bigsnake49

58 minutes ago, WiWavelength said:

Nobody wants the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier.  Nobody, not users, not operators.  On its own, the 1.4 MHz FDD carrier is too small bandwidth.  In carrier aggregation, it is a waste of a limited number of carriers.  No, 1.4 MHz FDD was a token, stopgap measure for 2010, not 2020.

Too often, people erroneously seem to think that the FCC OET does RF testing.  Nope.  The FCC OET is a clearinghouse.  OEMs and certified labs do the RF testing.  Unless VoLTE testing already is in the bank but not submitted, additional rounds of RF testing are required.  And if OEMs -- on their own or at the behest of providers -- do not decide that going back and getting authorizations for older devices is worth the time and money, then those devices will not do VoLTE.

AJ

I still don't understand why you would need to do RF testing for VOLTE unless it is for hearing aid compliance. There is nothing different about VOLTE unless you increase the power during transmission beyond limits. As long as you stay within the power envelope,  it will be like any other data stream.

Just now, cletus said:

Welp. Hope we all enjoy a defacto duopoly for the next 10-20 years.

Or T-mobile can keep on bleeding Sprint dry, siphoning off their customers. Failing an actual merger, I think that creating a company that will own and operate a merged network and leases spectrum from both companies will be the way to go.

4 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

http://bgr.com/2017/10/10/sprint-t-mobile-merger-regulators-donald-trump/

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Well Softbank could then say, remember those 50,000 jobs that we promised? You can kiss those goodbye! BTW, T-Mobile is not failing. 

I have a question for the hardware gurus in this group. Which RRHs and panels would need to be replaced because they don't have enough ports? How about antenna panels? Or will they just add the other company's RRHs and panels onto the rack.

7 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

I hope this Merger doesn't happen. Rather see Sprint do something with Dish or even USCC. It looks like USCC even holds Nationwide licenses.

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If Sprint was a financially healthy company and had its network ducks in a row, I would agree with you. But even then the Big 2 would always have a built in advantage. Their Capex would be spread over twice as many customers.

Not advocating shutting down 1x800 prematurely. But at some point VOLTE particularly on the 600, 700 and 800MHz will have to make up for it. LTE supports a 1.4MHz channel size so the spectrum won't go to waste. Now at some point or another I would like to see the whole 800Mhz bandplan get revisited.

Isn't the only reason that VOLTE get's tested by the FCC  the hearing aid compatibility? And once it passes, it is a simple software or settings upgrade?

10 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

REALLY?  I had no idea! </sarcasm>

There are millions of Sprint customers who do not have an LTE phone.  Also M2M customers.  Moving to VoLTE only will certainly mean many Sprint customers will have to upgrade devices.  Not to mention there will also be millions more where the new company will not push VoLTE software upgrades, like early generation LTE devices.  And we have seen in other situations that they may use this as a means to force people to upgrade to new devices and refuse to do any software upgrades on old devices.  We will have to see where they go with this.  Not forcing unnecessary device upgrades would be a requirement for my vote if I was an approving member of these bureaucratic decision makers.

Well forced device upgrades will be coming with maybe some free low end devices incentivizing the holdouts. M2M will also need to be incentivized to upgrade. 

But I think the biggest bone to be tossed to the regulators is to promise that they will match or exceed Verizon's square miles coverage over the next 3 years. A minor bone will that they are open to hosting 3rd party spectrum at reasonable commercial terms for 10 years (cough Dish, cough)

1 minute ago, cletus said:

I think that there will be a slight rise in pricing eventually. In the short term I expect AT&T to continue to be aggressive and possibly take more subs from T-Mobile/Sprint and Verizon. Of all the carriers I think the one with the most momentum is definitely AT&T. I think what is overlooked lately is that of the carriers only AT&T has a true vision going forward. They want to replace your TV connection with Direct TV Now as a $10 or $30 addon to your phone bill. They want to not only take down cable companies like TWC/Spectrum but also bring pressure on Verizon. 

So T-Mobile gets this and is trying to scratch around the surface of the problem with Netflix/Spotify deals for subs but I think going forward AT&T's competitive advantage with DirectTV now will be formidable. So T-Mobile/Sprint will probably seek to keep prices low(er) while trying to make gains from more cost effective capex that can be spread over twice as many subs.

T-Mobile right now is offering 480p Netflix which is not satisfactory. Maybe after they merge with Sprint. Maybe they can even offer Dish's Sling TV.

14 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

I don't expect post merger for the new company to expand GSM/WCDMA in any capacity.  GSM will allow to wither on the vine where currently deployed.  Newly converted Sprint sites will likely be converted to LTE only.  Sprint CDMA likely to be thinned out to one carrier 1xRTT and one carrier EVDO until a sunset period.

This will all be about LTE moving in the future.  The new carrier will focus on VoLTE only for voice and will allow voice to run on every LTE carrier, not limited to certain bands.  If you have an LTE signal, you would have voice capability.  And voice will be given highest QoS.

That's my belief on it.  No sense in investing in any technology that will be phasing out in the next few years.  The question will be to what extent GSM, CDMA and WCDMA will be thinned and susnetted.  The big move will be to get Sprint customers into new handsets that are VoLTE capable on the new network.

VOLTE is not a hardware feature. It's a software or firmware update. Heck it just might be a carrier settings update. Between voice over WiFi and VoLTE with graceful handover over, CDMA and WCDMA will be forgotten really soon. Heck if they can get Airave 3's to those that need them, they might not even need the handover.

4 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

Tmobile is slowly shutting HSPA+ down. They just announced some cities where they are going to move the last 5x5 pcs over to LTE. 

Has anybody noticed that the carriers quietly raised prices. Sprint raised the "5 for 90"plan by $10, T-Mobile raised their 2 line plan by $20, Sprint let the Virgin Mobile $1 offer expire, the iPhone offers are rather tepid is everybody waiting for the merger announcement, meanwhile milking the cellular cow?

3 hours ago, dro1984 said:

If they were to be able to merge... I see T-Mobile using much of their 1700 mHz, 1900 mHz and (Sprint's 1900) and 2100 mHz mid-band for LTE... but what will be used for voice, what will be used for LTE Data...etc... I think this would be a great time to rearrange and re-utilized what they will have for LTE and for VoLTE and well and regular voice.   Basically they will have a ton of Spectrum (think of it... they will have 600, 700, 800, 1700, 1900, 2100, and 2500 !  )  from very low "Beach front" to plenty of higher end (Sprint's 2500 mHz)...   They can do some serious  things!  It's exciting!!!   I don't see them wasting any time getting all the sprint customers on to thier versions of  GSM/LTE phones quickly and start re provisioning Sprint's  CDMA Network over and maybe getting rid of their GSM/ Edge etc...  ...   T-Mobile isn't known to drag it's feet...   but how do you see them redoing the network as a whole?

1700 and 2100MHz are the uplink and downlink respectively of the AWS band.

5 minutes ago, danlodish345 said:

Well my thing is you should put low band on every site. Because even with the higher and mid band spectrum You still need to add those extra layers and on every site in order to keep the other bands from getting overloaded. But I do understand your concept though.

With all the midband and 2.5GHz spectrum the combined company will have they should not never be overloaded. When they do then you might want to add lower bands.

46 minutes ago, danlodish345 said:

i m not surprised sprint is trying for a merger...but T-Mobile as well....they want sprints subscriber base and the extra PCS SMR and EBS and BRS Spectrum would give them a huge boost in spectrum...but then with all the extra subscribers they will need to densify even more..

I don't believe that they have to densify even more. Just select the best sites and put 1900, AWS and 2.5 on all of them. Selectively add small cells to cover the 2.5 GHz gaps. Then selectively add low frequency spectrum to where it's needed (definitely to suburban, exurban and rural locales). Use 600, 700 and 800Mhz as preferred frequencies for VOLTE, as coverage layer and backup when no other band covers. Use the low frequency bands as an overlay not necessarily on every site.

47 minutes ago, jefbal99 said:

My biggest reservation is what happens to my existing plan and what happens to rates over the next couple years.  Being in a place that has no HSI options, Sprint Unlimited Data has been great.  While Sprint's network and coverage hasn't been the best, its acceptable and been getting better.

Outside of the coming 600Mhz spectrum, T-Mobile doesn't do anything to make me giddy about a merger, I see the reverse happening of T-Mobile getting access to a much larger footprint than their urban networks.

I am pretty sure that your plan will survive for the next year or two while they merge the networks. After that all bets are off.

How do you figure that? T-Mobile might be getting a lot of 2.5Mhz spectrum and a decent chunk of 1900Mhz spectrum but Sprint's network leaves a lot to be desired. Then there is the problem with the IBEZ areas and band 26. Now if Sprint had densified their network,  added 800, 1900 and 2500MHz on every site, added around 8,000 new macro sites and filled in the gaps between macros with small cells then you'd have a point. T-Mobile is moving fast to implement 600Mhz outside of TV exclusion zones. Now full support by Samsung and Apple will come next year but they can have the network ready at least in rural areas.

2 hours ago, mnjeepmale said:

What do you think is the chance that Masayoshi Son will increase his stake in this company in a few years if the merger does go through?

 

He might but I am sure that the market is will be pretty mature so it will be relatively static. Yes they can cannibalize each other back and forth but the market will be relatively static. The only growth I can see is IoT but remember that they usually pay around $10/month/connection. You better have a lot of connections ("Things").

57 minutes ago, derrph said:

Prices are definitely going up. The biggest question is for Sprint customers.  Will they be allowed to keep their plans or will they be converted over to TMO One. Current T-Mobile customers won’t have anything to worry about on the plan side. 

I am sure that in order to minimize churn, Sprint customers will be allowed to keep some of their current plans for a period of time. I am also sure that new plans will be offered to both sides again to minimize churn. I am also sure that AT&T and Verizon will introduce deals on both phones and plans to entice T-Mobile/Sprint customers to switch. T-mobile's marketing department has done very well and can come up with a good strategy to prevent churn.

53 minutes ago, danlodish345 said:

So how does that help them then? I don’t see the merger being very good for the other company.

Oh it will be very good for the companies because their Capex will be spread out over twice the number of customers. It might lead to increased prices but T-Mobile was starting to raise theirs. The 2016 situation of free iPhones and low plan prices was not sustainable.

7 hours ago, danlodish345 said:

I assume that is a bad thing

It means that they will have less debt than Verizon and AT&T. The problem with the new company will be that it will have about 68 million postpaid customers compared with about 87M for AT&T and 107M for Verizon so that it will presumably have less revenue than the other two.

54 minutes ago, danlodish345 said:

The article stated that there wouldn’t be any break up fees.....which I am not surprised but if this merger does go through I hope soft bank eats a majority of sprints debt...if I was T-Mobile I wouldn’t even take the merger offer unless SoftBank agrees to paid off the majority of sprints debt...that best load would cripple T-Mobile...

No it won't. The combined company will be much less leveraged than AT&T and Verizon.

4 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Wouldn’t that be something if the Merger fails and Sprint walks away with the breakup fee? In fact, I hope that happens.

 

Put it into CapEx.

No break up fee.

9 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Yeah. In my area their would be no swap. Att already has 20x20 with a 5x5 still on 3G. VZW only has 20mhz of it at 10x10. So the combined TMO Sprint would have ( on a all LTE Network) 3 carriers. 20x20,10x10 and, 5x5.

You never know they could swap in your area because Sprint/T-mobile could do them a favor and swap them for contiguous spectrum in another area.

19 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

True I should have said almost. You are right there are areas they don't. That's why vzw bought B66 in places they lack. I don't know if it contiguous or not. In my area TMobile has enough contigous for it on both B4 and B2. 

If the merger goes through and they can horse trade with the others, the combined company can have a treasure trove of 1900Mhz spectrum.

18 hours ago, Terrell352 said:

5mhz in 2017 will not satisfy most people. If that was the case we would have dial up LTE nationwide. You tell me if people would be happy with 0.1-0.5 mbps LTE? Sprints problem now is that a lot of its network is only 5mhz. No capacity and capacity is everything in wireless. 

I am talking about IoT not anything else.

1 hour ago, danlodish345 said:

39 GHZ doesnt even penetrate... T-Mobile better be smart and take the 2.5GHz Band...otherwise they will have a serious set back...lets hope T-Mobile doesnt act a fool...

I think that the next step is LAA on the way to 5G. But remember it is shared spectrum but then it is 150Mhz wide. 

What I don't understand is the business case for 5G. What are the business needs. Don't tell me ioT because a single 5MHz slice will satisfy most uses. The only use for me is possibly cable/fiber replacement for video. Except for that, what is it good for?

15 hours ago, dro1984 said:

I agree with both of you.   Sprint "might" be able to do okay for the short term, but as T-Mobile launches is 600 mHz, and expands it nationwide reach, I just don't see Sprint growing.   This might be as good as it gets.... Softbank will not allow anymore investment.  They have set up private holding companies on phones, etc...the creativity will come to an end.  Next could only be mortgaging some of their high band spectrum...  or selling some of it.  I also don't believe everything that is promised by Marcello about all the cells etc...  Too many empty promises over the years.   Won't until proof is out there...    

  I rather have three really good choices than 2 monsters and a medium player and small distant carrier that is treading water.

Sprint can get access to Dish's 600Mhz if they are willing to host Dish's spectrum.