bigsnake49

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

FierceWireless echoing my sentiments. https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/softbank-s-ceo-may-be-getting-what-he-wants-out-sprint-t-mobile-merger

That article is as muddy as heck. The only thing I got out of that is that DT will have the most voting shares whereas Softbank will have the most shares some of them non-voting.

For all the enthusiasm about 5G, Huawei is trying to temper expectations about the nascent technology:

Chairman Eric Xu said that while 5G was faster and more reliable, consumers would find no “material difference between the two technologies”. The technology has been hailed as a necessity for the coming age of autonomous driving, and the billions of connected devices making up the internet of things. But Mr Xu pointed out that “even today we have the technology that can support autonomous driving”. Analysts said Huawei’s reversal echoed a broader sense of gloom among telecoms operators and kit manufacturers. “Pessimism about 5G has been growing behind the scenes in the mobile industry but Huawei is the first large infrastructure company to state it explicitly,” said Ben Stanton, analyst at Canalys. “The reality is that 5G will be incredibly expensive for operators to deploy, requiring tens of thousands of new base stations per country. And the industry is yet to uncover a killer-use case for the 5G network.” Mr Stanton also noted that it was “becoming clear that oft-cited use cases, like IoT and self-driving cars, are actually more dependent on computing power built into the device itself, rather than the network”.

https://www.ft.com/content/a4dc54a6-4225-11e8-93cf-67ac3a6482fd

I personally think that private networks such as on a company floor maybe the killer application for 5G. Low latency, reliability is what the industrial sector is looking for.

As far as IoT, it is amazing how little bandwidth IoT takes. If you're thinking about making money from IoT, think again. 

As far as I am concerned there is no killer use case for 5G. It will be just more of the same, more bandwidth. We can get Gigabit bandwidth right now. 

Yes, T-mobile needs the 2.5GHz spectrum but they are not desperate. There is a lot of spectrum to be cleared in the CBRS and 3.7-4-2GHz bands and even sharing the 5GHz band with WiFi for LAA. The object of the merger is to spread costs over a larger customer base. The timing is critical. They need to do this before Sprint spends $5-6B on the network because the synergies will not be as extensive and Sprint would have added another $5-6B of debt. Sprint would have duplicated a lot of T-Mobile's network. Also after Sprint completes their network deployment, the price for Sprint would be higher.

14 hours ago, S4GRU said:

All this gloom and doom.  And Sprint is still better than it's ever been.  But now.  Now it's the end.  LOL

I've got a headline for you...

NAYSAYERS SAY NAY.

That's all they ever say.

Wake me up when they actually finish something. When they're not waiting for...Godot...I mean to get merged. Wake me up when they actually deploy triband on all their sites. Wake me up when they implement 4x4 MIMO, 256QAM and 3CA on all their sites. Wake me up when they stop roaming in suburban and exurban areas and get control of their roaming costs. Wake me up when they actually execute. For me, it is the execution part that makes this merger attractive. I just want them to actually execute and they can only do it under competent leadership. I want them out of the hands of Softbank.

Too many message apps. Where does Hangouts fit in all of this?

The only thing that Sprint has accomplished is pile up debt, $39B. Where will it find the money to deploy 5G? How will it pay down its massive debt while also maintaining its LTE network and investing in 5G? Borrowing against spectrum can only go so far. Where will it get new subscribers? The market is saturated so it will have to steal them from other players. How will it compete since its network does not match the others. It can only compete on price. Which means it will not not have as much funding as the others. It's a vicious cycle. Sprint needs a savior and it is not Softbank. They have not invested in the network. It almost makes me wish Dish had acquired them.

I am pretty sure that it has something to do with certain internet companies (Apple, Google, Facebook) being able to use e-SIM to dynamically purchase capacity from different providers on the fly. In this case they become just fat dumb wires instead of brands. They have been spending a lot of money to establish their brands and they'd fight tooth and nail not to be come commodities.

On 4/17/2018 at 8:57 PM, RedSpark said:

LOL! Perhaps!

I can’t imagine Sprint working with Comcast given Comcast’s arrangement with Verizon. Not sure what Sprint’s actual densification plan is here otherwise.

Comcast is looking to offload some of their Verizon data fees by deploying small cells in their territories. Whether they might want to cell capacity to third parties is an open question. Maybe Sprint can entice them to deploy dual band (CBRS, 2.5GHz) small cells. 

12 hours ago, greenbastard said:

The problem with this thought is that you're assuming the FCC won't open 3.7-4.2 Ghz for 5G. 

Everyone is overthinking this. T-Mobile and Sprint both want a merger. Less competition and reducing 5G costs are the goals here.

Between CBRS and 3.7-4.2GHz that's 650MHz that will be coming available. Reducing yet another deployment's cost should be the primary goal here. It's not reduction in competition necessarily just unreasonable offers to switch that are the problem, although I have not seen many of those lately. 

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

Right now, nobody is moving to acquire the spectrum. Dish has not borrowed against it. The perceived value of their spectrum will fall further once these other bands are opened up. 

Not to mention 4x4, 8x8, massive MIMO, 256QAM, small cells...

9 hours ago, utiz4321 said:

That is simply not true. The spectrum is worth what people believe it to be worth. Dish can borrow against it, that perceived value is built into their stock price and it is built into any calculation of any prespective buyer of the company. Value is subjective. 

Right now, nobody is moving to acquire the spectrum. Dish has not borrowed against it. The perceived value of their spectrum will fall further once these other bands are opened up. 

11 minutes ago, utiz4321 said:

They are earning a return on it, it is now worth 30 billion. They have earned 10 billion in less than ten years and didnt have to lift a finger.

That's one analyst's opinion who is probably invested in the stock. The spectrum is not worth anything until somebody makes an offer on it.

26 minutes ago, nexgencpu said:

But SoftBank does..

No need to hurry. Get it for a song.

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

If Sprint is open to buying dish spectrum they may have to fight with VZW for it tho

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Sprint does not have the money to buy anything. Share in deploying Dish's spectrum and sharing in the bandwidth, yes. If Verizon wanted to buy Dish's spectrum they would have done so already. 

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

If Sprint is open to buying dish spectrum they may have to fight with VZW for it tho

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Verizon is furiously deploying small cells and beyond the mmWave they own are very interested in the CBRS band and LAA and also the 3.7-4.2 GHz band for small cells.

4 minutes ago, utiz4321 said:

Why? That doesnt seem like it woukd be a responsible decision for Dish's shareholders. Time is on Dish's side, as far as their spectrum goes, and building out a protection network buys them more of it. 

You paid what $20B for spectrum, would you not want some return on investment? Plus If you go at it alone you still will need about 9-10B for a nationwide network. Spectrum is plentiful with the CBRS band, the 3.7-4.2GHz band, the LAA/WiFi band and the 28GHz band. 

On 3/27/2018 at 11:01 AM, Tengen31 said:

I would like to see Sprint get there Hands on the Low Band Spectrum of Dish.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Same here. I think that Dish just needs to lower their valuation of their spectrum so that them and sprint can come to a mutually beneficial agreement. What you hear from Dish about IOT is total BS. Nobody will be making any serious money solely out of iOT. Dish's spectrum will be used for video in the mdiband and lowland to fill in the holes in the 2.5GHz network. Dish can sell mobile video for their Sling package on the Sprint network. Both should share in the deployment cost and the additional capacity. I would prefer that Dish's 600Mhz be used mainly for VOLTE.

4 hours ago, dnicekid said:

I am not so sure about sprint NOT making the investment. Masa wanted to merge with someone who would benefit sprint. “Not” making the investment or possibly strategic planning? Meaning why keep paying to upgrade when we know 5g is coming. I think sprint may have had a window where they figured if they merge/Buy/sell it won’t set them any further behind. If it falls through, Plan B is 5g buildout asap. 

All of the areas that are lacking will be brought up to par with 5g rollout anyways. I know it sounds confusing but if sprint was “shopping itself” I think they were thinking wait and see before they upgrade as mentioned before many towers are co located which would have been unnecessary had the merge gone through. It hasn’t disrupted the 5g plans so I “think” this may have been their strategy or plan b of it all along. 

Sprint could fix the network tomorrow and people still wouldn’t come in flocks because of the bad rep. But if sprint gets its 5g out and can brag speeds or they could do a big media push and start to get people’s attention?

Yeah meanwhile (4 years), they lost how many subscribers? How much money?

21 hours ago, though said:

Interestingly, the analysts said that T-Mobile’s merger plan with Sprint last year involved shutting down around 30% of Sprint’s cell sites and then deploying Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum nationwide.

Well they are colocated in a lot of sites. They would have used Sprint's PCS spectrum to beef up midband and totally blanketed the county with 2.5GHz. They made a stupid mistake. Now it might be that the FCC/DOJ might not have let them merge but at least they had to try. Sprint/Softbank also made mistakes in that they did not make the investment necessary to keep up with the rest of the industry, thus falling behind because they were waiting for the merger.

All of these speedtests by all of these carriers are great. What I am looking for is consistent coverage and consistent speeds. It does not help me if in one spot it's 150Mbits and then in another 3G. I would be perfectly happy if it was consistently between 10-20Mbits throughout the coverage area.

21 hours ago, derrph said:

I thought Charter said they were cool with their agreement with Verizon and was planning on using them for their MVNO (whenever that will be). I think for Charter to get in bed with Sprint they would need to see some major progress with the network. I think it would be a great move honestly. I use Spectrum for my home wifi and its great to get 100 down for $44 a month. But if we are all honest, even though Sprint has come a long way they just do not have the greatest track record. I do however hope that is a thing of the past starting next month. 

Charter and Sprint can both benefit from strand and pole mounted small cells. They can cost share on small cells that broadcast on 2.5GHz, CBRS and LAA spectrum.

12 hours ago, runagun said:

Exactly how my mind was thinking.  I love Overland Park. Every time I go there I look up and feel as if its the Truman Show.  It would be a great study how environment plays into the running of a company.  If for instance if the company would have been headquartered in Reston, Va.   Would the team been more opportunistic? I was in Overland Park two weeks ago.  And just a feeling came over me  like the Mark twain saying  "When the world Ends, I wanna be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else."

Sprint is still a telecom company and not a wireless company at heart. Which means lots of bureaucracy and stilted decision making. T-Mobile USA was always more entrepreneurial. Now if you look at employee headcount, T-Mobile has approximately 50,000 and Sprint 28,000. Hmmmmm....it seems Sprint outsources a lot of work.

38 minutes ago, bill875 said:

As someone who could benefit from a Sprint/Charter relationship, I can get behind this!  We need all of the small cells, strand mounts and backhaul we can get in NC/SC to fill in the very many gaps that exist on the Sprint network here.

I can benefit from Charter coming out with their wireless offering. None of our 4 lines goes over 1.5 GB a month so we will be good candidates for their $12/GB plan provided they follow Comcast in their pricing.

23 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Sorry... what would it be?

cmWave of course .

I am very confident that most of 5G/LTE expansion will be in the CBRS band, the 3.7-4.2 GHz band and the 5GHz band (LAA). Plenty of spectrum to be had there. If I am Sprint I cozy up to the cable cos on LAA with strand and pole mounted small cells that also accommodate band 41. Win-win situation.