avb

 

3. T-Mobile has 20x20 in fewer places and low band fully deployed in less and still beats them for fastest network. 

 

PCMag's Fastest Mobile Network and RootMetrics both have Verizon as fastest.  Ookla has T-Mobile edging out Verizon but that's with T-Mobile doing everything they can to look good with Ookla tests:

Put in their own servers for T-Mobile users - sometimes changing to a faster server gives you better results

Whitelisting Speedtest app - people that have used up their data allotment still get full speeds when testing, while that's not true with other carriers.

Zero rating Speedtest app - someone that has limited data on another carrier's plan isn't going to run speedtests everywhere they can to see if they can get 100+Mbps results because that's a huge waste of data.  More than likely they'll only run it when data isn't loading to see if there's an issue.  No going around NY rooftops at midnight right and testing right beside a panel to see what a network is capable of.

Are people lining up to sign up for Tidal High Fidelity (which is $20/month)?  Are they even signing up for Tidal?  The big players are Spotify, Apple Music, and maybe Google Play music.  Their high quality streaming tops up at 320Kbps, so the 500Kbps is plenty of headroom.

Thank you.

 

That's awesome, so it's a brand new tower build?

There's already a tower there, but I believe Sprint is being added to it.  Another S4GRU member gave me the address for this location as a new macro about a month ago when I asked him about small cells in the area.  He just didn't know when it would happen.

Have the dozens of people that are on Tidal High Fidelity subscription while using the Sprint network made complaints yet regarding the 500Kbps throttled music speeds?

On another note it looks like a new Sprint macrotower is being worked on/added that covers my house.  Currently I'm in between 2 towers that are both over 2 miles away and speeds have slowed down over the last year (area has grown with new businesses and apartments) so a new tower less than half a mile away is a welcome addition.

I don't think that many people care about the music streaming limits or game limits otherwise you would see an uproar and backlash.  I've only seen one person bring those 2 points up across the websites I visit.  The music streaming limits are fine for high quality streaming from everyone but Tidal's high fidelity service (which is pricier at $19.95/month).  Tidal's paying user base is much smaller than Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play Music, and the people paying for high fidelity even smaller.

Verizon is hyping up the LTE advanced stuff, and tech blogs are cheerleaders. The funny stuff most of their announcement is 2x carrier aggregation something Sprint did a year ago.

AT&T and T-Mobile also already have carrier aggregation.

Hope sprint starts winning rootmetrics speed awards end 2016.

Won't happen as long as Rootmetrics weighs uploads as high as they do.

Rootametrics 2nd half 2016 should be interesting to see. I think we will have some good gains. 

 

I was at a bbq next to my house around Luna Park couple days ago. I was pulling in around 80mbs down, my tmobile cousin was pretty much shocked.

The problem with RootMetric's NY report is it covers more than just NYC.  It's NY and the tri state area.

With Apple your 'stuck' with Apple Maps as the default. On Android you can choose Google Maps, Waze, or even Here maps (was owned by Nokia) as default. Here maps is supposed to have the best offline maps.

Has anyone been to Reliant stadium recently for Texans games?  Reliant has been a black hole for all carriers, but this year the das should be completed as the Super Bowl is in Houston this year.  That should be a big boost for all carriers.

Just switched to it yesterday. Didn't see any downgrade but I added the premium streaming on my line just in case. My question is will this be constant downgrade or only during times of congestion or once you reach a certain GB limit

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

The throttled video doesn't start until November. At that time supposedly you can pay extra to keep HD streaming.

2. Testing more heavily slants toward road testing which is always going to favor carriers with larger and more deployed low band networks.

 

This is the big one.  You would think with T-Mobile boasting about covering 311 million(?) people that road testing should be an advantage vs Sprint.  

http://rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/mobile-network-performance-in-the-us-a-special-report

 

Root Metrics report is out. Sprint and Magenta trail.

Cue T-Mobile reddit discrediting Rootmetrics.  T-Mobile fans are also blaming the 4th place finish and reliability on VoLTE and saying how it's unfair, yet last half year report they were claiming bias because VoLTE wasn't turned on for T-Mobile.

I don't believe wifi to macro is possible without VoLTE (but there are rumors of a sprint VoLTE launch in mid september). Kind of funny how wifi to LTE handoff is possible and LTE to CDMA handoff is possible (with SIB13 on the network) but wifi to CDMA handoff is not possible (at least as far as I know).

I thought VoLTE handoff to cdma is problematic and that's why Verizon never introduced it, and the same reason why Sprint is waiting to densify before I'm poo implementing VoLTE.

It is $20 per line

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Is this officially announced somewhere?  

He just dropped the 1 for $60 and 2/$100 Unlimited Freedom plan on Twitter that launches tomorrow. He also dropped some new Boost Mobile plans as well.

 

Where's my popcorn and soda...today has been lit so far with John and Marcelo.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6s+ using Tapatalk

Boost would be very attractive if they had better byod options.  Unlocked iPhones, Nexus devices, Motorolas, etc, and even the new Axon 7 should all be compatible with Boost.  Right now it's only unlocked iPhones that can be used.

Does anyone know when we can expect to start seeing small cells being deployed across Houston?

 

Send a pm to lilotimz - I asked about some areas and he was able to tell me if there was a small cell planned.

Clear towers give me uploads of about 300Kbs at -110dBm signal, while at the same signal strength Sprint b41 will give me 2-3.5Mbs uploads.

Skip In-n-out. It's just another run of the mill fast food joint. I tried them in Vegas, Phoenix, LA, and Austin and I leave disappointed everytime due to how so many west coasters hype it up. You go in expecting something great but get a regular burger and subpar fries. It's no better than any other west coast eateries such as Jack In The Box or Del Taco.

 

Try local restaurants instead. Don't waste your time at In-N-Out. You don't go vacationing only to eat fast food you could have back at home.

It's a step above McDonald's and Jack in the Box, but they're definitely overrated.  It's about equal to Whataburger here in Texas except no one here goes around and says it's the best thing ever.

Also a slight note to have.

Verizon and ATT have mostly focused in receive diversity on their sites to improve LTE reception reliability.

This usually entails from adding Rx modules to their Ericsson radios like RRUSA2s or having Alcatel lucent radios have 4 rx antenna ports. The weakest link in the network is always the fact that UEs transmit at far weaker Power compared to the eNB. So having more Rx antennas eNB side helps out in maintaining that connection to the UE.

All you have to do is look at the up link speeds between the sprint 8t8r antennas and clearwire 2t2r to see how more Rx antennas help out.

In comparison, other than mostly Ericsson regions, Sprints PCS and SMR setups are just the basic 2x2.

Sent from my Nexus 5X

That makes a lot of sense. Are there any current plans to do similar upgrades that AT&T and Verizon to improve b25 and b26 reception? Or is all the focus currently on identifying with b41?

So, first off, I upgraded to the LG G5 in May which supported LTE roaming.  Finally got a chance to sit in US Cellular territory recently and here's what was seen at my in-laws' house:

 

I had been wondering how the phone would know when to LTE roam and when not to, given the presence of 3G-only areas of the Sprint network.  It appears that whenever I am LTE roaming, SRLTE is enabled, which thus shows 1X and LTE at the same time.  However, the moment the 1X side of things jumps to Sprint, I immediately lose LTE roaming.  My guess is that this is the deciding factor on whether or not a device is allowed to LTE roam--the availability of SRLTE.

 

Of course, this behavior made my in-laws' house very tricky, because every so often the phone would jump to a very, very weak (-105 dBm) 1X 800 from 10-15 miles away.  Every time it did, I would lose LTE roaming, and all other service, until it gave up and went back to US Cellular.  My parents' house, when I visit, should not have this problem, since there is no Sprint service for miles and miles.

 

That being said, it worked very well when connected to US Cellular.  Of course, EV-DO roaming STILL doesn't work, despite the fact that LTE roaming works on this device.  It's very strange.

 

- Trip.

It's good to see LTE roaming working, but at the same time it does sound like it's a battery killer.  Still better than nothing.

Naw, calling that "wasted" spectrum is too extreme for several reasons.

 

Clearwire had plenty of BRS/EBS spectrum to burn.  Its RRUs were bandwidth limited -- each RRU could not have run 160 MHz worth of 10 MHz TDD WiMAX carriers, for example.  And by deploying a frequency reuse pattern instead of a single frequency network, Clearwire greatly minimized co-channel interference at sector/cell edge.

 

Had WiMAX survived the LTE onslaught, however, the network would have evolved closer and closer to a single frequency network as infrastructure was replaced or augmented and more carriers were added.

 

AJ

Was WiMax ever standardized for wider channels than 10 MHz?  I remember back in the day speeds were 3-10Mbs down and 1.5Mbs up (why were uploads capped?).  Speeds were usable especially since 3g speeds became almost unusable during the HTC Evo days.  The hotspot like performance I figured was due to the poor coverage.  Back then I remember Clear wasting money trying to build their own retail presence instead of pouring more money into the network.

Didn't the Dual Mode equipment from Clearwire enable Sprint to quickly implement 2xCA via a software update?

2xCA wasn't updated quickly in New York - it didn't happen until this past spring.  Granted, that was because the Clear network had to be shutdown first.  But that's also partly because Wimax wasted so much spectrum with the number of channels it used.  I'm not sure if that's a deployment issue or technical issue.

Clear's network was insufficient because they ran out of money during buildout, in fact that's how Robert got his start before this website came into existence (tracking WiMAX rollout).

If Saw didn't have the capital or the tools to do his job then he can't do the job.

 

 

Its crazy to think just how much $$$ it takes to build cellular networks in the US (and how picky US cell customers are). If US Cellular's investment was in Mexico or the UK they would probably have ubiquitous LTE.

It kinda was in NYC. Clearwire's NYC network was super dense and deployed very rapidly because they used a ton of microwave backhaul. I recall when I first joined this site my EVO 4G was capable of 16 Mbps on WiMax. The limiting factor for it was that they were using WiMax. Despite the super dense deployment, my phone often disconnected from 4G because in many ways WiMax behaved like the public WiFi networks here in that if you were stationary or driving slowly, it would hand off seamlessly but if you were driving fast the phone would struggle to switch from site to site.

 

I think the problem was that WiMax got usurped by LTE relatively early on and ran out of money so Clear stopped deployment abruptly and left many people stranded and wondering when they'd get 4G.

Those are reasons, or you can also say excuses, why Clearwire's network was never something to brag about.  Houston was also one of the more developed markets for Wimax but it acted more like hot spots than it did a mobile network.  Handoffs weren't great.

Dr. John Saw, Sprint's CTO, has plenty of experience with 2.5 GHz and other high frequencies given his work at Clearwire and on Project Angel, etc.

 

See this Bloomberg Article which talks about his background:

 

You mention his work at Clearwire like that's a good thing.  Clearwire's network was never something to brag about.