bigsnake49

Newer chipset phones should be able to come close to the Razr Maxx. I usually carry an external battery for all my devices. You know, just in case .

Yeah, but those limits are long gone!

Yes I think the upfront payments are too steep and prevent a lot of otherwise able companies from entering the wireless space. That's why I proposed the yearly payments.

Part of the problem has been FCC's insistence on letting people bid on small slices of spectrum, e.g. 5+5MHz. Now granted, that's fines if all you're doing is servicing voice but is totally inadequate when you start talking about data.

I'm very happy that LTE allowed smaller channel widths. Sprint is the beneficiary of that in that they can deploy 3Mhz channels in border areas on 800MHz.

I think that the FCC needs to tighten their buildout and usage reqs so that Verizon and AT&T don't warehouse spectrum to keep it out of the hands of smaller operators. I would also like for them to ditch auctions and go to a usage fee structure, where the operators rent the spectrum for x dollars per year per MW. I would also like to eliminate the spectrum speculators that just buy the spectrum to later on sell it to AT&T or Verizon or ..... You get 3 years to build it out, if you don't you lose it. You cannot sell your spectrum.

AJ, while I agree that that spectrum is much more suitable to T-Mobile's spectrum holdings, I don't think it's fair to bash WCDMA for T-Mobile's failing to migrate their 2G users to 3G. Now, I think they are stupid for jumping the gun and implementing LTE when HSPA+ has so much headroom. Or the fact that they implemented 3G on AWS instead of migrating their 2G user in place.

AT&T just miscalculated how much spectrum they needed for data and panicked and reached for T-Mobile. They could have bought the cable cos spectrum or bought leap or metropcs.

Does T-Mobile have problems with uplink? They prbably want to use the additional spectrum for downlink, not uplink. If they use it for downlink then the possibility for interference is much greater.

The FCC granted permission to T-Mobile USA to test the concept of sharing spectrum between federal and commercial users in the 1755-1780 MHz band. The pilot program is part of a larger government effort to use spectrum sharing technology to help meet mobile broadband demand.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement that by granting the authorization, the commission "hopes to facilitate commercial mobile broadband services in that band, which would significantly benefit millions of U.S. wireless consumers and help drive the mobile innovation economy." The tests are aimed at measuring the impact spectrum sharing will have on commercial carriers as they seek to deploy LTE.

"As we move forward, we will continue to collaborate closely with key government agencies, including NTIA and the Department of Defense, as well as private sector partners, to gain greater spectrum efficiency and unlock the many potential benefits of government-commercial spectrum sharing," he said.

Read more: FCC allows T-Mobile to test spectrum sharing in 1755-1780 MHz band - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/fcc-allows-t-mobile-test-spectrum-sharing-1755-1780-mhz-band/2012-08-15#ixzz23dbQXwnp

Would Sprint be interested in something like this?

Clearwire's problem has always been funding. They bit off more than they could chew when they expanded in a lot more markets than Sprint wanted them to, wasting their deployment money and not getting enough income out of Sprint. They thought they would be their own independent full service carrier when all along their fortunes were intimately tied to Sprint's. I still think that they need to go back to being a WISP for at least part of their spectrum.

"Sprint said that Clearwire's 2.5GHz spectrum will play an essential role in Sprint's LTE 4G network in the coming years."

 

http://www.phonescoo...cle.php?a=10926

 

AJ

From the same article:

Hesse clearly said that if Clearwire can't or doesn't get its LTE network up and running in a sufficient way, that Sprint may be forced to acquire more spectrum for its 4G network. Hesse didn't say what spectrum bands it would look to acquire, but said that Clearwire's spectrum is highly desirable.

It seems to me that they're already making contingency plans.

"Sprint said that Clearwire's 2.5GHz spectrum will play an essential role in Sprint's LTE 4G network in the coming years."

 

http://www.phonescoo...cle.php?a=10926

 

AJ

I think they said the same thing about the IDEN network a few years ago. It's coach-speak or CEO speak. Plus, under the spectrum swap proposed, they would get 40MHz in return. Nothing to sneeze at.

That sir.... would make waves

I think that Sprint is not really interested in Clearwire's spectrum. They have been keeping them at arm's length all this time. The Dish spectrum is lot closer to their mainstay band, and the Echostar 700Mhz could be aggregated with their 800MHz or sold to AT&T.

Once they started refarming their 1900PCS spectrum for HSPA and targeting AWS for LTE, they became less attractive to Sprint. This merger if it ever happened would be executed over many many years. The two would have to be operated independently for a long time.

I'm with jefbal99. If Sprint can consolidate on PCS and 800, it will be a great thing. Plenty of bandwidth on PCS with 800MHz thrown in for exurban coverage/penetration.

It would probably be a very complicated merger. The biggest advantage is that TMo has a postpaid subscriber base. Cricket and Metro are all prepaid. Plus TMo has national spectrum resources where as Cricket and Metro are very limited. USCC? Are they a fully national carrier? I know they serve a lot of the mid-west and more rural areas in general.

USCC has about 6M mostly postpaid customers. They are mostly in the midwest and some in the northeast. They are generally rural except for Chicago, St Louis and quite a few smaller markets.

I wonder if Dish/Direct TV would be interested in swapping their spectrum in the 2GHz/700Mhz bands for Sprint's interest in Clearwire?

Personally, I don't think the DOJ/FCC would be opposed to a TMo/Sprint merger. If the 3 & 4 national carriers got together it would form a competitive rival to the big 2. The problem with ATT/Tmo was that you would've created two super carriers in VZ and ATT/TMo and then everybody else.

 

The Sprint exec in charge of mergers and acquisitions is leaving. The SEC filing was disclosed yesterday. I remember reading a WSJ article stating that the original Sprint/TMo merger idea fell apart because Sprint was driving too hard a bargain. With a new exec in charge of mergers at Sprint maybe they reopen discussions.

Although, I'm all for this merger, I think it will be a bear to carry out. Much easier to integrate Cricket and Metro and or USCC.

Total service revenues of $4.4 billion in the second quarter of 2012 compared to $4.4 billion in the first quarter of 2012 and $4.6 billion in the second quarter of 2011, a decrease of 5.2% year-on-year

Branded contract churn of 2.10% in the second quarter of 2012; 40 bps decrease quarter-over-quarter and 50 bps decrease year-on-year

Net customer losses of 205,000 in the second quarter of 2012 compared to 50,000 net customer losses in the second quarter of 2011

Branded contract net customer losses of 557,000 in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 510,000 branded contract net customer losses in the first quarter of 2012 and 536,000 branded contract net customer losses in the second quarter of 2011

Strong branded prepaid net customer additions of 227,000 in the second quarter of 2012 compared to 71,000 branded prepaid net customer losses in the second quarter of 2011 and branded prepaid net customer additions of 249,000 in the first quarter of 2012

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/09/t-mobile-usa-q2-2012-earnings/

I wonder how long the FCC and DOJ will object to a Sprint/T-Mobile merger if they keep losing that many customers.

I caught all this today as well. It seems this may have been accelerated by AT&T acquisition of Nextwave. I've always wondered why some along the way believed that there would be little value to spectrum above 2GHz. It may not be beach front property but it's scarce acreage.

It's definitely valuable for satellite companies if they ever wish to have a real video on demand option without depending on the cable companies to provide the bandwidth.

And even with the tower spacing I have now, 1x isn't all that great either. Looks like I will have to make that mod to my case with that high gain retractable antenna

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

What you don't have one yet?

The best thing for Sprint to do is to acquire the spectrum and have Leap be another MVNO on top of Sprint's network.

I would like for Sprint to acquire both Leap and Metro. Leap now and Metro later.

Nice! I guess they are serious about their network.

I'm surprised that Sprint didn't buy them first, if only to force AT&T to trade spectrum.

Well, this signifies that AT&T is truly serious about WCS as its next LTE band, and it likely takes AT&T out of the running to acquire DISH's S band/AWS-4 spectrum. So, with an AT&T option off the table, look for Charlie Ergen to partner with Sprint and build out his LTE network on the Network Vision platform.

 

AJ

Add to this that DirectTV is sniffing around Clearwire and I see some very interesting developments in the next 12 months. Both the satellite providers need to deploy some video on demand infrastructure.

AT&T's making no secret of the fact it wants to snatch up as much spectrum as it possibly can, so news of the company's proposed acquisition of NextWave Wireless doesn't result in much of a shock. AT&T has agreed to purchase the company -- and all of its WCS (Wireless Communication Service) and AWS spectrum licenses and equity along with it -- for 25 million, pending FCC approval. If you count 25 million in contingency costs and the outstanding debt the big blue globe has also picked up, however, the total bill climbs to 650 million.

http://www.engadget....twave-spectrum/

BTW AT&T has $62B worth of net debt. You don't hear much about that!

I think that Sprint just needs to execute on its Vision plan and reduce its roaming bill to a manageable amount like $250M instead of the $1B that it had couple of years ago. If that means that it limits the amount of roaming minutes allowed so be it. If it means that it kicks people off that are in marginal areas, so be it. If it means that it develops its network in said marginal areas, then so be it. They need to improve their margins to match the big two.