ericdabbs

I wish Dish would hurry up and just do a spectrum sharing deal with Sprint so we can move on from this saga. I just can't see which carrier out there would be interested in Dishs S-band spectrum anyways. Sprint can make use of that spectrum since it would be next to the PCS H block spectrum. Even AT&T would have a hard time getting that spectrum given that it recently received permission to deploy LTE on WCS band spectrum. AT&T has enough spectrum as it is.

Can someone remind me again who did Clearwire contract out to build out their Wimax base stations. From reading this thread it sounds like Samsung and Motorola did part of them and I thought I remember reading that Ericcson did some as well. I am glad to see that Samsung equipment is able to support WiMax and LTE just by adding new carrier cards. Companies like Samsung are always forward looking which is great unlike Motorola sites which always seem to be causing trouble. I am not surprised that Motorola had been struggling given the headache it gives to Sprint and Clearwire.

I can't wait to see the rumored nexus 7.7 tablet with a 7.7 inch screen hopefully announced at Google I/O this year. I really wished that Google just came out with a Nexus 8 with a 8.0 inch screen because I think its just the perfect size for a tablet that is not too heavy and not too small in screen size. After seeing the iPad Mini and how light and easy it is to fit in some jacket pockets, I can see why they can become real popular.

I wonder about this too. If the Clearwire deal does go through with Sprint, I would like Sprint to be able to add Clearwire LTE on the Network Vision Sprint sites so that it can save cash on tower leases, power, backhaul, permits etc on Clearwire sites. Adding Clearwire LTE would be easy on the Network Vision equipment.

I agree that indoor coverage in urban areas does matter. While sub-1 Ghz spectrum is much needed if the carrier plans to provide rural coverage, the voice of those in the rural areas is not as loud as those who are in the large urban areas who can't get a good voice or data signal indoors. The truth is that any carrier needs a combination of low, med and high spectrum to be an efficient carrier with capacity. Sprint is on the road to becoming a better carrier by having low, med and high spectrum for voice and data.

Its hard to say right now. With tmobile acquiring metropcs, it really helps tmobiles aws and pcs spectrun depth that allows them to deploy a 10x10 lte carrier and in some areas a 20x20 lte carrier once tmobile migrates all hspa+ on aws spectrum to pcs spectrum. I am very curious about 20 mhz tdd lte carriers on sprint from clearwire to see how speeds compare. The bigger question is how much depth will sprint add to the 2.5 ghz spectrum LTE in all its markets. Sprint obviously would need to extend its 2.5 ghz LTE to cities like phoenix and san diego who never got wimax Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

That is good news to hear about this new potential RRU for LTE and CDMA for Ericcson. Hopefully Alcatel Lucent's RRUs can do LTE and CDMA on the same unit. Samsung is just on top of everything not only in its Network Vision equipment and its deployment progress but they make great phone devices in the Galaxy S and Note series.

What about Alcatel Lucent and Samsung markets?

I wonder if this means that Sprint will still try to push for tri band LTE phones for its flagship phones this year. I really hope so. I think it would be a dumb move if Sprint didn't do that. Offering only 1900 MHz LTE phones in 2013 would be a disaster since the Wimax customers like myself from 2011 renew our contracts. that puts more stress for the next 2 years on only the 1900 MHz band since customers typically renew their phones every 2 years. All the 2012 LTE customers only have 1900 MHz LTE support. I am glad to hear that 800 MHz LTE deployment will begin in Q4 2013.

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. 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. 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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.