bigsnake49

Nah, I don't think so, they would not be that stupid, would they? Granted they have more sites, so Sprint equipment has to be added to the additional sites, but other than that...

Maybe not in Chicago or Cali or NYC, but if Sprint make a concerted effort to get its customers to upgrade to triband handsets, that day will come real soon!

Which is right where it should be: one 1x channel, two EVDO channels

I agree with you. It will a great combo...

Let's say that either Sprint gets cold feet or the merger does not get approved. A combination of either Sprint+Dish or Dish+T-Mobile could be awesome! After the AWS-3 auction Dish could end up with a 25x5 chunk of spectrum at the edge of PCS and a 20x15 chunk at the edge of AWS. Plus 6MHz of 700MHz Block E. Not bad at all! Sprint could keep the 700MHZ and the nearPCS spectrum and add it to PCS G for a healthy 30x10 sliver. They could sell the near AWS spectrum to any of the other three. Now if Dish merges with T-Mobile, the resulting company could end up with all that additional spectrum+T-Mobile's healthy spectrum holdings right now. While Dish's growth has stalled, they still bring in a healthy profit each quarter. Dish will be able to do a few things to enhance their offering by doing OTT video or VOD and if they merge with Sprint, fixed broadband as well.

Would Dish be interested in the T-Mobile network after the merger? If Sprint and T-Mobile merge, I am assuming that Sprint will eventually move T-Mobile panels/rru's onto sprint's racks and have to put in the right cards in the basestations. That would mean additional weight on the racks. Will the rack be able to support the additional weight of Dish panels/rru's and will the racks need additional bracing/strenghtening? Will it make more sense for Sprint to tell Dish, here's T-Mobile's network minus the current panels/rrus, you pay the site rent, you buy your own panels/rrus and install them, you operate the network, here's a few thousand of T-Mobile's network engineers/technicians, while you're at it? Sprint might be interested in the Dish spectrum that's adjacent to their own Block G, but I don't think they're interested in the rest of spectrum that Dish has or will acquire. I really don't know what is Dish's end game.

America Movil just declared that they have no interest in owning any North American carrier: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/am-rica-m-vil-quells-speculation-it-might-purchase-t-mobile/2014-07-22 and Dish cannot afford T-Mobile on their own.

Emotion has no place in business. Sprint can only look at the bottom line. If the bottom line makes sense then they should do it. When egos get involved, bad decisions are made. Dish made a play for Clearwire not to drive the price for Sprint but because they wanted Clearwire's spectrum on the cheap. That the way DishErgen operates. If hosting Dish's spectrum makes the approval of the merger easier, then Sprint should do it. If swapping some spectrum with Dish makes financial and strategic sense, then they should do it.

Now, Dish and America Movil might not be able to afford T-Mobile on their own, but combined? That will be very interesting!

I have a synology 2gb DS211+ off the same router over gigabit ethernet inside the cabinet. I could have gone with the external usb drive route but I had the nas from the office. The 500GB SSD is probably overkill but we got a great deal on it at the office.

I concur on the mac mini, except mine is 2009 with a 500GB Samsung 840 Pro.

Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) have signaled their opposition to proposals from T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) to effectively split the upcoming auction of AWS-3 spectrum between paired and unpaired airwaves. ......................................................... T-Mobile wants the FCC to treat the unpaired 1695-1710 MHz spectrum differently from the paired 1755-1780 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz bands. In an FCC filing, the carrier argued that not only will licensees in these bands "have different technical requirements, but they will also have different obligations with respect to coordination with federal users. The different requirements and configuration of these bands mean that they are not substitutes for each other." http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/verizon-att-oppose-dish-t-mobiles-plans-split-aws-3-auction/2014-07-18 Why would T-Mobile be interested in the unpaired spectrum? I don't know that it can be turned into downlink easily. Can it? If it stays as an uplink then the only ones that could be interested would be Dish which would then pair it with their 2180-2200MHz spectrum. The reserve price for the unpaired band is only $579,775,900. If it's only Dish bidding, then Dish would have gotten some decent spectrum for about $6B. Am I totally understanding this wrong? A.J., Milan, Neil, or anybody else care to enlighten me?

He is Slim in the same way a 400lb man is called "Tiny".

Well, neither Dish nor America Movil are going to make a play for T-Mobile. Why? Because the stock is overvalued right now because of speculation of being acquired by Sprint. Both Carlos Slim and Dish/Ergen like to acquire assets on the cheap and T-Mobile is not cheap.

Yeah bu they are boomer sites! Fry your behind if you're too close. Downtilt...what downtilt? I hope their broadband network is not built the same way.

This not their regular LTE deployment on 700MHz. This the equivalent of Sprint's Network Vision where they rip out any legacy sites, panels etc and replace them with an integrated modern basestation with RRH, MIMO, etc. They have to accommodate multiple low frequency bands and also support all 4 bands.

I think they will announce something about it at the Q2 2014 Earnings Report on July 30

Will that happen to Sprint and T-Mobile if they are to merge? Will the weight of all the radio heads start having an impact? Will they be able to slim them down? Well AT&T's loss will be Sprint's gain. They will have crews available to finish their buildout quicker!

Dish and Sprint are trialing the same service as the one offered by Dish and nTelos.

10 freaking years and they still have not gotten it done. Un-freaking-believable. I will put most of the blame on the FCC which refused to sanction PS when they delayed time after time.

maybe the best thing is for them to form a JV for bidding on spectrum, then open each other's network for roaming and then a JV for network sharing, then they might as well merge.

From Mr Saw's blog: ...This summer we’re excited to begin the installation of 8T8R radios within our 2.5GHz footprint allowing our cell sites to send multiple data streams and achieve better signal strength. Our deployment of 4x2 MIMO at 2.5GHz is also expected to increase data throughput and coverage without requiring additional bandwidth. Even more exciting though is the potential for higher levels of MIMO such as 8x8 which is only possible with the use of 8T8R equipment. While we don’t have plans today for 8x8 MIMO, this is a significant competitive advantage that we could potentially utilize at some point in the future. Lastly, by the end of the year we expect to begin 2X20 (40MHz) carrier aggregation in the 2.5GHz spectrum band, giving us added capacity and faster data speeds. http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/optimizing-americas-newest-network.htm

That's a great idea! No matter what, a joint venture makes a lot of sense. While they are at it make it a jv to build and operate a common network.

I think Sprint would love to finance that move...

All rebanding along the border regions even if it is an American system has to be coordinated with Mexican or Canadian authorities and licensees, so that a system that is getting rebanded new location is not one that's already occupied by a Canadian or Mexican licensee. At the border regions, even when fully rebanded, there has to be spectrum sharing to minimize interference. There are other ways to minimize interference such as coordinating downtilt and coverage patterns that require extensive coordination. The best solution is to have a border operating company which then sells capacity in the border region to carriers on both sides of the border.