Brad The Beast

6 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Sprint doesn't throttle USCC roaming on their end. That being said, USCC does deprioritize roaming traffic on their network. If there were USCC customers using the same sector as you, you would have been prioritized behind them. 

I have pulled north of 30mbps on USCC before. 

So I looked and the "Extended LTE" layer matches USCC's coverage map. So it was USCC roaming it looks like. I've never pulled more than 3Mbps down on USCC roaming in that area.

Unfortunately this is the only screenshot I have. It has the status bar indicator. This was last summer. I wasn't smart enough to grab the Serving Cell Info screens. 

14 hours ago, RAvirani said:

AT&T roaming always comes out of your roaming allotment. 

Who has speed restricted LTE roaming that counts as Extended? I was in central Wisconsin which is all "Extended LTE". I was connected to band 12 (if I remember correctly) "Extended Network LTE" and was limited to 3Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. It wasn't T-Mobile roaming because T-Mobile has no service in that area and the only two possible carriers it could be are US Cellular and AT&T. I was pretty sure US Cellular wasn't speed restricted but I could be mistaken. 

4 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

TMobile stands to lose if they don't make good on their promises. They told the govt better rural coverage so they Dam well better

How so? They can tell the government whatever they want (as they've been doing) to get the merger approved. That doesn't mean they have to follow through. 

Just now, Tengen31 said:

M-Mimo is only where Sprint covers now. Small phases I don't know. They softbank really wants to merger cause then they can't just deploy Sprint spectrum onto TMobile towers. As posted on the forum the cellular one expansion isn't happening.

I would say if they're doing well enough to deploy all of these M-MIMO antennas in their 9 5G launch cities + locations that aren't part of those 9 cities then they should be doing well enough to expand coverage in small amounts. 

1 minute ago, Tengen31 said:

Sprint can't afford to expand coverage. The 5-6 billion dollar capex is no longer and softbank seems like they want Sprint off their hands.

What about all the recent M-MIMO installs? I would say that they can't expand coverage on a large scale like they need to but I think they definitely could expand coverage in smaller phases.

Just now, Tengen31 said:

That's why I'm for this merger as to have both 71 and 41. Your still didn't answer as to how that works where Sprint doesn't have coverage? Plus att has plans outside of mm wave. B30 has been talked about

Well they'll have to expand coverage. 5G NR can't be run on band 30 according to Wikipedia. 

Just now, Tengen31 said:

How? Sprint has no coverage in SD,ND, Wyoming, Montana, and other areas of the country. In Minnesota there is Alot of roaming so how is that more coverage?

mmWave won't leave the large cities. T-Mobile is still in the process of rolling out 600MHz and is way behind on their 5G deployment promises. Sprints 5G coverage will definitely be better than Verizon and AT&Ts. T-Mobile might catch up in coverage but their 5G will be slower as 5G NR on 600MHz has a 20MHz channel width limit. 

1 minute ago, Tengen31 said:

Yeah that only works for where Sprint covers now. Not the rest where they don't cover that Tmobile does cover and would make use of the spectrum in these areas. Coverage is more important to me than speed.

They'll have better 5G coverage than everyone else. It's no secret that mmWave is terrible for range. The only other competitor would be T-Mobile and they're behind the game. 

1 minute ago, Tengen31 said:

Why? Sprint is still paying for 4G. So 5G on their own is questionable. They can't afford backhaul for LTE how can they afford 5G?

They've been rolling out these M-MIMO antennas like there's no tomorrow. They're deploying them in markets other than the initial 5G launch cities. Since it's a simple software configuration change, they can get 5G rolled out in a lot more places than that by 2024. It might not be the fastest at first but then they win the 5G marketing gimmick. 

2 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Why not? Sprint can't continuewhere they are at. They will end up getting gobbled up by a cable company if it fails. Sprint lack of coverage will not help them in the future.

 

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

 

 

That Sprint 5G map is definitely not accurate.

15 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Enough to run 5G at appreciably better speeds or coverage than L2500?

This confused me then.

Just now, RAvirani said:

AT&T LTE is not Extended LTE. It comes out of your data roaming allotment.

All other LTE roaming is Extended and counts towards your regular usage limits. 

What? I'm like 99% sure AT&T counts as Extended in some places. Which carrier counts as Extended and has speed restrictions?

1 minute ago, RAvirani said:

Sprint would be much better, I think. Regular users just care whether their usage comes out of their regular allotment or not. "Sprint" for Sprint/Extended and "Roaming" for Roaming would be easiest to understand for customers. 

What happens when they roll into an AT&T roaming area and their speeds are slow? AT&T LTE roaming counts as Extended but its speed restricted. 

2 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Enough to run 5G at appreciably better speeds or coverage than L2500? Probably not. 

Would they bother with it then? That's what I was worried about. 

2 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Sprint's map is heavily understated, though, I think. Sprint's 5G rollout will most definitely be more widespread than that. 

I think so as well. I mean we're seeing them roll out M-MIMO in places that aren't the first 9 5G launch cities before they've even launched 5G.

3 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Additionally, all Ericsson radio equipment that shipped after 2015 is software upgradable to LTE+NR with their proprietary spectrum sharing technology. I'm sure Sprint will take advantage of this. 

I didn't know that! That's really cool! Is an 8T8R antenna going to be enough for 5G though?

Just now, RAvirani said:

From looking at the device, you don't. This is something people have complained about for a long time.

I think devices should simply display Sprint when roaming on Extended networks. This would case a lot less confusion for the average user from a usage standpoint. 

I was thinking "Extended 3G/LTE" and "Roaming 3G/LTE". Then it would be perfectly clear. I messaged u/revik2 on reddit about it and he was going to look into it.

10 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Yes. Sprint has sites not broadcasting a signal cause of backhaul.

Really? Why bother putting up equipment if you can't use it?

So how do I know when I'm in a roaming area vs an "Extended" area?

2 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

Yeah but a corner in NY that has 12% market capture has 1000Mb p/s throughput gear, but can't afford to upgrade the backhaul to get it there for some reason.

I think backhaul is one of the most expensive things isn't it?

2 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

You know what a neglected network experience is like in the Dakotas, Montana went by the wayside.

Yeah. In the three years I've been here I've seen 1 new tower go up in the entire state. It makes sense.

1 minute ago, belusnecropolis said:

Sure, but the metrics say that is exactly what is not happening. Having spent 3 billion in the previous 2 years of the current one rolling out 2.5 there has been a steady loss of urban customers. Pouring debt financed resources into the same markets that do not lack capacity has netted the same pattern each quarter in this current year. Expand to win or keep feeding the snake it's tail. There are plenty of markets that are in the area of several thousand to 10's of thousands not receiving service.  The money is easy to get.

So would it be safe to say that you are saying to expand into areas where Sprint could make a good reputation for itself (pretty much areas that don't have service yet)? 

4 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

So you can get 10 paying customers, not paying VZW for roaming access, further subsidize your urban users who may or may not stay from month to month, and encourage development of connected services in a market you do not even perform in.

But certainly I could subsidize my urban users by improving services in their area, providing the ability to earn more paying customers? Then I'm increasing my ability to earn more money, thus making more money available for rural expansion. 

2 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

Home internet would consume upwards of 10X the usage. Offering mobile only would achieve a greenfield spend and return ARPU above historically low levels in an area that previously offered no revenue, or cost due to roaming. In the cities we have seen in market roaming on T-mobile, prices drop dramatically and a stagnant add and higher churn. While debt spending on markets and sites that were recently upgraded. This makes no sense. 

I didn't think of roaming costs. But still, why would you spend money to provide service in an area where like 10 people live? 

1 minute ago, belusnecropolis said:

They are continually reducing prices in cities to try to convince people to switch. If they didn't get them with the MiniMacro rollout, I don't see adding 8t8r or a NR antenna with a smaller radii making much difference.  The product is already devalued in a saturated market. Move into greener pastures that have enough pent up demand for competition and a higher user spend. 

They wouldn't make much money though right away. Especially since it would take them a while to actually roll out service to these areas because they have to deal with local government permitting which always takes ages. I think there is a great opportunity to provide both cellular and home internet service in these areas which could be a big money maker but I don't think cellular alone would be worth their while.