bigsnake49

I think it has something to do with them scheduling their upgrades after Sprint's in each market, not being ahead of Sprint's upgrades for that same market. Makes sense if they are going to serve as the relief valve for Sprint's network.

If Sprint were to acquire USCC it would be better from a brand perception point of view to create a super USCC that would incorporate rural USCC and Sprint properties into a wholly owned subsidiary. Give them some money as well and see if they can get Sprint (USCC) rural coverage expanded using the 800SMR spectrum. Sprint's coverage gets expanded and their roaming bill reduced. USCC knows how to run a rural network.

Plus most of USCC's customers are contract customers vs the prepaid customers of Metro and Cricket. If I had to prioritize I would say go after USCC first, then Metro then Cricket, but I'm afraid that it will happen in the reverse order since Cricket owes Sprint money and has very low market value right now. It has relatively high debt load though.

I've been wondering about AWS vs PCS tower spacing. The downlink on AWS has worse propagation characteristics than on PCS, but the uplink is better. Since the uplink is typically the first to fail, it is more important when considering tower spacing. In most/many situations, I would think transmit power on AWS could be increased to compensate for weaker downlink propagation vs PCS. This would mean that the tower spacing could be the same or even a bit wider for AWS.

 

Is this accurate?

Yes it is.

...but siphoning off assets right as the proceeds could be used to do serious network upgrades...not a good idea.

 

OTOH if T-Mobile were to merge with someone, optimal tower arrangements would a a bit easier if everything is more or less leased. The carrier isn't tied to some owned location. This is particularly handy since I guarantee that the T-Mobile owned sites are mainly spaced for PCS coverage, rather than AWS.

AWS spacing is the same as PCS spacing. Although there might be some minor differences in propagation, in general it tends to follow the PCS spacing.

If DT is doing that, they are so ******* stupid than to use the money to upgrade T-Mobile USA's network! They must be stripping T-Mobile of as many assets to put it back on the market for a super quick and cheap sale.

DT needs to set T-Mobile free. Let them sink or swim on their own.

I have not tried the traffic feature of the new Maps app. Navigon's is darn good and saved me a bunch of time yesterday. I had a dinner engagement and it rerouted me around a 30 minute accident traffic tie-up. This was a business dinner with a prospective client and Navigon saved my behind. Granted, I had already called, but still.

I have used google maps for ever and they still have flaws. They don't always find the best route. In their earlier incarnations they had my house one street over. But then I've also had problems with Garmin maps and also with Navigon. I stopped using the old apps because it had no turn by turn directions and have used Navigon exlusively since you can predownload the maps that you need. It comes in handy if there's no 3G or 4G when you're in the middle of nowhere. I use Navigon almost exclusively and I will not use Apple's new maps until they allow me to pre-download maps.

Both AWS and PCS.

I guess MetroPCS is shopping itself around. I know that Sprint has to be careful since they have a lot on their plate, but they cannot wait forever.

They should have probably moved the old Maps to the app store so that people that need the missing functionality can still download it, while the new Maps is the default.

It will help defray some of the costs of deploying LTE and buying additional AWS spectrum from Verizon.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 U.S. mobile provider, has agreed to sell the rights to 7,200 of its wireless broadcast towers to Crown Castle International Corp for $2.4 billion.

Under terms of the deal announced on Friday, Crown Castle will have the rights to operate the towers for about 28 years and have the option to buy the towers from T-Mobile USA at the end of the lease.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/tmobileusa-crowncastle-idUSL1E8KRJZT20120928?type=marketsNews

Guys I'm sure that Southern Co. and Solinc have looked and are looking at all their options with respect to Nextel going away. We will see what happens.

Every power company that I know, and I know quite a few, runs an private LMR system, except Southern Co who runs an IDEN based system. The rest of the companies don't have any external customers so they have to eat the cost of running an LMR system.

There are certain uptime requirements and SLAs associated with running a utility communication system. Unless Sprint hardened their sites and network infrastructure, they probably could not meet the uptime and SLAs that utilities require.

But in the long term, even if Southern is OK with losing money, they are going to have more and more problems to maintain the status quo with its current network. It is going to get harder and harder to get new devices that support iDEN for the number of customers they have. Also, hardware makers are going to phase out of the market and focus on making other newer equipment. The same thing is already happening with WiMax. Also, not being able to roam at all is going to be tough in the long run. And Southern is going to have a tough time getting an OEM to build hybrid iDEN units that can roam on other networks. Especially after another a year or so. In the long term, even if Southern loves to lose money and only wants to serve its employees, it is still going to have to transition to something else. And working out a deal with Sprint to do that could be a very good move for both Sprint and Southern. Southern could still have and maintain their own sites with a transition to CDMA/LTE and have a spectrum/network sharing deal with Sprint. Southern customers still get to use their own network on their own sites, but also get nationwide usage on the Sprint network of CDMA/LTE. Sprint customers could roam on Southern, and get access to LTE 800 all over the South. Robert

Robert, I agree with you that it will be a great thing if Solinc and Sprint cooperated. I'm not 100% sure if the QChat license Sprint has with Qualcomm is exclusive only for 3G or extends to LTE.

Once the nextel network c

Let me answer your purported comment. Once the Nextel network gets decommisioned they will lose their nationwide roaming privileges. Let me answer it by differentiating between the two main customer groups: Internal customers and external customers. As long as the internal customers are within Solinc's area they can still use the service. The requirements for PTT is that is almost always local. The Interconnect part (the normal cell phone part) will need to be addressed by either providing them with roaming capabilities on one of the nationwide cell cariers in a hybrid handset or by providing certain people (executives) with an additional handset with one of the cell carriers or subsidizing their personal handset.

The external customers that travel outside the Solinc area would be accommodated by providing them with a hybrid handset. Alternately, they could be jettisoned, leaving Solinc with just providing service to their own people.

Of course Sprint can come up with a proposal that would give migrate both internal and exteranl customers with Solinc internal customers given priority access while in the Solinc coverage area. If they could give Solinc SLAs that are satisfactory at a price that Solinc could not refuse, then it might be a go. Otherwise Solinc is prepared to go it alone.

All those results show that symmetrical spectrum allocations are so 90's. Asymmetrical and TDD spectrum will rule the future.

I think USCC would be smarter. Sprint is only going to chomp into VZ/ATT numbers if they increase their coverage. Add SoLinc and USCC would put them closer on that path. SoLinc would give sprint full coverage in Alabama and Georgia.

Here is USCC coverage.

 

Solinc is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Co. They use Solinc as the wireless communications enabler for their own workers. The external customers are just gravy, helping to defray some of the operational costs. I have no idea what they're going to do with their spectrum. From Sprint's perspective it would be great to have a spectrum swap for their 900MHz SMR spectrum.

As far as USCC is concerned they could make USCC a wholly owned subsidiary and task them with being their rural service provider. USCC knows how to make money in rural areas and they have a very good reputation. They could assign them their 800MHz SMR spectrum and have them develop a great network. They could probably pick up the remnants of ATNI while they're at it.

As for US Cellular, they seem to be a bit stagnant, have a more rural footprint (but not nearly as big as Alltel) and are deploying LTE across a plethora of bands (700, 850, 1900, AWS). Divesting their 700MHz holdings would probably be the easiest way of dealing with them, but where would those holdings be sold? Their AWS might be too rural for T-Mobile (though it might not be), and their customer base just isn't that large. Better to have them as a seamless roaming partner than to buy them.

They have about 6M customers. Not all the AWS is rural. I'm sure that you can find people to buy it.

A seamless roaming partner like Alltel that ends up getting acquired by Verizon? No thanks. Sprint has a $1B annual roaming bill. You can build a whole lot of rural sites and absorb USCC for that kind of money.

I think Alltel would have bought Sprint, more than a merger or Sprint buying Alltel. At the time, what were Alltel's spectrum licenses? Were they just 850Mhz cellular or did they have PCS licenses they were using too? I remember that I had some family that used Alltel and they raved about the service/support/devices.

They had both. For example in Jacksonville, FL they had 1900. I think that Alltel was aiming for a merger not a buyout of Sprint. According to the former Alltel CEO Scott Ford, they approached Sprint 3-4 times about a merger and they were turned down each time. Scott would have probably been the CEO. Here's a map of Alltel's 1900MHz holdings:

http://people.ku.edu...alltel_pcs.html

Here is a link to their 850Mhz holdings by region:

http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/regions.html

Holy moly! I watched that in bed on my Kindle Fire while drinking my first morning cup of coffee, and my wife started arguing with Craig's stupidity. My wife! She is better educated about Sprint and the markets than Craig Moffett, and she doesn't follow this stuff.

 

His comments about Sprint taking years to catch up and never be able to provide a useful LTE network because it is using "high frequencies" are ridiculous. He doesn't understand site density at all. Wow, is he going to be surprised when Sprint overtakes AT&T's LTE coverage next year.

 

Also, I find it amazing that he overlooked AT&T's spectrum limitations for LTE. And he talks about AT&T as if they have nationwide 700MHz spectrum, which they do not. And their new Qualcomm spectrum is not even paired. Major oversight on Moffett's part to blast Sprint's spectrum related to LTE and praising AT&T, even though they are in a worse position all things considered. What a dipshit.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

Craig Moffett and Roger Entner are just blithering idiots that sound informed to the uninformed. The one eyed, myopic mentally challenged leading the blind.

Really? I think a Sprint/Tmo deal could pass, because it could be framed to actually increase competition. However, I think Tmo is just large enough that it makes it very difficult for Sprint to be able to swallow it whole. Lots of money.

 

USCC is a better target. However, that would be very difficult to pull off too. I think that is why Sprint keeps pursuing the bottom feeding prepaids. Because it has the resources to pull something like that off.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

T-Mobile would be a nightmare to integrate. They would almost have to run them as separate companies until they converge on LTE. If they want to buy T-Mobile, they will have to do it before T-Mobile starts LTE on AWS. Otherwise Sprint would have to support LTE on EBS/BRS, PCS, AWS and SMR spectrum. Not to mention voice. USCC, Metro and Leap much simpler and cleaner. Sprint rejected simpler and cleaner with Alltel and instead went for complicated and look how long it took them to get out of that mess.

Sprint + Alltel would have been great. It's really too bad.

 

 

At any rate, Robert and AJ will love this:

http://www.bloomberg...u56hYiEYnw.html

 

He is at it again. He continues to sound as stupid as ever. It's sad.

Moffett is a total idiot. So is Entner!

It was that stupid nincompoop Forsee that rejected Alltel's advances. Alltel had very low debt and was run very well. Sprint would have gained instant credibility as a true nationwide provider, particularly if they also went into an alliance with USCC to the point where USCC's coverage appeared as native. Nextel would have been icing on the cake giving them 800MHz in the sticks and the cities along with PCS block H. Or they could have waited and bid on 700MHz.