrong and maybe all the vendors always do individual upgrades to towers regardless even though all the equipment is installed on there. Maybe 3G and 4G can never been accepted at the same time or maybe they have but I haven't noticed because its too hard to keep track. I don't have a freakin clue about the logistics. Its very apparent that Samsung, Alcatel and Ericcson have different strategies/logistics on how they deploy the NV towers. You are the guru of this information so I wanted to throw this out there so you can clarify this.

There are not many sites in Chicago that are 3G only. And most of those are in the rural west side of the market and are waiting on Microwave links to be established. Chicago is a model market for deployment. I'm not sure where your new hostility has come from. I'm not enjoying it.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

My post didn't mention anything specifically about the large number of 3G only sites or NV progress is slow in Chicago at all. From looking at the NV Complete sites map, I can see that Chicago is very far along with NV upgrades and many towers upgraded with both 3G and 4G and it truly is the model market for deployment.

I guess I wanted to just ask/clarify if the percentages on the Running List thread (ex: 86% completed sites in Chicago) means that 86% of Chicago is completed and accepted with 3G/4G or that 86% of Chicago has some sort of NV upgrade accepted (3G only, 4G only, 3G/4G). For non-sponsors or newbies, they don't have the ability to see the NV complete sites map to find out information about individual towers in their area on whether their local towers are currently broadcasting 3G only, 4G only or 3G/4G. Therefore when they read 86% complete they might assume that 86% of the sites complete have been accepted and are currently broadcasting 3G and 4G. Thanks for clarifying that the remaining part of Chicago is just waiting for Microwave backhaul which is why those sites are still 3G only.

I don't understand why they don't just accept 3G and 4G at once? I would rather have the engineers and inspectors take the extra hours to inspect the towers to be ready for 3G and 4G and be done with the tower. It just seems like they make unnecessary trips back to those sites.

I guess the main reason why most towers are accepted as 3G only in Alcatel markets may be due to backhaul issues which they can't accept 4G at the same time as 3G if backhaul is not ready.

Wow Chicago at 86% is amazing. I am pretty sure the 86% only means the number of sites that have had some sort of NV upgrades and not the full upgrades for each tower including 3G/4G/800.

Sprint to buy cricket, us cellular and more?

I would love it if Sprint can buy cricket and US cellular. I think 4 national carriers is good enough for the US market. If consumers want a cheaper option, there are plenty of prepaid carriers that can offer that service (Virgin, Boost, Straight Talk, PagePlus, etc).

Hopefully the next iPhone has 2500 Sprint really needs to offload that traffic off of pcs as much as possible!

 

Sent from phone

I agree. Sprint needs to start offloading its traffic onto 2500 MHz as soon as possible. However with Clearwire only planning to deploy 2,000 sites nationwide over its current WiMAX network, I wouldn't expect to see much traffic on 2500 MHz until 2014. Once Sprint has full control of Clearwire, they will need to dramatically increase the number of TD-LTE tower deployments over 2500 MHz to many of its major traffic hotspots to offload more traffic. I would like to see at least half of Sprint's overall towers covered with TD-LTE.

Sorry to bug you guys but do you think the running list will be updated sometime soon?

I am sure it will but Robert has been a busy man. When he has time to do so he will do it. In the mean time, I'll be looking for his updates to the NV complete sites list to see what new areas have 3G improvements and LTE lit up.

I would recommend that you become a sponsor so that you have access to the NV complete sites list so you can find out which sites in Los Angeles have been lit up with 3G improvements and LTE.

I think 600 will be a mess getting TV stations to reverse auction as we discussed in other forums. I do believe T-Mobile should bid on something sub ghz for their future expansion outside of cities. I would rather see Verizon able to align their spectrum in 850 than bar them from any more sub ghz spectrum in any market. That might have been what you meant though.

 

I also think it's alright that AT&T keeps acquiring 700 to fill the gaps in their holey LTE deployment. I look for a more efficient use of spectrum by a small group nationwide competitive networks than fragmented networks like US Cellular.

 

I'm not real interested in sub ghz spectrum for Sprint unless it is in the SMR or Cellular blocks.

No I meant what I said by not allowing Verizon or AT&T to acquire more sub < 1 GHz spectrum if a 600 MHz spectrum auction were to occur. I know it sounds wrong given that Verizon and AT&T's towers are setup in a way in which it supports low band frequency tower spacing. However if Verizon or AT&T made a proposal to say that they would divest some a lot of its PCS and AWS spectrum to Sprint and Tmobile in exchange for some of the 600 MHz spectrum, I might be ok with that. Since Sprint and Tmobile's tower spacing is suitable for high band frequency, I think that it would only be fair if they gave up some of their high band frequency to satisfy the FCC. There is no reason Verizon or AT&T would need to hoard so much spectrum especially when Sprint and Tmobile can take full advantage of it right away.

I don't know what you mean by help Verizon align their 850 MHz spectrum? Are you saying that for Verizon in certain areas they have the A block and some areas they have the B block and you want to find a way where Verizon and AT&T can sit down and agree to swap blocks so that Verizon has all of the A block nationwide while AT&T has all of the B block nationwide? I would like to see that happen.

I think we can all agree that the US Wireless market needs new sub-1ghz spectrum to be made available for use in mobile service.

 

I would also like to see AT&T/VZW barred from buying it.

I totally agree with you that AT&T and VZW should be barred from obtain any more sub 1 GHz spectrum. AT&T and VZW already have 25 MHz of Cellular 850 MHz spectrum and 20 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum.

There is talk about the FCC trying to free up the 600 MHz spectrum to be used for wireless carriers. I would like to see Sprint and Tmobile bid on the 600 MHz spectrum to improve their network. Also I would like to see in the future that the public safety band at 800 MHz be vacated where all public safety will be placed in the 700 MHz LTE band once the public safety LTE project is finished. I would like to see the 806-816 MHz and 851-861 MHz be freed up for wireless services where Sprint can bid on the rest of the remaining 800 MHz spectrum to have contiguous spectrum from 806-824 MHz and 851-869 MHz.

 

I hate to ask one of those "have you heard about...." questions but, any chance a source has let slip any new info on the 800 LTE FITs?

I am a bit afraid that the flagship phones by Samsung, HTC, LG and Motorola for 2013 might miss the necessary testing for the FCC needed to include those bands in the SGS4, HTC M7, LG Optimus G2 and the Motorola X phones. I surely hope I am wrong and that we do get to see tri band Sprint LTE phones this year for the flagship phones. I see no excuse for Sprint not to include 800/1900/2500 MHz LTE support this year for their phones. Having just the 1900 MHz G block for LTE support is just too limited going into 2013 especially with Sprint using Clearwire LTE in the near future and Sprint refarming 800 MHz spectrum for LTE starting 2H 2013.

When the heck is Sprint giong to start decommissioning more Nextel towers? I hope more decommissioning occurs before June 2013. They need to knock down those extra operating costs for these iDEN towers.

See link. Tri band LTE phones with 800/1900/2500 MHz phones should start coming out in 2H 2013.

http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=11771

I hope Samsung has another 3-4 more major updates to chicago and wrap up that market to 100% complete so that the Samsung crews can move on and start building up other markets.

"and move EV-DO Rev. A traffic off its 1900 MHz spectrum into the 800 MHz band"

 

 

 

Where do they get this stuff?

Haha good point.

Is there any evidence that Sprint actually deployed DO-Advanced on its Network Vision towers as part of its "improved 3G" strategy? I thought I remember hearing that DO-Advanced would be part of Network Vision. The benefits of DO-Advanced in terms of network load balancing, smart carrier management, distributed network scheduler and single carrier multi-link features would definitely help the EVDO Rev A network.

The article below under the EVDO DO-Advanced confirms that existing Rev A devices back in 2011 could support DO-Advanced since its mainly a software upgrade on the tower side.

http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/special-reports/1x-advanced-rev-b-or-ev-do-advanced-cdma-network-migration-path-unclear

Sprint/clear will be able to do that with TD-LTE 40mhz carriers should they choose to do that. Sprint will also be deploying release 10 this year also but it is unlikely that we will see that kind of bandwidth used.

 

I do like the idea of having a release 10 network aggregating the PCS G block carrier with the SMR carrier to effectively make a higher capacity network (due to PCS spacing) able to exceed Verizon and AT&T's network speeds and match their coverage.

 

While I think beyond 20mbps is just excessive, there was also a time when I said no one could possibly need more than a 2 ghz pentium 4 processor in a desktop.

I am starting to think that Sprint won't deploy LTE-Advanced until 2014 just because they have so much on their plate in 2013. I guess Sprint can have the opportunity to upgrade to LTE-Advanced if the tower crews have to go back to those NV completed sites to deploy the 800 MHz and 2.5 GHz LTE later on this year but who knows.

Updates from Robert are not related to how fast Sprint is upgrading.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I don't think you get what I meant. I meant to say that Sprint still needs to continue to make progress and hopefully every week they are getting at least 400-500 sites done a week nationwide.

Some AT&T devices support LTE in that band.

 

Here is an article about the first one (Pantech smart phone)

 

http://www.phonescoo...icle.php?a=9493

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Interesting but the article is dated over a year ago so plans may have changed especially with the FCC approving WCS spectrum for LTE. AT&T also have some high end phones (ex SGS3) where it supports AWS LTE support and we have yet to see AT&T even come out about deploying LTE in AWS spectrum so I take this with a grain of salt. The T-mobile breakup fee really hurt AT&T since AT&T gave up some nice valuable AWS spectrum which it already didn't have that much to begin with. I see AT&T abandoning AWS spectrum in the future and focus on its other bands it already has near nationwide coverage of.

AT&T should have more spectrum in the PCS band and its approved WCS band for LTE. I would think that AT&T should focus on adding capacity like Verizon is doing and deploying LTE on PCS next would be the wisest choice over Cellular and WCS. I just think that AT&T will probably refarm Celluar spectrum last since it can keep the nice range of HSPA+ in Cellular and PCS while slowly refarming spare PCS spectrum and WCS spectrum for LTE.

But I can see AT&T deploying LTE on Celluar quicker if Verizon starts deploying LTE on its Cellular spectrum since they tend to follow each other.

I hope there is a new update this week. Sprint needs to keep the pedal on the metal.

AT&T is already getting ready to deploy LTE over Cellular in the future (some devices already support it) and its only a matter of time and competition before we see VZW do the same.

 

I believe AWS, PCS, and Cellular will become THE roaming bands for North America in the next few years due to widespread overlap between carriers.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Where did you read that AT&T is getting ready to deploy LTE over Cellular? I would think that AT&T would deploy LTE over PCS and WCS spectrum before refarming Cellular. AT&T needs to keep GSM as long as it can until VoLTE is usable.

Also I agree with you that I see Cellular, AWS and PCS bands as the LTE roaming bands in the US given that all carriers have PCS and most have AWS (except Sprint) and Cellular (sprint and tmobile would rely on LTE roaming on the big 2) to increase their service.

worker compensation

Anyone see LTE activity in the San Gabriel, Arcadia, Temple City as well as the Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights area?

Thanks. I have plenty of ideas, but I have to be careful about what I share. I rather enjoy working for Ericsson and had to sign an NDA, so in the interest of keeping my job...

thanks so much for sharing the details of what you have currently so far. I didn't realize how tedious the process is just to construct and deploy a NV site. I am sure Alcatel and Samsung have similar processes just like Ericcson does to ensure they go through their checklist to ensure the NV site is ready to be launched for the long haul. Imagining Sprint doing this for all 38000+ Sprint sites for NV is just still hard to fathom.

May I suggest if you do share any more details that you can to be in the Premier Sponsor section. At least the audience would be more limited.

At this point, thanks to picking up USCC spectrum in Chicago and the surrounding areas, Sprint has less to gain from MetroPCS spectrum. The number of markets where they're under 30MHz of PCS...and could be pushed to 30+ by a MetroPCS divestiture...are pretty low. Though if T_Mobile decided that it wanted to sell some PCS I'm sure Sprint would love to buy it.

 

Buying Leap/CricKet on the other hand...

Buying Leap for its PCS spectrum is something I think Sprint should still consider in the future since they do have some valuable PCS spectrum in their C block. Sprint already has 3 deals on the table waiting for FCC approval so they have enough on their plate for now. Executing Network Vision and complete ASAP should be their number 1 priority to stay with the competition.

I was wondering if you guys think that Sprint will try to pursue PCS divestitures from the Tmobile/MetroPCS merger to bolster those 20 MHz markets that are in dire needs of more PCS spectrum?

I guess the only way this will happen is if the FCC would have to force Tmobile to divest PCS spectrum if that was a condition for approval. I would like to see make an attempt at PCS divesitures if possible since it appears that going forward AWS spectrum will be Tmobile's bread and butter spectrum for LTE.

I'll be looking out for the tri band LTE devices. My contract ends in June 2013 and I would love to pick up a LTE phones with 800/1900/2500 MHz LTE support. If the SGS4 phone has tri band LTE, I am sold.