maxsilver
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Everything posted by maxsilver
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Ah, ok. That sounds more accurate. If you scope it to exclusively prepaid users, that port ratio could easily be accurate (based on both of their released numbers). -
Sprint claims it's net port positive against T-Mobile, and T-Mobile claims it's 2.2 net port positive against Sprint (according to FierceWireless from the call). However, in the actual released results, Sprint claims 0.03 million postpaid adds and T-Mobile claims 1.30 million postpaid adds. Sprint's gaining more prepaid adds than T-Mobile (410k vs 266k), but T-Mobile's postpaid additions tower over that significantly. I'm inclined to believe T-Mobile's port ratio is probably more accurate, based on the actual numbers from Sprint's Press Release vs T-Mobile's, unless some new information comes to light.
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Spark v. Spark Turbo
maxsilver replied to clbowens's topic in Network, Network Vision/LTE Deployment
This is a great improvement. I wish they would do it with the 3G and regular LTE maps too. -
Working != Financing Previously, they were working. Now, they are both working and extending Sprint new credit (or financing) for that work, through their various partners. It's similar to when you buy a Sprint phone+plan. You pay for the plan (working), but you can also get a subsidized / payment plan device (or finance the phone) if your credit allows. This is not an perfect analogy, but I think it's enough to clarify the distinction.
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There's a bunch of reasons. The biggest one: this probably wouldn't help much, since 90+% of the towers they need are already built and owned/operated by third party leasing companies, who already let them use these towers easily and at fairly low costs. (Crown Castle, American Tower, etc) Occasionally a site they want is full (weight/wind/space limits) or is unusually expensive to lease / backhaul. But in most cases, the only reason Sprint or T-Mobile aren't on a particular tower, is that they've simply chosen not to purchase leased space on it. There's any number of reasons they might choose to skip a site. Everything from "that they might feel they already have sufficient coverage there" to "they just don't want to provide service in a particular area".
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I have a hard time believing their existing 2G-to-LTE footprint covers 290mil pops. Sprint's entire network is only around 270mil (edit: 282m) pops ATT's LTE covers 300m+ POPs. It would stand to reason that T-Mobile's network needs to be roughly the same size as ATT's to match that number. Legere is the one who claimed he would "match Verizon almost everywhere, and win". It's not like I'm expecting him to cover every rural area -- these are places that ATT and Sprint already have coverage too. He's intentionally setting expectations high, by claiming to match Verizon "almost everywhere", and by claiming to have an LTE network equal in size (by POPs covered) to ATT's. If he's not actually planning to match most of Verizons / all of ATT's coverage, he should stop publicly promising to do that.
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I don't think that's likely -- backhaul should be pretty straightforward. I suspect that if there any "dressing of a pig" it will be in site count / density / placement. I'm imaging rural towns like Cadillac, Michigan. To properly cover that town with usable service, you need at least three cell sites. Today AT&T and Verizon are on four, and Sprint is on two. T-Mobile has no coverage in any direction for 80+ miles. If T-Mobile needs to "fudge" their rollout, I imagine they would do it by leasing a single site in places like Cadillac, but claiming the entire town's population in their "300 million POPs covered" LTE count. (Which would technically be true, but only barely -- and not anywhere near the same quality/usability as Verizon's coverage there is)
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I don't believe he said that would be finished in 2014. Only "half" of them. I believe that full 100% 2G-to-LTE deadline is still mid 2015. It was always mid 2015 -- this hasn't changed or been pushed back in any way.
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"Prediction for 2015 : We'll go toe-to-toe with Verizon almost everywhere...and win" http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/2015-predictions.htm T-Mobile's done an excellent job this year. They've been aggressive as hell. They've surpassed all their previous deadlines. They've rolled out new technology. It's fantastic, and it's impressive. But if this is true native coverage, I can't see this happening. It's simply not realistic. At least, not unless they grossly redefine the phrase "almost everywhere". There simply isn't enough time in a single year. They're easily behind Verizon by at least 100 - 150 cell sites just in Michigan alone. They'd have to file permits, sign leases, install backhaul, purchase / deliver / install gear, for two or three new cell sites a week, every single week, all year long, with zero setbacks or delays of any kind, just to catch up in *one* of these 50 states. Even if they only match Sprint, even if they only cover *half* of Michigan (Their 300m pops vs Verizon's 303m pops), that's still at least another 50 cell sites, at least one a week, every week, in Michigan alone. I hope I'm wrong. I hope they pull that off. And I've worked on some impressively quick tower constructs for WISPs, so I've seen firsthand what can be accomplished quickly if everything falls into place. But that timeline just seems completely, hopelessly, ludicrously unrealistic. - - - The only way I see them hitting this deadline is if they fake it. Throw up a single tower in a small town where Verizon uses six, and pretend it's equivalent coverage.
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PhoneArena's tests more or less back up what I've experienced in Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle. But some markets seem really...wrong. For instance, Verizon has literally fallen off the 4G chart in Cleveland and in San Diego for instance, even though RootMetrics places them right near the top with T-Mobile or AT&T in both of those markets for data speed / performance. I think relying exclusively on OpenSignal for speed tests is going to skew the results heavily in markets where people are only testing when they have problems. (unlike RootMetrics, which is relativity reliable because they actually hire people to test consistently all networks across entire markets, in addition to using user-reported data)
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Your observations are accurate, but your tests don't imply what you seem to think they do. Just because LTE only mode doesn't always allow you to receive text messages, doesn't mean you can assume text messages aren't sent over LTE -- they still are. As was already stated above numerous times and in greater, more precise detail: "LTE Only" mode can ignore/turn off other services (such as call notifications and text messages). In regular LTE mode, these are required to happen (still as data over LTE). If IMS/eCSFB data over LTE can't be established in regular LTE mode, you'll be forced back to 1x/EVDO to make sure you don't miss calls/texts -- even if a otherwise-strong LTE signal exists. In "LTE Only" mode, IMS/eCSFB can be ignored -- it's your way of telling your phone that you don't care about missing calls and texts (which is why it's normally hidden behind a MSL). All your test actually proves is that when you ask your phone to not care about calls and texts, your phone really stops caring about calls and texts. It's not new knowledge in any way -- what you've seen is 100% expected, normal behavior.
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They definitely don't all suck equally though, and if Sprint would fix the broken map data and then fix the map web viewer, it would be an super easy and cheap way to be more customer friendly.
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To be clear, I don't mean the word "refugee" to be a bad thing. It's not an insult. There were places where it was literally impossible to have a conversation about Sprint in any way, because customers were suffering so badly that *all* topics were overrun with complaints. I tend to think of S4GRU as "refuge" from that.
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A lot of folks seem to forget that this is a Sprint fan site. You simply aren't going to get an objective conversation about other carriers here. Yes, originally it was started around network upgrades. But that's not really the point anymore -- especially since the network upgrades will be mostly finished/over next year. This is really a 'refugee' community of Sprint fans, with a few passionate cellular enthusiasts sprinkled in. You have to interpret most of the discussion through "Sprint-shaded-glasses" because that's what this site is. Even a few of the otherwise intelligent and well-respected authors occasionally drop into weird fanboyism over their pet topics/technology. (And I'm not blameless there -- I've written some long-winded rants about cell site density sins...) There is no day where "petty sniping at T-Mobile" will stop, because it's part of the community here. The moderators even occasionally start / encourage that behavior. It's a big part of why this site exists. Either you like and enjoy the fanboy stuff, or you learn to put up with it / ignore it. If your not willing to do that, your probably going to have a frustrating experience here.
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Sprint releases plenty of devices that are essentially guaranteed to never sell well. They can definitely afford to host one device that will only have slight demand. If nothing else, they can simply replace the Q10 with this, and it won't otherwise effect their lineup in any way. Although I wish they would jump on the Passport instead. Definitely the better device, its a shame it only released for AT&T.
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Battle Creek and Muskegon are now "launched" Spark markets, just in case anyone missed the press release today.
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S4GRU.com as a community is often really bad about this. There's pages and pages of posts here calling T-Mobile and/or MetroPCS "ghetto" (1) (2) or pretending that their credit check is lower than Sprint / AT&T / Verizon (for comparably-equal phone subsidies, it actually isn't significantly different) This, despite the fact that Sprint does *literally* the same thing with their brands. Virgin Mobile targets the same "urban youth" as T-Mobile, Boost Mobile targets the exact same low-income urban demographic as MetroPCS. There's no significant difference in marketing, except perhaps that T-Mobile's is more noticeable. Then you get to the ASL fines. Lots of carriers require a deposit, but Sprint (presumably) has so many problems with low-credit customers that they actually fine their postpaid customers simply for having low credit, even for customers who have already prepaid a deposit. "Just AutoPay to remove it" isn't a valid excuse for it. Then you get to Sprint's credit reporting, which is often simply broken. I've had Sprint tell me just last week -- in the same phone call -- that I'm both "pre-approved for 10 phone lines and devices, no deposit" and that "we can't switch your current plan without a $200 deposit". "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
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To put it more simply : Every price reduction Sprint and T-Mobile make, is coming almost-directly out of a shareholders pocket (in reduced margins, which is where value or dividends they receive would have come from). The shareholders are reacting by devaluing the shares -- everyones shares -- they don't think it's worth holding cell providers, if there's no future promise of high dividends or increased value. (Sprint and T-Mobile are giving this money away now, but shareholders believe Verizon and AT&T will do similarly to stay competitive, so they're devaluing the entire sector).
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I'm not sure the name has anything to do with "impressing potential customers". I'm fairly sure the only reason for the awkward "stash" name, is because they can't call it "rollover" due to the trademarks AT&T holds. Same reason C-Spire calls it "rolling" data. Everyone is calling it "rollover". Pogue gets paid to talk to Legere, and even he couldn't stop calling it rollover. If Legere could have found a legal way to call it "rollover" (without paying AT&T for it), I'm betting he would have.
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It's not the exact dialogue, but it's fairly close (paraphrased). I sat through the whole thing this morning. But I'm not sure I'm ready to sit through it again to transcribe it. --- Right before/after he tells Pogue to "move to a city", Legere mentions he sent Pogue one of the ASUS cellspot routers, to "fix" the coverage. To which he replies, "my assistant/secretary uses it with her T-Mobile phone". The whole event is a really awkward exchange. Legere being a weird mix of "reserved" and "brash", and Pogue being a weird mix of "interview/journalist" and laughing at Legere a bunch. Just really...awkward.
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+1 to this. Why on earth are you paying to plaster your logo all over an event, if you aren't going to setup a DAS. Or even just drop a functional COLT/COW around?
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Pogue : I still can't get service in my own (well built suburban neighborhood) home Legere : Move to a city Pogue : What do you say to people who are complaining about coverage? Legere : There's a misconception that it's about cell sites, that we just need more towers. It's not, it's just low band spectrum. --- Ugh. But you do need more towers, especially in those wealthy suburbs / exurbs. All he had to say is "we're working quickly to add towers and coverage in the cities and suburbs we don't yet cover". It would take all of five seconds -- almost no effort. Instead, he always insults the people he'll eventually need to offer service to, to sustain his subscriber growth. #sigh
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I'm guessing all of the sites here are scheduled to get more backhaul at some point. Just that a significant number haven't gotten it yet here. Similarly, we have a few officially launched Spark areas (Bay City, Flint, Saginaw, Midland). But none of it is considered "Turbo" according to the coverage map, and the speeds people are reporting are unusually lower than normal ( http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/flint-mi ). Since those areas definitely have B41 live and are "officially launched", I'm assuming that's backhaul-related as well.
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http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-business-fusion-plans-built-to-meet-the-needs-of-business.htm It's "Sprint Business Fusion Unlimited" plan that's listed as $65/month on their website. That plan normally includes a subsidized device. (Pay $200 for an iPhone + $65/month, no extra costs). If you don't get a plan-subsidized device (if you bring your own phone, or EasyPay) they knock $20 off the price -- it's discounted down to $45/month. That "knock $20 off the price" is not mentioned clearly anywhere on the website anymore. The press release mentions it in passing, "customers who EasyPay will receive a monthly discount". But it still exists. (At least, it still existed last week, when I moved a line over to it) - - - And again, you have to be on a corporate liable account to see the plan. If you just call into Sprint, they'll probably pretend they don't know anything about it.
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It's usually just a lack of backhaul. Most Sprint sites in Grand Rapids today only have 30-50mbps of backhaul to share between B25, B26, B41 and EVDO. Sprint decided to use AT&T / Comcast for backhaul. These are the monopoly providers (incumbent provider - ILEC) for much of Michigan. AT&T is really expensive, and takes a long time to "install" (where 'install' means 'turn on' -- almost every single site has AT&T fiber waiting for Sprint in the ground). Other cell providers use one of the dozen-plus competitive providers (CLECs) such as US Signal, Zayo, Level3, etc which all have multiple points of presence in Grand Rapids. T-Mobile for instance, uses Zayo for a lot of backhaul. Sprint ignored all of those options. They chose monopoly-only, for everything. So now they get to wait. And pay more. - - - - - - - - It's not directly related, but Sprint is also suing AT&T in Michigan over interconnection agreements. http://www.ccmi.com/blog/att-and-clecs-take-fight-over-michigan-interconnection-agreement-in-federal-court. I imagine the relationship between them is strained at best. Anyway, I suspect it will be a while before backhaul gets improved.
