maxsilver

they may not have created the map logic to look at b12 vs area covered by b4 when you click.

For what it's worth, this new map does contain logic to show Band 12 700mhz LTE, and to alert you if you need a Band 12 device to use it (you can see it for yourself by loading it up in developer tools)

It also has a device page for it - http://www.t-mobile.com/optional-services/coverage-phones-700.html

I haven't found an area that actually triggers it yet. But if/when that trigger happens, there's logic in that map, today, to support Band 12 required areas.

Is the old green website updated?

No. At least, it doesn't look like it has been updated so far.

T-Mobile has started to update the map, but I don't think they've finished updating it, because this new map is (currently) missing a lot of live coverage.

Most (all?) of the MetroPCS converted coverage is missing from this new map and shows as "roaming / no coverage", even though T-Mobile definitely has working coverage in those areas.

(at least, all of the Michigan MetroPCS coverage in areas like Muskegon, Grand Haven, Mount Pleasant, etc, are missing on this new map, even though T-Mobile has had working live coverage there for months, and still display it as such on the old map at https://maps.eng.t-mobile.com/pcc-customer.php )

So, considering all the live, active coverage missing from this "new" map, I think (or at least, hope) they're still working on it. And if this truly is the "finished" new map, then somebody in Bellevue made a big mistake.

To be clear: I'm not arguing that this is a great idea -- It's more than a little awkward. But Sprint / Google *could* handle VoLTE to 1x "handovers" just like Republic handles WiFi to cellular -- it doesn't actually require two radios.

- -

On a Republic Wireless phone, if you do something to disrupt your call on one radio, RW tries to handoff "seamlessly" to the other (two radio method, Conan mentions this above). This is a 'nice' experience, the call quality will shift, but you never loose voice service.

However, if *both* radios drop (loose both Wifi and cellular -- zero active radios), your end of the call drops entirely (no voice service), but Republic Wireless holds the call open and tries to call your phone back automatically. If it's successful, your "dropped" call suddenly resumes. (It's technically a new call as far as Sprint's concerned, but your other party is already on the line, and neither you nor they dialed anything or did anything to make that happen.)

Again, It's not an elegant solution -- very brute force. And if you loose both radios, it's awkward for a bit while your phone tries to reconnect. But it technically works. It's probably better than loosing a call entirely. And with no significant changes, it could work identically on VoLTE to 1x transitions, despite having only one radio.
 

With Google voice, you are essentially on a conference call with you, your caller, and Google. If 1 person on a conference call drops off, the call can keep going. So if your VOIP drops, Google could put the call on hold for the couple of seconds it takes to fall back to a legacy voice connection.
Play a little "rerouting" message in a pleasing voice to the person on hold. And then keep it on the legacy connection for the remainder of the call so that it doesn't keep happening throughout a call when in a marginal area.

Yep, exactly.

My understanding is that this the same thing that Republic Wireless does to make handovers work when their nicer "seamless" method fails -- such as where there is no wifi and no cellular of any kind.

I am overall for the industry moving all packet switched and killing off the circuit switched infrastructure in time, but come on down to Chester sometime where Verizon can't even cover the whole town properly.  Then again I might not be one of the people here who have tried out VoLTE.

Oh, and by the way. I took a buddy of mine who has T-mo to my family's house in rural WV. No service..no calls, no data. T mobile will always be irrelevant (in my experience) until they build out rural coverage.

 

But I get it. T mobile doesn't do voice coverage yet in rural america and can't/won't for a good while. So we're supposed to pretend it's no big deal, or an afterthought, or some other silly excuse. I hear that. I understand.

There's no need to invent fake claims and strawman arguments.

I never said T-Mobile was good in rural areas. (They obviously aren't -- they haven't even finished covering urban areas yet). I never even mentioned T-Mobile at all (hint: Verizon and ATT have VoLTE too. Don't assume I'm talking about just T-Mobile)

I also specifically said, in that post, to travel to a city with dual band LTE coverage, to get a good experience.

Rural connectivity sucks, I agree 100%. But that's not a fault of VoLTE as a technology, just as you wouldn't blame LTE as a technology for bad coverage in rural areas. That's a fault of poor network rollout. Blame your respective providers (T-Mobile, Verizon, whoever) for their poor service in those areas.

I'm sure it works outstandingly in an urban environment.

It's not perfect, but I think it's really good. A lot better than the posts here would seem to imply.

We have folks in the office who leave their Verizon iPhones to VoLTE 24/7. If you never leave the suburbs, Verizon is dense enough here that it works fine. (And you can always just turn VoLTE off if you head out to the rural areas. It only takes ten seconds to switch it off)

- - 

(and to bring the thread back on topic) VoLTE is good enough on carriers today that, with proper data handoff between Sprint and T-Mobile, I think Google could launch a competitive MVNO using it in urban / suburban areas. 

At least, I would buy a Google SIM in a heartbeat if it did VoLTE, and had voice+text+data access to both Sprint and T-Mobile simultaneously. Even if that meant calls dropped from VoLTE to 1x on Sprint.

I also don't think it's a given that Google would have to drop calls from VoLTE to 1x. They could brute-force fix the problem in a similar way that Republic Wireless does for Wifi to 1x call handoffs on Sprint today

It's funny to see people post things like "just use Skype / Hangouts / FaceTime / etc". Perhaps these people haven't actually used VoLTE much -- because while technologically VoLTE is similar, the experience on VoLTE is much better in most metrics (call setup time, call quality, latency, tower handoffs, QoS / reliability) while requiring zero effort to setup or maintain (No extra dial screens, no extra apps to constantly keep running, no battery penalty while idle, no extra accounts, etc)

Add in the fact that on properly-managed networks, VoLTE falls back to 3G and then 2G anyway, so you loose almost no voice coverage, and it's an obvious win. Skype / FaceTime can't match that. And while there are still a few rough edges with VoLTE, it's a lot more reliable in day-to-day use than you might expect. (And significantly more reliable than trying to do a FaceTime / Skype call over LTE).

VoLTE "just works", and pretty well most of the time.

But I get it. Sprint doesn't do VoLTE yet and can't/won't for a good while. So we're supposed to pretend it's no big deal, or an afterthought, or some other silly excuse. I hear that. I understand.

But, in the real world, VoLTE is actually pretty nice. Head to a city with solid dual-band LTE coverage, and try it out VoLTE sometime (on any carrier). You might just like it.

I presume additional towers are going to have to be built along with more sites on existing towers in rural areas, along with adding more sites in areas that are native where coverage is subpar.

Leasing new sites -- absolutely. They'll need lots of new sites.

Building new sites -- I'm not sure about that. There's a surprising amount of underused, PCS-spaced sites in "rural-ish / small town" areas, according to what their sales reps show me on the American Tower / Crown Castle location tools.

It wouldn't surprise me if T-Mobile builds zero new sites, and just leases all of the new sites they need. There's a lot of them already out there, and the rural / small town ones are surprisingly cheap.

The DT CEO is just voicing what some of us are saying for a while now, that the current situation is not sustainable

The problem is that there's little financial truth backing that opinion. "People saying that" doesn't make it true.

T-Mobile's just had their best year in recent history. They've gone from 7 million net yearly loss, to roughly break even (all while building an expensive LTE network, running large scale advertising campaigns, financing unprecedented levels of devices / ETF payouts, etc -- things they could easily cut back on, if they decided they wanted to show on-paper profit).

Don't take my word for it, their finances are public record :

https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TMUS&annual & https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=TMUS

T-Mobile is fine, and unless something crazy happens, they can "sustainably" operate as-is for many years.

DT pushes the rumor that T-Mobile is "unsustainable" because they want someone to buy out their ownership at a premium price, and that premium is easiest to get if there is no competition in wireless (which is what a Sprint/T-Mobile merger guarantees).

Believing DT at face value about this, is like believing an umbrella salesman's weather forecast.

Title II doesn't really change much for Sprint, since they don't have a last-mile residential wireline ISP, and already is very open with resellers (MVNO's).

They do have fiber around the country for commercial use, but they already allow people to buy/lease capacity on it, so that's likely not effected much by any potential Title II reclassification.

I'm glad Sprint supports Title II (it's clearly the right thing to do). But Sprint can do this knowing they don't have much to lose here (unlike say, Comcast / AT&T / Verizon / others, who all hold monopolies on last-mile lines that could be loosened by Title II).

Now i would stand behind a complete closing of all third party stores. Nothing good comes from them and i feel like they weaken the sprint brand.

If they end up taking over all the RadioShack leases, a lot of them might end up closing anyway.

There are more RadioShack stores here than corporate Sprint stores (including three RadioShacks less than one mile away from third party retailers). I imagine the folks who would potentially feel the most heat from this move are those third party standalone stores.

So the last 2 days at work my G3 will not pull any data on band 41, I've tried prl and profile updates, reboots, etc. (snip) For the past week before yesterday I was pulling 20+ mbps down on 41 even with 1 bar. But this is the 2nd day in a row I cannot get data on b41. I'm in GR near Plymouth & Michigan.

It might not have anything to do with you, they might still be messing with the site.

The site at Michigan + Plymouth had B41 live and working for a while, then they shut it off for a few days, and then brought it back online. I know that's not the same as your situation, but if they're switching backhaul over and forget to turn B41 off, (or just doing some other work) I could see something like that happening.

You should call it into Sprint, just so they have it logged.

You misunderstand what higher margins mean. It is a reward by consumers for providing goods and services that are desired or a rent.

Er... what? 

Margins (or Profit Margins) are the revenue a company keeps from the prices they charge, after they pay all other expenses, for a particular product or service.

If you sell a product for $1.00, and it costs you $0.80 to provide that service, your margin is $0.20. If your price to provide a service drops (from say $0.80, to $0.60) and your price stays the same ($1.00) then your margins increase (from $0.20 to $0.40). That's higher margins. It can happen from cost reduction and/or revenue increases.

There's other considerations (net/gross, taxes, etc). But that's what margins are. I'm not following what you mean by "a rent".

If there is a free market (where "free" means people have free choice between multiple equivalent competitors) then you could claim that consumers "reward" companies through their choice. But that's not the situation we are in today, a number of people pay for Verizon or AT&T not as a "reward", but because in their situation, they have little or no other choice except to take a drop in service quality/coverage/device selection, or abstain from wireless altogether. 

But near as I can tell VZW and Att have the same rents as T-Mobile and Sprint. So this fact goes rather to my point.

They do not "have the same rents". Factually speaking, there's a large gap between Verizon / ATT margins, and Sprint / T-Mobile margins.

I don't think Q4 2014 is fully released yet, but in Q3 2014, Verizon had roughly 43% EBITDA margins, and Sprint had around 14% EBITDA margins. Verizon's margins are almost triple Sprint's, as of four months ago.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/special-reports/how-verizon-att-sprint-t-mobile-and-tracfone-stacked-q3

Exactly. VZW and ATT have substantially higher prices than sprint and T-Mobile yet they own over 70 of the market. Consumer are saying they prefer higher prices with service in more places and greater reliability. An individual person might not prefer that trade off but it seem not enough to make the alternative model profitable.

That's somewhat misleading though. VZW and ATT also post higher margins. Very little of those higher prices actually go to "service in more places with greater reliability". A good chunk of it just ends up as dividends to shareholders.

And the price to offer service has dropped substantially, in many metrics. Towers are cheaper now (lease prices have dropped). Backhaul is *much* cheaper now (1000mb fiber is often cheaper than 3 or 6 T1's used to be). Radios / antennas / assorted gear is often cheaper now (our Microwave backhaul radios have dropped from $15k to about $4k over the last seven years, even while doubling in bandwidth speed). Spectrum can be used significantly more efficient now (LTE). Obviously, some costs have risen (Spectrum). Not *all* costs have dropped, but a significant number of them have.

I believe the market can sustain four good players. But no one can speak to that for sure, because it's never been tried.

I'm not sure the market can support two good players, and two "bad" players (in either coverage or data service). And that's the only scenario that's actually been offered so far, that's the one on shaky ground. But even if that fails, it still doesn't in any way imply that four good players couldn't have happened sustainably in market.

Out of curiosity does anyone happen to have a generated map of what tmobiles LTE coverage will look like once 300 pops are hit? I've seen sprints and their roaming agreement but I would like to see what T-Mobile will look like.

AT&T claimed to hit 300m POPs w/ LTE four months ago (September 2014). In theory, it could be comparable coverage to AT&T back at that time.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/att-hits-milestone-early-covers-300-million-pops-lte/2014-09-04

This is the funniest part of their complaint, IMO:

Yep. And I think that line is even better with context. From their own website :

"AT&T already owns and operates an existing tower very close to that site"

"[Verizon's tower would] ruin what is currently a pristine sky"

Apparently, when AT&T builds a tower, it's just one part of their "pristine sky", but if Verizon builds a tower in the same spot, it "ruins" both the sky and the rural charm.

Page not found

Oh, sorry. Didn't notice they had hotlink protection setup.

http://boycottverizonwexford.com/ (scroll down, click "View Lawsuit").

In that particular situation, Verizon did everything right, and the residents complaints are either outright lies, or completely silly.

It's very likely Verizon win the lawsuit.

NIMBY fights like this aren't particularly new.

Another one involving Verizon is occurring locally here now - http://boycottverizonwexford.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Verizons_Federal_Lawsuit_against_Wexford_County.pdf 

They typically get shot down, because there's usually not legitimate claim to deny them. And even if there was, they usually aren't presented/filed properly.

I don't mean shut down CDMA today and do VoLTE only. I mean forget the handoff.

No worries, I already assumed that's what you meant when I wrote the post.

I assume you meant "VoLTE-only" would mean no CDMA to rely on. Doesn't really matter whether Sprint towers still broadcast CDMA or not, since a user's hypothetical "VoLTE-only" phone couldn't use it (presumably by definition) then it wouldn't make any difference to them. 

I mean forget the handoff, launch VoLTE, reduce overall # of people on CDMA while densifying and then once the LTE network is dense enough, shut down CDMA.

I would agree with this new statement, if "launch VoLTE" meant "release devices that have VoLTE + CDMA support, but only use CDMA by default" similar to what Verizon has today with iPhones, until that time in the future "once the LTE network is dense enough"

But if you remember, that's a big shift from what you wrote just this morning. You originally said "Sprint doesn't need to densify" for VoLTE, which is why I wrote all the stuff about why it's necessary (in most but not necessarily all markets).

Sprint doesn't need to densify, they just need to focus on band 26 rollout, amplify the signal at band 25 only sites and add additional band 25 carriers to increase capacity. They can make what they have work, 600MHz isn't as much of a necessity as some people believe.

Sprint needs to densify in most markets, to roll out a successful VoLTE service in the near future (unless new spectrum / technology breakthroughs / etc occur)

They usually can't just "amplify the signal" or crank up the power on sites to improve coverage -- it's just not that simple, for a bunch of reasons.

Your right in part -- 600MHz or other low-band spectrum isn't required, and I believe they could "make what they have work". And I agree with your strategy, VoLTE is the future, spending cash on LTE is good, and spending new money rolling out old 1x service is extremely poor circumstance.

However, for Sprint to not need low band spectrum and still service everyone with reliable LTE (the kind of reliability that maintains calls without dropping) the only alternative (using current LTE technology / spectrum holdings) is extra density.

Without extra density, VoLTE-only would make the usable call coverage footprint drop drastically. You'd be asking Sprint to accept call failures / call drops increases of 10 to 30+% in various markets, and similar numbers in reduced coverage footprints. The streets would run red with failed RootMetrics call/text reports.

Until Sprint is ready (from a financial and technical standpoint) to densify, relying on 1x is the right decision.

EDIT : Your user card says your in NYC. NYC is unique, they already have some of the highest Sprint cell density in the nation. VoLTE could potentially be rolled out using just the existing sites / spectrum they have today. However, most markets are not NYC, and have only a fraction of that density. 

Guys, here is the deal. Provide some substantive evidence.

 

And do not give anecdotes from Chester, IL or western MI. Who cares? To illustrate, T-Mobile is shit in Omaha, but nationally, nobody cares.

 

What I want to see is that VZW, AT&T, and T-Mobile have significantly greater site density than Sprint does -- in overlapping markets across the country. I do not believe it, though I am willing to be convinced.

You already have this.

You already know T-Mobile has something like 5,000 - 8,000 more active cell sites than Sprint has, based on each carriers own provided numbers (or using S4GRU's counts for Sprint, if you prefer).

And you already know that T-Mobile's actual footprint is slightly smaller than Sprint's in most areas. It's the most-often-repeated complaint about T-Mobile on this site (or you can simply compare the areas they claim to cover based on their own maps -- which aren't very accurate, but still claim the same disparity in miles serviced)

So, while tower-specific maps would be lovely and nice, there's no actual need for it. By definition, T-Mobile must have higher density, because "more sites in less area" requires it, and by numbers, that's what they have.

Edit: And that's before we include the propagation difference between 2100 and 2600, which should require even higher density than that 60,000 figure.

Sprint could monetize parts of their 2600 spectrum to get their cell density up. It's a fairly good way, in my opinion, to get money for investment to densify their grid and get urban cell density up. Sprint is lagging in performance, in part, because their density isn't at the point of the other providers. Use the spectrum assets to get higher speeds, but if you can keep 80-100 MHz a market and still be speed competitive, do that.

 

Greater cell density is required, even with 8T8R.

Yep, it sounds like an accurate analysis, and sound decision to me.

But apparently that argument was already "rebutted" earlier in the thread. So it's no good now. 

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/news/industry/28787/ee-and-vodafone-clash-over-rootmetrics-network-test.aspx

Take it for what its worth but there does seem to be a flaw in not standardizing the devices used for data acquisition. 

I'm not sure why they did that over there -- but it doesn't quite apply here. In the US, they almost always use the same device when available. (For example, this year I believe it's all Galaxy S5's on all four carriers)

The only time I remember them doing alternate devices is whey they had to because of technology (back when they tested WiMax devices for Sprint, or tested Leap / MetroPCS CDMA which didn't have the same devices as everyone else).

They do state the devices used for each network in the reports, near the bottom in the fine print, for folks curious.

The 600 MHz auction may never happen anytime soon.  Do not count on it.  It also may prove too pricey for anyone but VZW and AT&T.  Do not sell your assets and save your pennies for a day that may never come -- or never come your way.

 

Sprint cannot compete with the Twin Bells on overall native footprint.  Currently, Sprint can barely compete with lowly T-Mobile on overall data speeds.  Right or wrong, those are the metrics that presently drive the industry.  If Sprint lets go of some of its spectrum treasure trove, that may be akin to letting the Trojan horse inside the gates.  If AT&T, for example, can acquire 40 MHz of BRS/EBS spectrum and run 2x 20 MHz TDD carrier aggregation, Sprint loses most of its competitive advantage.

 

AJ

I'm not so sure of this -- Sprint doesn't really have that competitive advantage now anyway.

EBS/BRS isn't a major competitive advantage unless they build out a lot of new, denser-placed sites. Otherwise, your still falling back to PCS/800 with very little available capacity. Historically, they've never been willing to increase site density (although with Marcelo here, and with all this new loan debt, theoretically that could change).

EBS/BRS services in "Spark launched" markets, as tested by RootMetrics, is roughly matching data performance of Verizon XLTE or T-Mobile Wideband LTE. It's good. But it's not so much faster that it's an significant advantage. If AT&T had similar performance (through 40mhz of EBS/BRS) it wouldn't really change Sprint's position much.

Even if a 600mhz spectrum auction never happens (there's like a 99.99% chance it will, but we can pretend that it won't for the sake of your argument) then it still makes since to divest 40mhz of the 2600 spectrum, to allow Sprint the capital to compete on sites leases and footprint (which would also improve data speeds across the network, but without costing any new money to Sprint if financed through selling excess EBS/BRS).

EDIT : It would also take away AT&T's marketing angle of "strongest LTE". If Sprint could afford to match AT&T on a exact site-for-site basis -- by selling a chunk of EBS/BRS, then Sprint would loose no advantages, but AT&T would loose one of theirs.

Obviously -- I know it's not FDD. It was just an analogy for approximate data capacity comparison.

Selling off some B41 actually sounds like a really good idea.

They don't need most of it, and they're not getting full use out of the spectrum they keep (they aren't going to lease the extra cell sites they need to do a dense deployment of it.)

Honestly, 80mhz of EBS is all they need. (This would be roughly similar in capacity comparison to 2 carriers of 20+20 -- or more than 2x the capacity of T-Mobile's "wideband" LTE, with similar-ish customer counts).

If they sell the rest, that would generate a ton of revenue they could use to densify urban areas and prep for 600mhz auction. It would also help with their spectrum screen issue, and probably jump the stock price up noticably.