bigsnake49

You're right about Block A. Verizon tried to sell it but had no takers in the urban areas so they decided to keep it. As far as D&E block can be used as a supplemental downlink for PCS.

AT&T also has some spare 700MHz spectrum they can throw at the problem. Bands A, D and E have not been touched yet. 850Mhz as well. The WCS band will not be needed for a long, long time.

That's why all of this dreaming of a Gbps in a mobile device is a pipe dream. You could conceivably do a CA of 3x20MHz channels for 180Mbps, but you better have that tablet plugged into an outlet since it's going to eat your battery for lunch and probably get real hot.

For MIMO to be effective you need spatial diversity. For spatial diversity you need at the minimum 3 wavelengths. At the 2.6GHz frequency, wavelength is .37 feet so 3 wavelengths is 1.11 feet. I just don't see how many of those you can fit into a tablet.

I think that Cingular and T-Mobile would have been an item.

I am thinking that part of that 8x8 is diversity transmit and receive antennas with different down tilt to maximize coverage and capacity. I am thinking 2x2 diversity, 4x4 MIMO and I'm at a loss for the other 2x2

They might have been able to convert a few that actually lost coverage because of the IDEN network shutdown, but I think overall if they had a dynamite network to trasition them to, they would have kept quite a bit. As it was, Sprint's network was/is in shambles so they lost them. Will they be able to get them back? Well, if they can get their network in order and offer them better plans than the other two, then maybe. Some of us advocated EVDO Rev B for their network to hold them until LTE, but I guess they could not afford it. Oh, well!

NV is available on 26,000 of their 38,000 sites.

I swear all the old Slashdot nerds moved over to Engadget and are measuring their e-penises.

Reuters) - Sprint Corp posted a decline in third-quarter revenue on Wednesday as it lost more subscribers than expected following the shutdown of its older iDen network. Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile operator which is 80 percent owned by SoftBank, reported net subscriber losses of 360,000 for the quarter. Six analysts contacted by Reuters expected losses of roughly 313,000, on average. The company had warned that third-quarter numbers would be hurt by departures of corporate customers because of Sprint's shutdown at the end of June of its iDen network, which was used mostly by business customers. Sprint reported a profit of $383 million, compared with a loss of $767 million in the year-ago quarter, before Sprint's deal with SoftBank and its July purchase of Clearwire Corp. The company said the latest quarter was helped by a one-time, non-cash, $1.4 billion gain, net of taxes, related to its previously held investment in Clearwire. Revenue fell to $8.68 billion from $8.76 billion. http://news.yahoo.com/sprint-posts-decline-third-quarter-revenue-111749458--sector.html

If Google has the same success with Dish as they did with Motorola ....

Has anybody taken the time to analyze all the bands present in a top of the line T-Mobile phone? Say in a GS4 or an iPhone 5S. How compatible will the phones be to the Sprint Network post 2014?

This little dance of the T-Mobile executives and the Sprint executives dancing around a merger has gone on for a little while. I don't know what the timing of it should be. Maybe after Sprint has finished NV? After they stop losing customers? After the stock recovers?

The Miami area is actually not bad for Sprint. Now they have not finished their LTE builds, but they should be OK by the middle of next year. I hope they don't use 800MHz for skimping on putting 1900MHz LTE on every PCS site that Verizon is on. Thicken your network in Florida, Sprint!

I am assuming no ETF for the other 3 lines? I would call and tell them to take it down to 1 line.

Verizon Wireless hopes to purchase some B Block AWS spectrum from U.S. Cellular, according to paperwork filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Specifically, Verizon is eyeing 20MHz of AWS-1 spectrum in 53 counties in 14 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs) across parts of Illinois and Missouri near the St. Louis region. According to the FCC, if the transaction is approved, Verizon would own 62-117MHz of spectrum across these CMAs, 40MHz of which would be AWS-1. http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=13109 Boy, by the time somebody buys them, they won't have any spectrum left.

People are going to get tired of me suggesting that the two merge in order to compete with the big two, but I think the only way for them to survive long term is to merge and also to acquire some 600Mhz spectrum. Now, as part of of the merger they should be forced to provide "substantial" service in rural areas and to relinquish control of the EBS spectrum to Dish which will then be forced to provide fixed wireless service nationwide. Dish could then create a nationwide network to host all of their frequencies as well as merge with Direct TV.

Pizza, pizza! Oh, wait ....

I think this is in addition to their wifi.

That's what I have been advocating that Sprint do. Let Dish have the EBS spectrum so they can implement fixed Broadband on it. Sprint does not seem to be interested in deploying fixed broadband and I don't ever believe they will be able to use their BRS+EBS holdings for mobile broadband. With Dish's dishes, indoor penetration is immaterial.

Could it be that either strand or pole mounted small cells are coming? It will be a boon to Sprint's 2.6Ghz deployment plans. A package deal of small cell and backhaul to feed it? http://www.lightreading.com/cable-video/comcast-testing-small-cells---sources/d/d-id/706189

Anyway, AT&T has plenty of PCS spectrum available and will only enhance their holdings at least in secondary markets with the purchase of Leap. If they can offload their WCDMA to 850MHz and then use their PCS holdings for LTE, they will be in great shape for years to come. I mean they have scads of 700MHz that they can use for LTE and can only get more once they acquire Dish's 700Mhz block E licenses. They won't have to touch WCS for a long time.

I can guarantee you that Sprint's network will be more reliable and speedy and have better indoor penetration and better outdoor coverage, but it might take until the end of 2014 to do so. You could become a sponsor so you can determine the progress of the network in your area, etc. Make sure you get a tri-band phone if you decide to come back to Sprint.

Yeah, I think that if they get their Lightsquared spectrum, switch the uplink and downlink of their S band spectrum, then they can use the 2000-2200 as supplemental downlink or sell it to whoever won PCS H. Combine the 2000-2020 MHz downlink of spectrum with the 1995-2000MHz of PCS H and you have a very nice contiguous 25MHz downlink. If Sprint prevails in the PCS H auction and buys the supplemental downlink from Dish they could combine it with their PCS G holdings for a nice contiguous 30MHz downlink (with using PCS G + PCS H uplinks). It might go a long way as a downpayment for Sprint's buildout of Dish's network. It might also lead Sprint to sell/reassign the EBS spectrum to Dish, since now they will be rather flush with spectrum.

Dish has already driven the price up by proposing to pay $.50/MHzPOP. I think the consensus was that the price should have been around $.33/MHzPOP. Of course it is conditional on certan concessions by the FCC, but still.