bigsnake49

Throwing wider/more channels is not so that the carriers can increase their peak speeds to a single user it's about more users have a "good" data experience. That's is also why for carriers at least it helps to have higher order MIMO at the base station. Personally, if I can pull in 64K consistently for my internet radio streaming, I'm very happy.

Each of those is another antenna and continues the issue Sprint currently has, where they have yet to release or announce a phone with 800 or 2600 support. Most around here believe they wont release one with support for those bands until next year! It's definitely an important point to consider when purchasing your next phone, especially if you live in a rural area.

Additional low frequency bands will not be available anytime soon, so Sprint is stuck with the 7+7MHz in the 800Mhz SMR band. I think most people should wait until both the 800MHz and the 2600Mhz bands are supported in a handset. I know that Sprint and some of the enthusiasts don't like that advice, but between the fact that Sprint's network won't be widespread before the end of 2013 and the fact that all current phones wont support the 800 and 2600MHz band, it makes perfect sense for ordinary people.

I am new to the forums and a 11 year sprint customer here in the north suburbs of Austin Texas. I found this site (google) due to a interest in finding out more about sprints new buildout and upgrade of their new LTE Network. You see I have the last couple of weeks reconnected with an old college friend of 20 plus years ago we both went to Texas A&M, He is an Electrical Engineer and works for a company called Ericsson. He was overseeing stuff in Houston, and has now come over to Austin, will be here a another couple of Months after setting up and moving on to Florida.

 

He explained that Sprint is doing some amazing things that will really be cutting edge over the next year, and I was lucky as I would expirence alot of new network before others, by sometime this fall in fact he told me.

 

TH=hat said as we talked he had me a little comcered for Sprint over long term. He said that Sprint over the next few years will be on the short end of Spectum needs. That Verizon had over 100MZ (half of which was in low end sub -900mgz Hi Quality Spectrum) of Spectrum in four bands, and AT&T about 90 MGZ (half in sub 900mgz spectrum) in THree Bands total. Sprints problem is tHat Sprint only had about 50Mgz of Spectrum in two Bands, (not counting Clearwire stuff). THat on ly about 15Mgz is in low wnd specrum 800mgs, that was all old nextal spectrum) What he was sating in the long rum Sprint needs to du=uld the low end Spectrum holds to about 30Mgz in the 800 level to really compete.

 

So is any of this true, he acted like it would be really hard for sprint to get more lower end spectrum, but they could get more 1700-1900 spectrum in the future.

 

Does this put Sprint in a bind long term? I thought when the nextel service was shutdown there would be plenty of spectrum on the low end, Is it really only around 15MGZ nationaly? is that enough?

 

sorry for all the Questions, new to really learning about mobile networks and how it works, was not as interested untill talking to old college room mate. He was an engineer I was Finance, lol.

 

Sorry for the typos on a mobile in a car.

 

Not to be a downer, I got some great info from Him and Sprint is doing some awesome stuff, that will put Sprint is a great positon for what is called LTE-A. Will tell more about that later.

Just remember also that the big two have twice as many customers as Sprint, so they're probably in the same boat as far as total spectrum is concerned. Now, I do believe that Sprint should find at least another 10 Mhz of lower frequency somewhere. Would that be in the 900Mhz band where they own close to 3+3Mhz already or in the 600Mhz band to be freed through voluntary auctions? I don't have all the answers. If it was me, I would try to buy out the rest of the license holders in the 900Mhz band.

Been a while since apple was an underdog lol. I guess I like the underdog too which is why I am a fan of windows phone. And let me be clear, I am in absolutely no way saying that Microsoft is an underdog. I just want to see a solid competition between 3 good operating systems, and windows phone is the best candidate for the 3rd OS. RIM had their chance...

Not to mention I believe Microsoft will finally bring a tablet to market that is more than just an oversized phone.

 

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I like Windows Phone. It is very fast and can be run on much lower MHz hardware than Android requires. It is also a different UI paradigm than iOS and Android. WebOS is also a different UI paradigm so I appreciate that as well. Android, although popular, does not bring anything different to the table. Sorry if I am insulting your sensibilities, Android fans, but there's not a lot of differences between iOS and Android, whereas WebOS and Windows phone bring something different and fresh to the table. RIM and Nokia made a big mistake not buying Palm. On the other hand a sloth of a company like HP should have never bought Palm.

Not gonna happen. Sprint's PCS A/B block 30 MHz licenses and G block 10 MHz licenses are basically at opposite ends of the PCS band, which follows this band plan: A block 30 MHz, D block 10 MHz, B block 30 MHz, E block 10 MHz, F block 10 MHz, C block 30 MHz, G block 10 MHz.

 

Sprint's PCS G block licenses are directly adjacent to only the C block 30 MHz licenses. However, nearly all C block licenses have been disaggregated into C1/2 block 15 MHz licenses or C3/4/5 block 10 MHz licenses because C block licensees (most notably, NextWave) defaulted on their payments and returned half/whole of their C block licenses to the FCC.

 

In short, the C block licenses are spread among so many different licensees (including Sprint itself in a few markets) that Sprint will not likely be able to swap and cobble together any great mass of C block spectrum.

 

AJ

You had to spoil my dream didn't you? Yeah I was hoping they would swap with C block spectrum folks. I think Metro has a lot of those, so does Verizon, so does AT&T.

But what would they swap? and with who?

PCS spectrum with PCS spectrum, probably with MetroPCS, Leap Wireless, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Did I leave anybody out?

Make that an orange mocha frappaccino and you have yourself a deal .

Th sarcasm quotient was very high in my previous post .

I wasn't even trying to imply that they should deploy anything on it. They can either sell it or trade it for some PCS spectrum.

AT&T (NYSE:T) and Sirius XM made a joint proposal to the FCC regarding the 2.3 GHz Wireless Communication Service (WCS) band that would open up a portion of it for LTE use, giving AT&T another band for its 4G efforts.

The proposal would change the rules governing WCS spectrum while protecting Sirius XM from interference. AT&T is the largest holder of WCS spectrum, followed by spectrum holding company NextWave Wireless. The proposed changes could give AT&T the ability to deploy LTE covering roughly 40 percent of the country.

In May 2010 the FCC voted unanimously to approve an order that changes rules governing the 2.3 GHz WCS band. The FCC said the spectrum can be made available for mobile broadband use, and mandated that rules be put in place to avoid interference issues. However, AT&T and many others took issues with the new rules.

Huawei I think

 

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

They will select their LTE vendors in the third quarter of 2012.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/clearwire-announce-lte-vendors-q3-timeframe/2012-05-16

I think that we should have a separate forum where all the phone geeks at the bleeding edge of everything can rain down insults on the isheep. Then they can sleep really well at night feeling morally superior.

After doing that, you might also have an anti-Sprint rant forum where people can rant against Sprint for real and imagined wrongs.

Forget the G block for a second. I know Sprint has 30 MHz without the G block in some markets like LA, San Diego, NYC, Washington DC, Dallas etc but those cities actually need the 30 MHz spectrum because they are high population areas. They are still a lot of major cities like Chicago, Bay Area (SF and SJ), Atlanta, Houston, etc that only have 20 MHz of PCS spectrum which is clearly not enough. The mentality for Sprint shouldn't be a zero sum game where Sprint should be trading 10 MHz of spectrum in its 30 MHz markets thereby depleting those markets to 20 MHz while the 20 MHz markets now gain 10 MHz through spectrum swap putting them at 30 MHz. This solution doesn't solve anything because it only fixes one problem but breaks another because now those former 30 MHz markets like LA, NYC, San Diego, etc are now stuck with 20 MHz which need more spectrum since they are high population cities.

 

The true fix is if Sprint can not get the nationwide licenses for the 'H' block then the priority should be that the major markets who currently have only 20 MHz of PCS spectrum that those 10 MHz H block licenses be bought up to now put those 20 MHz markets with 30 MHz of spectrum. Remember I am discounting the 10 MHz G block nationwide for now because we are talking about future expansion not what Sprint is already deploying for LTE.

I don't mean spectrum swaps between areas. I mean spectrum swaps within areas to get Sprint's holdings adjacent to their PCS G block and avoid guard bands and separate pre-amps and filters on the handsets.

Why was Band 17 created separately from Band 12 anyway? Was it that much cheaper/efficient to drop support for the A Block, or was it mostly AT&T deciding it didn't want its phones to be interoperable with regional carriers' LTE?

All of it because AT&T did not want to pay more money to have basestations and handsets with steeper filter cutoffs. It would have been cheaper to purchase the channel 51 broadcasters and put them out of their misery. They just polute the airways with all that shlock and commercials!

They don't have any spectrum to swap. What spectrum could Sprint possibly trade? Sprint needs to acquire the 'H' block and just continue to build on the PCS band. That should be the path forward but we'll have to see what Sprint is going to do.

 

The problem right now is that in some Sprint markets they don't even have 20 MHz of PCS spectrum if you don't count the 'G' block. Acquiring more PCS spectrum should be their number one priority.

Believe it or not, in some markets, Sprint has 30MHz without counting the PCS G block. With the PCS G block they have 40MHz. If they can swap spectrum in some of their markets where they have multiple non-contiguous 10Mhz blocks they can have 10x10MHz blocks or even 15x15

Sprint is currently deploying 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE in its PCS G block, which is a 10 MHz extension of the PCS 1900 MHz band. So, Sprint will have LTE 1900 from the beginning. Within the next year, Sprint plans to deploy some additional 5 MHz x 5 MHz LTE carriers in its traditional PCS A-F block spectrum in selected high traffic areas of selected markets. But Sprint will not likely deploy any 10 MHz x 10 MHz LTE carriers anytime in the foreseeable future. And, with its current spectrum holdings, Sprint will never be able to deploy 20 MHz x 20 MHz LTE, as Sprint does not have 40 MHz of contiguous spectrum in any market.

 

AJ

Time for some spectrum swaps:).

One quick note re: phasing out WiMAX eventually in favor of TD-LTE hot zones: I'd think that Clear would want to maintain their old WiMAX footprint, even if they become more of a carrier's carrier than they are now. Particularly since they need to keep up some sort of presence where their WIMAX protection sites exist now.

 

Also, if Clear phased out WiMAX completely in favor of TD-LTE hot zones, they'd lose the ability to get MVNOs on board, which may or may not be necessary depending on how much money they are able to make off of "cellular offloading" from traditional cellular carriers.

 

My personal guess (and only that) is that Clear will add TD-LTE pretty much everywhere they have WiMAX now. Tower locations may change as they start collocating with Sprint, but coverage overall shouldn't get any worse. Additionally, they'll add sites where carriers tell them they are needed, so they'll end up covering a couple million more people than they do now.

 

I still think (though Clear will probably decide not to do this) that the company could set up its retail arm to serve up fixed wireless (with professional installs and high-gain antennas) for its TD-LTE network, competing with cable and DSL but not its wholesale customers (who all focus on smartphones and, to an extent, tablets and data cards, all in a mobility setting). Fixed wireless customers would tend to be well-behaved (i.e. not hovering on the fringe of serviceability and thus dragging down performance of the whole cell) and, if cell site downtilt isn't too aggressive, could be a few miles from the cell site and still have a good signal (try that with a WiMAX phone!). This use of a 4G network as a home broadband system has been done before (primarily by Verizon via HomeFusion) so, if Clear did it right, it would work. Heck, that's almost the same thing they did pre-WiMAX days, albeit with a self-installed (read: bad idea) modem instead of a professionally-installed, high-gain one.

I agree with you. In order for Clearwire to survive as an independent company, they need to expand their coverage beyond what Sprint's reqs of using them in high traffic areas. They need to expand their service to home/laptop/car devices that are not power constrained and then turn up the power to expand their coverage.

I know that Sprint has unlimited plans for smartphones, but people should not take advantage and use it as their only internet. You are making it harder on everybody else who are not abusing the system. So moderate your usage, particularly during high traffic times. If everybody who is stuck in traffic on I35 in Austin is streaming Pandora at the same time, don't complain if it cuts in and out. Just sayin......

Necropost, coming up!

 

IMO Sprint + Alltel would've been better than Sprint + Nextel.

 

Yes, Sprint got a 10MHz nationwide block of near-PCS, plus 14MHz of near-nationwide SMR, plus a big block of BRS spectrum (still waiting to see how that stuff gets used...135 million folks covered by a network that will never expand is pitiful for a national carrier).

 

However with Alltel Sprint would have gotten 25MHz of cellular in many areas, some PCS in others, and a customer base that could be very, very easily integrated into their own. Sprint would also have the upper hand on the roaming front (remember, Alltel and Sprint had a reciprocal roaming agreement...including 3G data...when Alltel was independent...Verizon has to keep the agreement up for another few years), since they would have service (via ex-Alltel) where other companies (even Verizon) didn't. Oh, and 12-plus-million customers, none of whom would whine when transitioned to Sprint's network (not that they'd notice the difference, since both networks roamed on each other).

 

And when the time to go 4G came around, Sprint could just deploy on CLR and PCS...no SMR funny business (though their economies of scale mean that SMR LTE phones will exist anyway), adding (and then widening) LTE carriers as they retired CDMA (it's easy to fit a 5x5 LTE carrier into 25MHz in the A or B cellular band).

 

I fully expected Sprint to buy Alltel, back even before the private equity buyout (and I wasn't following the news closely). I was sad when Verizon locked it down...they killed Alltel's unlimited EvDO data cards (yes, they existed, and people used them for home broadband connections when nothing else was available) pretty darned quickly.

Just remember that they would not have had CLR in the majority of their metro areas. They would have had to bid in the 700MHz auction. In my opinion, they would have been much better off without Nextel. They would have followed a steady, natural migration path without the distraction of the Nextel merger and rebanding and the Clearwire debacle.

If Sprint never bought Nextel to receive BRS spectrum, do you think Sprint would have ever partnered up with Clearwire?

Sprint already had 50Mhz of BRS spectrum of their own through their illfated wireless cable TV venture. They later used it for wireless internet. Nextel acquired theirs through MCI Worldcom. The buildout requirement came when they merged with Nextel. I don't think that Sprint would have partnered with Clearwire absent the Nextel merger since they did not have a buildout requirement for their BRS spectrum.

yeah only problem i have is the maps app closing when trying to type in a location

Yeah, I noticed that on my friends iOS6. It is an early beta after all.

Anyone else with the iOS 6 beta noticing any speed performance increase? It feels like everything loads instantly especially on safari!

Remember this is a beta and has a lot of debug code in it still. It will speed up even more when they release it to the public.

Yes, I'm hoping that they do look at Nextel only sites with a bit of an open mind. If they offer service somewhere they need to make it as solid as they possibly can. If they don't want to offer service in the area, fine, they can roam, but they do need to go through a thorough evaluation of each and very site. Maybe even look beyond the Nextel only sites, at sites where AT&T and Verizon or T-Mobile are at and they're not. Basically, what I'm saying now is the time to look at the network as a whole and decide that they are going to match or exceed the coverage of the big 2 where they decide they want to offer service.

I am heavy on Clearwire (50%) and 45% Sprint. But today there was something really suprising. Around 9:55 AM some SOB sold 32 million shares ( 32,481,344 to be exact) But, when I called my broker, they said that the sell came out of Chicago and that the Options for this stock ends today. But I think it put a lot of investor's on hold.

 

For me, I see some incredible things with the stock within the next three months and I don't care if the stock drops to 3 cents. I'm not selling. While doing research on the stock the other day, (I am always trying to find new things on the stock) I can across this FCC Docket about how Dish network was to build a 4G network to compete against AT&T and Verizon. Excuse me! Why not compete against Sprint?

 

Well, in this docket Dish talkes about a relationship with Sprint and Clearwire: http://apps.fcc.gov/...w?id=7021918388

 

You see, I read an article in which the CEO say that his daughter's friends comeover to the house to watch movies. But they are watching the movies on Hulu on their computer and he realized that he needed to change the direct of the company. so, he set up a relationship with Qualcomm and have spent $$$ in new dual chips for LTE and WiMax.....hum, that's interesting. Check out the docket.

 

Hope this helps!

I did a search on the document and could not come up with the Sprint or Clearwire names. What page are they mentioned?

Unless I am mistaken, isn't the spectrum light squared is trying to swap for is the public safety 700mhz.

 

 

Also AT&T only has 20mhz in like 1/3 of the country. Another 1/3 has 10mhz and the last 1/3 has no 700mhz. I believe Chicago is a 10mhz market.

As if PS is going to just roll over and play dead!