bigsnake49

Some of my preliminary observations mainly from using the 5x indoors: 1. The switching part needs a lot of work. Sometimes it just camps on Sprint 1x for hours. 2. Neither Sprint nor T-Mobile have consistent LTE signal despite both of them having 800 and 700 LTE around here. Sprint dropped to EVDO and 1x way too often. B41 would appear very rarely and then disappear quickly. Band 25 was seen once in a while. LTE b26 was seen more often than b25 3. AT&T blows both of them out of the water in spite of mainly camping on LTE 1900. Rarely if ever dropped to WCDMA. Now granted this was a challenging indoor environment but then it was the same for everybody. One minor gripe. The SIM tray on the 5x makes it very challenging to switch SIMs. One other minor gripe. I have a carload of regular USB 2.0 bricks. Google could have included a USB-USB C adaptor. It would be great for the environment.

How do you force a new PRL on the 5x?

It depends on whose public interest we're talking about. Only 19.3% of American households get their TV OTA. If these TV stations cannot make money without subsidy, they should relinquish their spectrum. Maybe keep CSPAN and couple of other public interest channels and that's about it.

That spectrum is shared. It's yours and mine and our neighbors and your work place's and Comcast's and, and, and...It's not given to one company to mooch off of. Big difference!

The spectrum was provided free because they wanted the nascent industry to take off. It has taken off, it's time to end the free ride. there are unlicensed areas of the spectrum (WiFi, ISM bands, etc.).

Nope, no OTA inside my high-rise condo.

Yeah, tough! I have to play for my water, my electricity, my cellphone and yes even cable.

It's been like 40-50 years of free access to spectrum. Sprint and everybody who participated in spectrum auctions had to lay real money for those licenses. The wireless business is also subject to a lot of regulation plus USF fees plus coverage targets, plus...

If that's true, then both them and the 850MHz wireless carriers need to start paying.

How much are broadcasters paying for their spectrum?

Ha, ha, I guess I should eventually update my devices. No, this is on a Nexus 5x.

I just signed up for Project Fi. I will use mostly to gauge how good the T-Mobile and Sprint networks are in my area and the places I visit. In the beginning I will just set it to either the T-Mobile or Sprint network and compare. I also have a spare AT&T sim and use that to compare as well. It should be interesting.

Most of the so called analysts have no idea what they're talking about.

I have actually been disappointed at the lack of investment from SoftBank after the initial purchase. Network Vision has been funded solely through debt. Even DT "forgave" about $5B of the MetroPCS/T-Mobile debt. Between that and the $6B they got from the failed AT&T bid, T-Mobile is in much better shape financially. Although their debt is nothing to sneeze at.

While LA RICS will not be part of the RFP, here was a small scale test of the system: http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/la-rics-declares-success-testing-public-safety-network/2016-01-18 It seems that both Motorola Solutions and Harris will be bidding.

Here's a great summary of the RFP: http://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2016/firstnet-rfp-hits-the-streets-with-a-low-end-6-75-billion-price-tag/

I do believe that a carrier or a tower company in conjunction with a network vendor will build Firstnet. I do think that it will be a shared network at least in the beginning. I also think that if a carrier wins it, it will include an attractive offer to Firstnet to share the carrier's bandwidth in cases of overflow.

On the other hand, no tall structures to put panels on and NIMBY's out the wazoo.

While states may elect to go it alone, the terms are pretty onerous. So nationwide it is. The RFP is out today.

The terminal equipment cost will not be insignificant and there is nothing that can be done to bring the cost down. Combining band13 and 14 into a superband might bring the cost of network equipment down.

Sprint could use sites build purposely for public safety to host their equipment as well, in places they currently don't have service but have spectrum. Sprint might want to low bid in those places.

While Verizon might have the most well developed national network and probably can claim the most resilient network (generators instead of batteries for the majority of their sites), they might not be the winner. As always it really depends on the bid. If Sprint wants it badly enough, they can win it.

Does anybody know if Sprint is interested in bidding for the Firstnet RFP? It seems that AT&T is gungho about it. For those that are not aware, Firstnet is the no-profit tasked with building a national public LTE network in a 10x10 public 700MHz band. Public safety has first priority on the capacity but commercial entities, including utilities and the winning carrier's own customers may use it on a secondary-priority basis.

The current situation is because one of the sick patients decided they will forego profits for market share and the the other followed for competitive reasons. Both of them have ungodly amounts of debt that have to be serviced.

Actually the consumer pays for faster shipping. If I buy something from Apple and I want it shipped overnight, I pay extra for the privilege. If I want to ship something to my sister and I want it shipped overnight, then I pay for the privilege.