milan03

In my opinion divesting PCS would be the worst possible move as in many markets two operators are contiguous in this spectrum band and could deploy 10MHz FDD LTE or more at some point. 

Not sure which technology their merged company will pick, but they could also leverage HSPA+42 in the PCS since many existing Sprint UE could attach right away. 

Woodside?  I guess Deval is moving cross country and taking up residence next to Son.

 

 

AJ

Pretty sure he's talking about Woodside, Queens 

Milan, the New York City metro is not representative of "America."  If anything, it is an anomaly.  So, your example is of limited relevance.

 

Get out of the city more often.  Travel the country, both urban and rural.  In most places, the wired broadband speeds you cite in are not available.  In many cases, the best options available are not evenly remotely comparable.

 

AJ

No doubt, but at the same token I doubt that Masa has been experiencing "terrible" Comcast speeds in his Silicon Valley home like he wants us to believe... 

As mentioned earlier TWC in NYC is boosting their speeds as FiOS is making their move in areas like Astoria. 

Standard 10/1 50/5
Turbo 20/2 100/10
Extreme 30/5 200/20
Ultimate 50/5 300/20

I've made a move to FiOS because of their higher uploads, lower latency, and much, much better picture quality comparing to cable providers. They're also known to put some major "fluff" on their advertised upload speeds, so my 50/25 connection is really 50/39. That's as close to symmetrical as it gets here, at least in consumer marketplace. 

75/35 is really 85/39. 150/65 is more like 160/80Mbps, etc... They also offer 300Mbps and 500Mbps tiers, which aren't very affordable, but readily available for those that may need them.

So what Masa is really doing here is using car salesman or infomercial approach to create, blow up the problem, make fun of americans, then introduce himself as an external solution to all of our problems... of course if the government allows him to buy a direct competitor, even though he owns a massive amount of spectrum and cash already with Sprint. 

In the process, he also tries to divert this whole acquisition by blaming wireline industry, etc...

This all is very laughable to me, but it'll most likely work.

Of course they were losing subs because they were about to be swallowed up by att, now they are getting some of them back just because the merger failed. Looks like some of that turn around isn't even his doing.

 

Jim, Sent from my Photon 4G using Tapatalk 2

If you selectively chose not to acknowledge the entire Uncarrier strategy, and rapid network deployment over the past 18 months, then I guess you have a point...

I agree. While I am much more involved with sprint and highly biased towards them because of this forum, I would still not call Hesse or masa my #sprintgod lol. It really is pathetic. I guess if they feel part of something, then more power to them. And that is probably it, that they feel that their decisions are what drives the company. When in reality, whatever makes money drives the company lol.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 5s using Tapatalk

Someone calls Legere #magentagod?! Just wondering, 'cause I've never see it, and it's ridiculous. 

I do see lots of carrier agnostic people loving what he is doing with the company that used to lose millions of subscribers just two years ago. 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/analysts-comcast-could-make-bid-t-mobile-bolster-wireless-strategy/2014-05-23

 

 

 

lel

All I can think of is Comcast/TWC fiber backhaul going into 2015 and massive Small Cell deployment.

Could be also just wishful thinking and end up being the worst deal ever...

I'm pretty sure his point was that T-Mobile has been using the whole, were the fastest blah blah blah as their selling point. That's not true now with this news from Verizon, and they can't compete coverage wise...not even close lol.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Absolutely true, but you know they'll ride it until they can't anymore. It was gonna end at some point, just like AT&T's claim did, and Verizon's before that.

The way I see it, this hit T-Mobile harder than any other carrier. T-Mobile had been hyping this up late last year into this year and Verizon completely blew them out of the water. I'm surprised we haven't seen a response from T-Mobile yet about this. All I can think of is Neville Ray and John Legere sitting at a meeting table doing the *Heavy Breathing* face.

T-Mobile hasn't had LTE capacity issues like Verizon, yet. They also have less than half of Verizon's subs base, so in all honesty I don't think they're sweating over capacity. 

Also, I'm pretty sure T-Mobile has been fully aware of Verizon's AWS deployment plans all along.

But that also diminishes the degree of this accomplishment, which I feel you have overstated, Milan.

 

AJ

Definitely wasn't my intention, AJ.

I don't feel I'm overstating Verizon's achievements though. It's been less than a year since Verizon announced deployment of AWS capacity layer, and 8-months or so since someone actually connected to that layer and reported on public forums.

Either way, reaching 250 markets with their capacity layer in a a given timeframe is a remarkable achievement in my humble opinion.

A few sites does not a market make. Otherwise, Sprint has destroyed the rest of the domestic industry with the time to market of its LTE rollout.

 

So, let us be honest. VZW has not overlaid AWS on every site in all of the markets it claims. Many sites do not currently need the added capacity and may not get overlaid for several years.

 

AJ

That's what I'm suggesting. First few commercially accessible AWS sites started popping up last fall. Since then they're reaching 250 markets with AWS layer 500+ markets with 700c.

It's a capacity layer just like Sprint's B41.

You're talking about sites going live. I'm talking about sites having equipment deployed. I will append my statement to them be around a year.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

Well with them announcing AWS deployment last summer it still means they've reached 250 markets goal in less than a year, right?

In all honesty, that's a pretty remarkable achievement by any standard. At least in my book.

They were permitting and deploying during the summer here. I've confirmed it with a local Verizon contractor who was working for them at my local site months ago. May be different for other regions but they began working on the west coast in the summer.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

That still makes it less than a year. First live sites were reported in the fall by HoFo users. in NYC it was October as well.

They've been overlaying markets for well over a year so is taking 1 year to add a AWS RRHs to their sites really the fastest LTE deployment ever?

Actually it's been much less than a year. They've announced planned deployment last summer, and the first reported live site happened around the September-October timeframe.

T-Mobile is another breakneck example going from no LTE to 200 million pops in less than a year.

Since October 2013 they've overlaid 250 large and small markets, which makes it the fastest LTE deployment ever. http://s7.vzw.com/is/content/VerizonWireless/eCatalogs/Verizon-XLTE-markets.pdf

I bet it doesn't take long to go over your data cap...

Chicago O'Hare airport with thousands of people around, Unlimited Data plan.

Well said. I wonder what speeds XLTE brings anyways. No one knows yet. Just wait till Sprint brings/dominates with 1Gbps 

Chicago is Verizon's 20MHz FDD market, speeds approaching 140Mbps.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, 8T8R on the 2.4-2.5GHz band largely makes up for the loss of propagation characteristics compared to 1900 (which at the G block is closer to 2.0 GHz anyway); unless you're in a market with cellular site spacing - hello Baton Rouge! - the 2.4-2.5 band can relieve most of the close-in and outdoor usage (out to something on the order of 80%+ of the area), leaving 1900 and ESMR for adequate service indoors at midrange and outdoors at distance. No, you're not going to get streaming 1080p60 video 5+ miles from the tower, but that's not what mobile broadband is for. Unless you're measuring e-peen on SpeedTest.net, or trying to use your phone to drive the Jerrytron, you shouldn't know or care.

 

Of course, the challenge now is to get 1900 and ESMR finished so the 2.4-2.5 deployment can begin in earnest, along with stop-gap measures like shifting some of the A-F block EvDO carriers to LTE.

Again, since I know that S4GRU members are much more technically savvy than most cellular users, I believe that it's very important to have the right expectations set in terms of what that TDD LTE coverage may look like. 8T8R radios won't magically extend 2.5GHz reach as that's physically impossible, but it should help those within the coverage area to get more usable TDD LTE experience. It'll mostly improve in building propagation when in close proximity to the cell site and usability in edge of cell situations only when on B41. That edge of cell on B41 should be well within the B25/B26 coverage area btw so you're most likely going to fall back to B25/26 anyway.

That brings me back to my previous post... If you're not getting proper PCS G LTE coverage in Sprint's fully deployed and launched LTE markets, it would be unrealistic to expect that B41 deployment will bring any coverage improvements, which brings us back to the subject of this topic, and that is potential pCell deployment and densification of Sprint's LTE network. Without substantial densification and proper backhaul all that massive 2.5GHz spectrum doesn't mean much, and it's very easy to have a very inefficient high band LTE network.

There are not that many dense metro areas in the US. Besides NYC, San Fran and the downtowns of the major cities, most of the US lives in suburban settings.

Indeed, and that's why it's important to keep realistic expectations for Sprint's TDD deployment in terms of coverage. 2.6GHz can be a great capacity layer, but as far as conventional macro deployment goes, it's extremely uneconomic considering propagation and reach. It's not an easy task to seamlessly blanket suburban/rural with 2.6GHz.

But if they do proper planning and leverage pCell with LoS mesh, all of a sudden the game can easily change. Assuming that pCell actually works as advertised...

People like to cite the 37 Mbps max figure, then use it in their calculations.  But that is attainable only if all mobiles in the sector have ideal signal.  It never happens in the real world.  That is why I am using 15 Mbps as a more realistic figure for longterm average capacity.

 

AJ

Yeah, 5MHz LTE sector can provide downlink speeds of ~37Mbps as long the backhaul is in place, and cell site equipment isn't malfunctioning.

But what's lowering that peak spectral efficiency is channel quality, SINR of the user device, which directly affects MIMO utilization, and therefore the throughput. Channel quality is directly affected by chatty devices, especially the ones in indoor environment accessing the outdoor macro sites. That's why it's extremely important especially for LTE operators with high band spectrum to deploy indoor solutions at least in enterprise environment.

Otherwise, in busy metro areas, when large amount of users connect to that single high band 2.6GHz, PCS G-Block or AWS cell, it will shrink and perform poorly. Sprint needs to start leveraging DAS, Small Cell or pCell technology like yesterday...

Is that legal to deal behind close doors and split the 30Mhz slice?

It's as legal as delaying this whole merger for the purpose of banking during the auction lol.

Do corporations lie all the time for the purpose of achieving their goals at all cost? Absolutely.

That will depend, in part, upon the finalized rules for the 600 MHz auction and the amount of spectrum that is made available.  If Sprint and T-Mobile bid against one another as separate entities, they will end up paying more aggregate than they would as a single Sprint-T-Mobile.  Think of it as two fiancés bidding against each other at an auction.  That additional cost must be factored into the equation.

 

AJ

Indeed, but they could also totally keep that bidding war under control, behind the closed doors 

They'd be bidding against much smaller entities for that 30Mhz slice, of course if that 30MHz allocation is to actually happen. 

If they're smart to wait with the announcement until after TV Incentive Auction, that SprinT-Mobile could end up doubling the amount of low band spectrum in 2015. That would be a real win. 

Otherwise, rushing to announce the merger could be a very costly move. 

According to Conan Kudo they do the same thing that sprint is going to put into place. They just didn't single out the top 5% of users.

They are traffic shaping large udp and ftp downloads initiated on mobile devices in some areas/sites, but only for the duration of that specific data query, and not for an extended period of time. So if you're torrenting from your smartphone, you won't have the most exciting user experience. 

That also isn't limited only to unlimited data plans. 

Unlimited is still in force. Even for the 5%. 95% are completely unaffected. But the 5% of highest users will still have unlimited data consumption that will only be slowed down when they are using an overburdened site. It's fair, reasonable and even Tmo is already doing it. And the ones who can't deal with it should go to another provider and experience the same thing or worse.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

T-Mobile isn't throttling their $80 Unlimited Plans, but I see your point.

Throttling Unlimited data plans did help AT&T, to a certain extent.