milan03

Clearwire is basically in limbo just like T-Mobile was during the AT&T merger months. They are waiting for the regulatory approval, and not sure if they should be deploying, on what scale, or just simply wait.

Sadly, looking at their track record they'll most likely chill and wait for the approval.

Except for areas where they have no coverage or 2g only...

Lol that's so true. Only metros and burbs are getting LTE though which is where the most pops are.

In CT T-Mobile has been getting permits for the last 6 months to change out equipment for new multi mode antennas for LTE

Yeah whatever they're doing, they're doing it right. They appear to be pretty serious about their deployment.

I don't believe it's just a simple software upgrade. I was under the impression that the equipment T-mobile uses is compatible with LTE but doesn't mean you don't need to visit it and do some physical work.

 

Either way, T-mobile still needs to refarm 3g to PCS and kick off people from their 1700/2100 before doing LTE. Funny thing... in my area (sacramento), they've begun refarming PCS to 3g and it's on average faster than ATT HSPA+ by quite a bit but still plenty of holes where edge is still the norm for unlocked phones.

Yeah in NYC the experience is just about the same. T-Mobile's 1900 HSPA+21 is less loaded, it's running circles around AT&T's HSPA 14.4. But the coverage isn't 100%.

Also, as they're refarming their PCS, they're upgrading cell sites, which are now Rel 10 with RRU. They're not moving users away from DC-HSPA+ on AWS, they're simply deploying to the remaining AWS blocks (for now) until the MetroPCS merger goes through and they start refarming MPCS AWS spectrum. So initially, T-Mobile LTE will be 2x10Mhz with some markets only 2x5Mhz. After the merger in 2014-15 timeframe it's mostly gonna be 2x20Mhz.

Clearwire has already started LTE Deployment in some markets. They are almost on the same LTE Deployment Timeline like T-Mobile except T-Mobile is supposedly doing a more widespread deployment.

Not sure what exactly do you mean by this, but T-Mobile is suppose to cover 100+ mil pops by mid year and 200Mil by the end of 2013.

Did you mean Timeline for the first market to launch? If not how could they possibly share the same timeline?

Rumors are that T-Mobile might be soft launching Vegas during CES.

Ok, I think I may have chicken nightmares tonight lol.

Fair Oaks. Haven't thought about that place for a long time. There used to be a restaurant there called the Slocum House. If you ate outside on the patio, there were feral chickens and roosters that used to wander around the tables. I've had many business lunches in that place. I hear it closed down a few years ago.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Haha no I haven't heard of that one, but we went to Sunflower Drive-in and the scenery was the same... It was a vegetarian joint, famous for their nut burger. Chicken roaming around... That whole Sac area is such a beautiful place to live. My gf's folks are from there.

Well... as I live in Sacramento and have many friends who use ATT and Vz, I can assure you they're using either Comcast or ATT and Sprint / T-mobile is likely to as well since they have a practical duopoly (they've brought out every other ISP in the last 10 years).

 

My friends VZ LTE smartphones have speeds in the 4-10 mbps range during for the majority of day time. During peak hours, it can come down to 2-4 mbps or lower in the downtown area by the state capital. Surrounding areas like the suburbs are not as highly affected but they're still barely within the 5-12 mbps average. Anywhere near a high school or middle school is (uh oh) during lunch time as you can easily get hundreds of people using their LTE devices.

 

But yea. Verizon LTE used to top out in the 25-30ish mbps range before people started jumping on it.

Lol I knew it! It was totally obvious coming from NYC where all resource blocks and backhaul were in place. I was also testing in Fair Oaks and Carmichael and there was 30mbps all day not a bit over.

Fastest VZW speed I've ever seen in New Mexico is 29Mbps. I don't think our backhaul here is as fast as in other markets.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

This is very true. Back in summer '11 in Sacramento I couldn't pull more than 30mbps anywhere which actually matched local Comcast cable offerings lol. Always wondered if they're leasing their backhaul from local CableCo's over there. In large and dense markets like NYC their sites are mostly fed with massive fiber backhaul though.

Oh I know that 6-8 Mbps is definitely within the Verizon advertised speed range for LTE. However I am talking about the consumer perceived LTE speeds which the criteria is way higher. The perception I read on forums and tech blogs is that Verizon LTE speedtests can do 40-50 Mbps on a consistent basis which I know only occurs on a non-loaded sector and yet when Sprint LTE speedtests show 20-25 Mbps, it is rated as "slow" compared to Verizon LTE. That stigma that many bitter and unknowledgeable consumers have of Sprint 4G no matter if it is WiMax or LTE is that Sprint can never win since it is still slower than Verizon or AT&T LTE.

 

The point of my post is that Verizon's crazy 20+ Mbps have really come down to Earth within the past year as more and more people rush to Verizon to get LTE. I am sure if I went to an AT&T store and did LTE speedtests, I would find that speeds have come down to Earth since the crazy 20+ Mbps speedtests back then.

Although it did come down (I can't get 70+mbps anymore), it's still peaking at about 60mbps. But the average has been drastically reduced as you know already. It's not 20+mbps it's more 5-12mbps. In some areas of NYC it completely stalls during the peak hours. It's getting bad.

That AWS has to happen this year, otherwise we'll be seeing lots of pissed of Verizon customers. And those are massive 40Mhz slices so that's a lot of capacity. This could be a great opportunity for Sprint to deploy sooner rather than later and take those customers with Unlimited Data and other affordable incentives.

I went to my local Verizon store today to check out the LTE phones particularly the Droid DNA phone because I am intrigued with the 5 in screen. I did several LTE speedtests on several phones (Droid DNA, RAZR MAXX, SGS3, SG Note 2) and the average LTE speeds were in the 6-8 Mbps range. This is a far cry from when I first went to that exact same store when the HTC Thunderbolt, Rezound, RAZR MAXX first came out when LTE speeds averaged 20-25 Mbps.

 

This makes me wonder how soon Verizon really needs to deploy LTE on its AWS spectrum to help alleviate capacity to keep up their lightning fast speeds. Verizon would have its work cut out for them since they need to upgrade its base station equipment to implement LTE-Advanced ready hardware.

 

I just hope when Sprint LTE is live on every single Sprint tower that I can get a consistent 10-12 Mbps and I will be happy.

Those speeds are perfectly within Verizon's range considering that they advertise LTE speeds as 5-12mbps down and 2-5mbps up.

The latest I've heard from them is that by this summer their 700Mhz LTE is gonna overlay their entire EVDO footprint, at which point they'll be deploying AWS for capacity. Now, that's a pretty vague statement as we have no idea if they'll be staying at Release 8 and just deploy a second carrier for capacity, or if they'll be upgrading their cell sites to Release 10 in the process. It would make sense to start upgrading to Rel 10 as they could use HetNet and other LTE-A tools down the road.