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maxsilver

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Everything posted by maxsilver

  1. maxsilver
    This is 100% correct, and there's a point here I think most people miss. MVNO users often *overpay* for their own network access, and contribute *more* to network funding than postpaid subscribers. It's a simple tradeoff for Sprint -- MVNO customers are riskier, and have a lower ARPU, but they have much higher margins. Sprint likes margins, hence lots of MVNO's. For example, regular pricing on TracFone Minutes on Sprint start at 30 minutes for $10. That's 33 cents per minute, a much higher rate than most Sprint users pay for their airtime. (If you have the Postpaid 450min + Data plan at $79.99, your paying less per-minute than a TracFone user and your getting unlimited data included.) In this example, while total revenue per subscriber is down, the cash per unit of network use (minute) is actually higher with an MVNO -- MVNO's are paying more for their network use than a Postpaid Sprint subscriber. Another example : Ting is a Sprint MVNO. Ting charges roughly $20 per gigabyte. If your on the Postpaid 450min + Data plan at $79.99, and you use more than 4GB of your "unlimited data", your paying less per gigabyte of data use than any Ting MVNO subscriber (and that doesn't include the voice minutes and texting you get included with that base price, Ting charges extra for all of that). In this example, while total revenue per subscriber is down, the cash per unit of network use (gigabyte) is actually higher with an MVNO -- MVNO's are paying more for their network use than a Postpaid Sprint subscriber. Obviously, every dollar collected by an MVNO doesn't go straight back to Sprint, MVNO's take a cut of that. But the majority of it does -- pricing for network use is really high, and Sprint charges plenty for network use. MVNO's aren't getting a free ride, they pay quite a bit to throw devices on the network. Also worth mentioning, MVNO's pay anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 just to offer service for their first customer. This is cash paid directly to Sprint in "start up costs" (read: pure profit for Sprint). So there's no downside for Sprint if a MVNO starts up and then shuts down in six months -- Sprint already got plenty of cash for their involvement, even if the MVNO never sells a single device. (Don't take my word for it, call Sprint Wholesale yourself and ask about starting an MVNO. They'll hit you with the same info I've written above. http://wholesale.sprint.com/contact-us ) No, you don't 'pay more every month'. You pay *less* than MVNO subscribers per unit of network use (on average), and get to enjoy *more* services at a lower cost than MVNO users (on average). Your total bill might be higher, due to the amount of services you purchase, or the baked in subsidy and insurance. But most Sprint postpaid subscribers are getting a better network rate than their MVNO friends. Questions like this make zero business sense. MVNO's are typically paying more cash per-minute (often double the cash) than Sprint Postpaid subscribers are, why should they not at least get access to the same network?
  2. maxsilver
    No one (to my knowledge) has a 'definitive' answer yet. But the 99% likely answer is "yes". MVNO's have gotten equal access to everything they've ever wanted before. The only reason they don't offer certain features is them not choosing to pay for it. (For instance, MVNO's have the option to access to Verizon Data Roaming, most just don't choose to pay for it) When Tri-band LTE devices are affordable and hit the prepaid / MVNO lineup, they'll almost certainly have access, if not instantly, then soon after. (Just like, when the first PCS LTE devices hit the lineup at Virgin / Boost / MVNO's, they also got access) If Sprint wants to block access, you'll probably see them block devices, not services. (Similar to how Pay as You Go blocks most nicer / high-end phones from activation)
  3. maxsilver
    Yep. I know of one company personally that has fiber on that site in Lansing, and isn't even using it. We have the same issue on McKay in Grand Rapids. There are a dozen vendors in Grand Rapids selling 60x60 MetroE, three vendors selling gigabit microwave fiber and four different vendors with wired fiber in downtown GR, but "backhaul" is holding up the site. <siderant> I personally could get 100x100 dedicated backhaul, directly to McKay tower, in one business day (installed and lit for use), if I knew who to contact at Sprint to get them to actually use it. Sprint of course, perfers to buy everything from AT&T and Comcast, rather than work with the five different local Michigan business, any of who would actually install service for them in a reasonable timeframe. </siderant>
  4. maxsilver
    I thought that too, until I bought the Photon Q.
  5. maxsilver
    It might be overloaded due to ArtPrize. Downtown GR doesn't have LTE yet, so everyone's trying to use it from the towers North and South of downtown. I just drove through downtown about one hour ago today, and I had data working, but LTE was crazy slower than usual (I clocked less than 200k down).
  6. maxsilver
    I haven't gotten any 800 yet. Been keeping an eye on the phone since you mentioned it, but when I drive by the area I get nothing... For what it's worth, I've updated PRL's a dozen times, but I've seen zero 1x800 so far. I have seen the updated 3G gear (1x locations are now accurate, which is awesome!) I've also noticed that a lot of sites that are "accepted" for 3G/4G, aren't actually running new service yet. (Most 3G-only sites still push out 2G EVDO service, some 4G accepted sites still aren't actually broadcasting LTE.) This is most notable downtown, since ArtPrize is starting now, there's no data service in all of downtown yet. (2G EVDO is swamped with the extra traffic, so it's 100% unusable during the day/evening. LTE isn't running at all yet). I'm expecting a rough month downtown.
  7. maxsilver
    My (totally wild and unsupported) guess would be yes. It looks like it's there to fight the people leaving Sprint for T-Mobile in cities. Sprint's willing to temporarily price cheaper than T-Mobile (since T-Mobile has a competitive advantage at the moment, and to try to convince people to stay with Sprint) But Sprint needs their network to look like it's valued higher (which is why this is a temp discount, and not a lower priced plan). Then, in a year or two when network upgrades have calmed down and the networks fairing a little better, Sprint can pull the promotional price for new / upgrading customers, and not fear people switching away as much.
  8. maxsilver
    I completely agree. I think you missed my earlier post (it might be in the 2500/2600 thread, where this discussion probably belongs) but this is exactly where I'm concerned. If it were truly a difference of 6mbps to 25mbps, I'd agree with you. But it's not, it's often a difference between 0.25mbps (Sprint 1900 LTE in urban areas, today) and 5-25mbps (Future expected Sprint/Clear TD-LTE speeds, when in active use). Regular people don't notice a difference between 6 and 25, I agree. But I believe they will notice getting 0.5mbps instead of 6mbps (and 0.2 to 0.6mbps is what LTE maxes out at right now, in my 75% launched market). When Sprint adds 800 LTE, the local 0.4mbps average will jump...to 0.8mbps. And (for iPhone users), will stay stuck there. For a full two years. That's why I'm worried about the lack of TD-LTE. Average Urban Speeds - http://i.imgur.com/huez1aE.jpg Average Suburban Speeds - http://i.imgur.com/j1gfR2L.jpg
  9. maxsilver
    No idea. I would imagine it would take longer than the others (that water tower serves 6-7 different cellular providers all of the same racks, it can be tricky to get people up there safely, while ensuring they don't step on other carrier's service and gear) I don't remember offhand. I think it does, but I might be mixing it up with Alpine. (I know the last time I was around Brassworks there was spotty LTE, but I don't remember if it was from Leonard/Division or Alpine/Deltaplex). If you pay for a sponsorship to S4GRU, you can get access to the acceptance maps. (Although you have to be careful with those, as '4G Accepted' does *not* necessarily mean LTE is actually running on a given tower). You can become a sponsor by clicking the "PayPal Donate" button in the upper-right corner of the site at http://s4gru.com/index.php?/index and donating a few dollars to the guys for their hard work. Also note that the tower your closest to isn't necessarily always the one with the best signal at your house. (Especially if you live on or over the hill there, you might be getting signals from the water tower further away if it's got better line-of-sight to you than the closer tower). If you buy 'Signal Check Pro' in the Android Market / Google Play store, it will tell you what 1X tower your connected to (although be aware, *all* of our legacy sites are mis-configured, so the address you see in Signal Check Pro is often wrong -- offset by random amounts in random directions).
  10. maxsilver
    I would put zero stock in Sprint's maps, as they are mostly meaningless in Grand Rapids. The two closest Sprint towers to Creston are on the far opposite ends of the neighborhood: The West tower has been upgraded, and runs 3G EVDO and LTE (site by the Alpine Meijer). The East tower has not had any upgrades (Fuller and Knapp Water Tower), and still runs 2G EVDO only. When your in Creston, your service quality will depend heavily on which tower you connect to. (It sounds like you are somewhere between the two, but closer to the East tower. When your phone can grab a weak-but-usable LTE signal from the West tower, it does. But when it can't, it falls to the closer tower, which has not yet been touched) While your device can have an impact on network performance, I've been through that neighborhood just a few weeks ago, and had similar behaviour you describe. You might get some benefit out of a different device, but I wouldn't expect good LTE performance until the Water Tower gets upgraded, regardless of what device you use. (No matter what phone you have, your probably going to have some coverage issues until the Water Tower gets upgraded -- that site happens to handle a majority of the network traffic for Creston and a lot of North East Citizens Action as well.).
  11. maxsilver
    I wish that's how it worked, but I suspect it will go more like this : Sprint iPhone users will have a dead phone (both 5x5 LTE channels maxed out, as it is in some LTE places today). They'll look at their friends iPhones streaming along (the Verizon ones will have new SpectrumCo AWS LTE, and AT&T ones will have new Cricket AWS LTE + the remains of their own AWS LTE. Both carriers will be pushing roughly double the LTE bandwidth to iPhones than the Sprint ones will have). The customer will see that and say "Sprint sucks...Piece of junk. My friends iPhones all work fine" after looking at their friend's phone. iPhones already cater to the less technically inclined individual (in general). They'll notice when it doesn't work, but I don't expect them to clearly notice *why* it doesn't work.
  12. maxsilver
    Their definition of 'big bone' doesn't quite match mine. For all the cash Sprint paid, you would expect it would support EBS/BRS, even if it meant Apple had to make a special model just for Sprint. If I were Dan Hesse, I'd be *really* angry right now. It puts them at a big competitive disadvantage, especially in the major markets in IBEZ zones that can't use 800. *everyone's* going to rub this in their face. (I can already imagine the advertisements they'll air in Detroit / Ann Arbor about this).
  13. maxsilver
    I don't see any value in any players "intellectual property". But there are two valuable things I see in BlackBerry that sets them apart from other players. HARDWARE : The BlackBerry Q10 gives me fantastic battery life, it gives me hot-swappable batteries with a standalone charger, expandable storage, a well-designed radio and reception path, and a rock solid physical keyboard. Most other phones drop most-to-all of those features. The Photon Q LTE, for example, has a pretty good physical keyboard. But it has a terrible battery, that's sealed into the device. No removable storage, and a terrible radio / reception path. The closest Android phone I've found to match it is the Galaxy Note 2. It has decent, swappable batteries, and a standalone charger. Expandable storage, and an mid-range radio + reception path. (The Sprint version is better on that than the T-Mobile version). But no physical keyboard. A lot of people will say 'on screen keyboards are faster / better', and that can be true. But I always get rather frustrated typing on glass. Even though I am technically faster on virtual keyboard, my frustration level is much higher on them (and lower on physical ones). Overall, I prefer the hardware keyboard, and am willing to pay a small premium to get it. SOFTWARE : Your right from the consumer side -- There isn't any real draw. BlackBerry OS is pretty solid, but no more / less so than Windows Phone, Android, iOS, ect. And the app situation is probably always going to be bad. I see BES as the main reason to stick with BlackBerry. It's *fantastic*, and since most people don't get to see the business-end of it, they don't get to see all the awesomeness in there. It's easy to confuse the two. BIS is the consumer-only service. It's essentially identical to Android's cloud services, or Apple iCloud, or Windows SkyDrive + Outlook. BIS is pointless, and I'm totally fine with it leaving. BES is a private version of BIS that costs nothing on your wireless bill, but gives you all the control over the cloud-portions of your device. BES is *awesome*. BES lets me restore all of my data (apps, user data, text messages, settings, even silly stuff like the wallpaper), with a single click, to a private storage location. You get full control over device security (remotely wipe some or all content). You get *real* VPN support. (Android for instance, has limited VPN support, but it can't handle a constant VPN connection, so you'll leak data over Wifi or Cellular. BlackBerry can force some-to-all application data to *always* go over VPN for improved security. It also lets you exclude apps, for example, you can force e-mail over VPN for security, but let YouTube run without VPN for better performance) Other providers have somewhat similar features. (Android has 'cloud backup', for example). But BlackBerry's features are usually better here. BES is nice in that, you don't need to depend on anyone else's cloud. BES is your cloud, you run your own 'cloud', and need no other services. If BlackBerry closes up shop tomorrow and shuts down every server, I loose no data because my own BES server keeps running, supporting all of my devices. If Google does down, GMail stops working. If BlackBerry goes down, my personal BES server keeps sending my e-mail around, no problem. - - - As a hardcore geek, this level of control appeals to me. This is a pretty big set of features that no other device can offer. But as someone in the wireless industry, I'm not sure it's a huge competitive advantage. No user I've ever met could care less about any of the above stuff. (They certainly aren't ever running their own BES server). Even a lot of companies don't really care about security as much as they like to pretend to. (They pretend to care about e-mail security, until the CXO demands e-mail on his iPad, and then they start poking holes in their network to let unencrypted data through). With companies looking to reduce costs, I don't see them issuing corporate phones as much as they used to. - - - BES, and a commitment to decent hardware, is the value in BlackBerry. However, most people don't really care about the values BlackBerry cares about, so I'm not sure what kind of cash they think they'll make. Their business caters to what was once a large market, but is now more of a niche market. I hope their chances improve, but I don't see a big win for them anytime soon.
  14. maxsilver
    To be fair, I don't think that's specific to Sprint. None of the carriers I've ever called seem to actually monitor their own towers, and none of them ever seem to know when their own network is experiencing trouble. I've called AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile on towers that were 100% down for 6 to 12 hours due to power outages in the area (which isn't subjective 'service trouble' issue, but is a simple, easy thing to monitor for from the network side) and they repeated that same "no known issues" line. Which would say to me that there's either no meaningful hardware/software level monitoring going on at sites. Or if it is, that (more likely) network status info is not used or communicated to anyone we're allowed to talk to via telephone.
  15. maxsilver
    If you like BB10, you could just buy it anyway. I think you'll be ok. BB is trying to sell itself because the long-term future prospects are grim. But it's not like they've got a deadline. Unlike HTC or Nokia, BlackBerry has a lot of cash on hand, and little-to-no debt. They're not at risk of bankruptcy or anything for a long while (certainly long enough to get you through a 2 year contract). I have the Q10, and while it's not for everyone, it think it's a really nice, solid device. Compared to my Photon Q, the Q10 gets *significantly* better battery life overall, and has swappable batteries. I can have a battery on a charger while using the phone. When I swap them, I can go from zero to 100% charge in 30 seconds. Nothing beats removable batteries Compared to a Photon Q and Galaxy Note 2, the Q10 to me feels like it has significantly better reception / radios. I'm dropping calls less, and keeping usable data more often. The Note 2 feels a little faster, and has a much better screen. But the Q10 sofrware is a lot more stable (miss less calls and texts, Gmail doesn't crash on me, I don't occasionally find out Google Now ate my battery through the GPS, ect) If you prefer an Android device, get one. But if you actually like BlackBerry 10 devices, and want one, simply buy one! Don't let a bored media FUD you out of a device you want. BlackBerry isn't likely to pull support for your device (and in fact, the 10.2 software is coming out in just a few months -- or you can sideload the most recent leaked version today, without rooting or risking your device. It's significantly less risky, and *way* easier to install leaked BlackBerry OS's than it is to say, install Cyanogenmod on a Galaxy S4)
  16. maxsilver
    I have (mainly data issues more than voice, but I don't use voice much). I think Michigan is sort of in a 'known bad' state at the moment. You've got all the normal Network Vision issues that others have to wait through (voice/sms issues handing off between 800/1900, lots of 800 coming live in rural areas, but the cities are mostly 1900 only) and in urban areas, you've got data being slow/spotty on maxed-out LTE sectors. But on top of that, we have a much-lower-than-normal site density in many areas that other markets (like Chicago) don't have to deal with, so our towers are getting overloaded a lot faster than other markets. The smaller towns are doing pretty well once upgraded (Hastings, Wayland, Reed City, ect), since PCS LTE is often good enough for them, and site density is much less of an issue. (These towns might only have one to three towers, if handoffs work between them, everything else feels ok). But for urban Michigan areas (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Muskegon), things are really rough and we'll have to wait both for Network Vision to finish, and for Sprint to start and finish adding back new sites they pulled. I don't expect it to get much better here until both of those complete. As others have mentioned, that's not "loaded" at all. That's fantastic speeds. *This* is an overloaded LTE sector in Michigan -> http://i.imgur.com/BhDJTGV.jpg
  17. maxsilver
    Oh no! That's really disappointing. I've had a Clear account for more than two years now (trying to support the 'little guy' competing against Comcast + AT&T for home internet service). But looking at the website today, it looks an awful lot like Sprint's going to kill the home internet service for new customers, and make new subscribers pay $10-15 per gb. (A Sprint Hotspot is not comparable to a Clearwire Home Modem in terms of plan/pricing). I really hope Sprint re-tools this into some sort of real broadband offering, and doesn't go "Verizon Home Fusion" on the service.
  18. maxsilver
    According to CBC, yes. It's rumored that they want to expand in Europe. (much like Verizon would like to expand into Canada) http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/08/29/business-vodaphone-verizon.html
  19. maxsilver
    Could Vodafone buy out DT's 70-ish percent ownership of T-Mobile? In theory, sure. But I don't really see any good reason for them to do this. As you mentioned, they'd be directly competing with their own prior investment
  20. maxsilver
    I should be more specific, as that's not what I'm referring to. I know about the difference between RSRP and RSSI, but Signal Check factors that out automatically. (You'll see this if you open the app, even though LTE RSRP might be -10dbm lower than 1x/3G RSSI, the 'signal graph' will be higher, since there's a difference of 15 (+/-5) between them, based on http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-308-rssi-vs-rsrp-a-brief-lte-signal-strength-primer/
  21. maxsilver
    This isn't true everywhere, is it? *Every* 4G accepted tower I've seen so far, has been switched on at low power. (Where "low power" means at least -10db lower than the equivalent EVDO service from that same site, according to Signal Check Pro)
  22. maxsilver
    They aren't slowly losing customers anymore. T-Mobile just posted their best quarter in the last 2-3 years, and it's showing a strong gain of postpaid / "high value" subscribers (1.1 million net additional postpaid subscribers since last year) in addition to all the MetroPCS subscribers they just gained through acquisition. Even if they lost 100,000 subscribers every quarter for the next three years straight, they would still be no worse off than they were last year (from a subscriber/revenue standpoint). So, while no one knows the future for certain, it's looking like TMO will survive until 2016, even if they don't touch any of the 1G/2G towers. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/t-mobile-us-reports-second-quarter-2013-results-2013-08-08
  23. maxsilver
    Would it be helpful to have that data? I can't get it everywhere, but I could prepare one for the Grand Rapids / West Michigan market, if anyone would find it useful. (I realize this is just one single market out of hundreds, and that both T-Mobile and Sprint are known to be weak here for historical reasons. But if it's helpful, I can break down the entire urban area down site-by-site for both carriers.)
  24. maxsilver
    Source is math. 37k T-Mobile HSPA+ sites. 39k sites on Sprint's side. Sprint's covering a larger total area (in square miles) than T-Mobile does. If you believe all of the above information, then by definition T-Mobile has to have a higher density. It's simple math.
  25. maxsilver
    It's site density. T-Mobile has roughly 2x the number of sites than Sprint in some urban areas, and roughly matches them in the suburbs.
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