Boosted20V

I agree, he probably doesnt give a rats lunch about it now that the bidding is over, but I would be surprised if this action from their biggest competitor didnt cause he and/or the board to rethink their "wait until NV is over to talk acquisition" mindset. What if you get to 2014/15 and your best opportunities already hooked up or were snatched up? Not likely, but it has to cause some head scratching. And no, i dont disagree that anything which further stresses their cash situation is risky. It is. Like the comment related to the stock price earlier in the thread says "darned if u do darned if u dont"

I just can't comprehend paying for prepay customers. I imagine churn is quite high on Metro, I know it is on T-Mo. And given that churn is so high, Sprint can easily grow just by taking dissatisfied customers from this combined entity.

..............to be a fly on the wall in Hesse's "war room" today.....

As discussed above, I don't think Hesse gives a s**t about this. Essentially T-Mo is paying 1.5 bil for spectrum licences and the headache of incorporating two disparate networks.

What device did they use to test the sprint network?

This past week eHRPD went live across everywhere I went in the Lehigh Valley.

What on earth are you doing on your phones that it drags down your home internet speed to use it on WiFi? And additionally, if your devices are such a huge burden to your home WiFi, then it is a huge burden to the Sprint network too.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

LOL, The more you hear, the more you realize caps are inevitable.

From what I gather, the talks are at an advanced stage, but not yet finalized. Part of the deal is that the resulting entity will be listed in the US stock market. So it looks that T-Mobile USA will be merged and spun off.

Good point, I saw that regarding T-Mobile owning a majority of the shares in the new company.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. Do not pay to acquire non contract subs. They are not worth any premium. And their cheap, non contract plans are an albatross around the neck of any major carrier that acquires them. If you keep the cheap, non contract plans, you piss off your core contract subs, who then want the same cheap rates. Or if you discontinue the cheap, non contract plans, you piss off the subs you just acquired. The FCC may not even allow that in any merger consent agreement; if it does, the cheap, non contract subs you just paid billions to acquire may then leave for MVNOs.

 

AJ

Excellent points. Gaining non-contract subs that can leave tomorrow isn't very wise.

Really? T-Mobile is a PCS 1900 MHz and AWS 2100+1700 MHz carrier, and MetroPCS is a PCS 1900 MHz and AWS 2100+1700 MHz carrier. So, there you go.

 

AJ

Well then it will be a good pick up for T-Mo as far as spectrum is concerned. The old Sprint/Metro deal had quite a high price tag however.

I know that Sprint wanted to concetrate on Network Vision, but if this is true, then it is a major missed opportunity for Sprint. Not too much spectrum and customers in play out there.

I don't agree with this at all. Sprint is still pulling in customers. No need to take on an extra burden. Not to mention, I don't think this really creates many synergies with T-Mobile. They're gaining a CDMA network and prepay customers.

Nextel network will start being dismantled after June 30, 2013. All the gear will be removed from sites so Sprint can start saving money on tower leasing. The hardware will be sold on the market for pennies on the dollar.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

SoutherLINC better buy it all up since they'll be keeping IDEN around forever...

what sites have been done already?

Gonna need to be a sponsor to know that.

This was from the parking lot in Savannah's on Saturday night.

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE using Tapatalk 2

Haha, have a good Saturday night?

The GS3 had equal or better radio performance to the EVO LTE in every way in our testing. And these findings seem to be supported by all the observations I have read and seen to date. The issue in the OP is an anomaly associated with this specific unit.

 

Robert

I thought he was talking original EVO 4G, not LTE.

Honestly Robert, some of the posts responding to jonathanm1978 have seemed a little aggressive. I've gotten that tone reading them. It is ok to disagree, but this member has boots on the ground and knowledge inside the company. I value his opinion on this topic for those reasons.

 

It is very true that none of us have any clue about what Southern Company will do with their 800Mhz spectrum. I think that all of us Sprint/wireless enthusiasts want the best thing for the overall consumer (IE partnering with Sprint and building NV), but this company has to do what it believes is the best for its bottom line. They very well could contract with Motorola and a far east manufacturing plant to keep making iDen devices or they could give up the phone portion of their network and be purely two way communication as suggested. Money talks and if Southern Company is willing to shell out the dollars, then someone will make the chips and someone will make the devices.

 

Just because the suggestions made by you and AJ and others here are very logical, doesn't mean that they will be done. How many times have we seen logic overlooked because of another business decision? It sounds like this is a very internal company that wants to handle end to end, everything on their own books. More power to them and if they continue to make money then good on them.

 

While a merger/partnership/affiliation with Sprint appears to make the most sense on the surface, internally to this company, it might just not be a marker on their current road map.

I find fault with the argument that a publicly held company will spend vast sums of money as a loss regardless if they're a utility or not. Also, wouldn't the FCC have a say in all of this? Would they really be okay with this spectrum being tied up by one utility company just for their own internal usage?

Antenna design? Case material? It all adds up. No two phones are exactly equal.

I have sent him an email asking for more info. I will post it when I get a response.

 

Robert

Curious to hear this as well. Could it be wrongly calibrated downtilt/angles on the antennas? Seems like something that could be common.

Went to dinner at Dukes in Wormleysburg with the wife. Her SIII picked up LTE, my EVO wouldn't. Guess that lends some credence to the EVO criticisms. I have a speedtest I'll post in a bit, ~11mb down, forget the upload, she's on her phoone right now. Couldn't pick it up in downtown Harrisburg however, so it definitely is going through periods of being blocked/unblocked.

Now this is getting ridiculous. It is one thing to build your own network, when you have the spectrum, but a whole nother thing to get into manufacturing to build custom phones, which need custom processors, antennas, etc. Is this company going to build its own nationwide network? I am sure southen company is a great company, but no way they go through all that just to keep it in house.

 

Especially, when they could become a sprint affiliate, like shentel. They would be in control of their own network, they would get access to sprint's spectrum, and they would receive money for sprint customers roaming on their network. It literally makes no sense to go in house when that option is likely on the table for them.

I was just looking up the financials on this "behemoth" as jonathan seems to think they are and while they are large ~17.5billion in revenue, there are many utilities just as big and none have their own wireless network? Clearly having their own network isn't the end of the world.

EDIT - Jonathan, I'm not trying to be an ass here but seriously, why do you think Southern couldn't live with communications farmed out to another company? As already mentioned, pretty much every other electrical utility does?

So, the Southern Company may be losing money on SouthernLINC. I do not doubt that, as at least one analyst concurs. In that case, my question is this: could the Southern Company cost costs -- short term or long term -- but maintain QoS by outsourcing internal communications to an established wireless communications provider?

 

AJ

These are my thoughts exactly. It would DEFINITELY save them money to just hire an outside telecom firm to handle their wireless communicaitons rather than run an entire network themselves. Seems like a no-brainer, especially as mentioned, with their overall usable footprint becoming TINY.

I'm more intrigued by the sweet chrome wheels on their work truck!

I guess that's what I was trying to say, but everyone kept talking like they were owned by another carrier and would be forced to do something because of technology changing, in all honesty and knowing what I've seen from southern company since my wife started employment with them, the likelihood of them just spending a chunk of money to keep current tech is more along lines of what they would do. I think they would be more likely to do that, since they own their equipment and they do their maintenance. They are not going to shut-down the vital communication between employees, and solinc covers the entire southern company 26,000 people. Plus the non-employee customers, retirees that decide to keep it when they leave employment, etc. Not a small number, and for $27.99 / month unlimited minutes, direct connect, and data added on at $10.00, you can't really beat them. That's employee price on plans though. At any rate, my wife also said that she doesn't know what's going on with wireless or where I'm getting my info, but she said she seriously doubts they would swap everyone's phone all at once on June 3013 or shut down current phones, she said it would be more like the company to pay whatever to keep things the way they are now, even if only for a couple years until cheaper tech or they prepare a crossover network.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

But do you really think this network will remain nearly as usable to anyone once they can't roam onto Nextel's footprint?

I really like reading seeking alpha, they've done a great job breaking down things and sticking to facts.

All authors on that site are not created equal. I've read pure garbage there as well.

Maybe the Southern Company and SouthernLINC are not as golden as they seem. See this Seeking Alpha comment:

 

 

 

http://seekingalpha....tion?source=msn

 

The comment comes from seispr, a technology and spectrum analyst whose comments have impressed me with their insight.

 

AJ

Saw this yesterday as well. Was suprised to see an analyst on Seeking Alpha with pretty thorough knowledge of the wireless landscape.

I'm sorry that you cannot find this to be correct. But it is. There is nothing about eHRPD that makes it slower than EVDO-A. It is the same exact technology, except eHRPD data is routed through the LTE core instead of the MSC (switch) so it can maintain the same IP address as LTE. This allows for data hand offs between LTE and eHRPD.

 

Now, I do not want to minimize your observations. I believe you when you say that you are observing eHRPD is slower than EVDO-A, and I will explain why.

 

eHRPD and EVDO-A are broadcast from the same tower on the same channel using the same technology and the same backhaul. It is one signal, not two different signals. However, if your device is in CDMA only mode, your data from your device goes from the site through backhaul to a Sprint MSC switching center is processed and dumped out onto the internet backbone.

 

If your device is in CDMA/LTE mode and your site has been upgraded to eHRPD, when your device data gets to the site, it goes through the backhaul to a 4G LTE core instead of the MSC. There it is processed and dumped out onto the internet backbone.

 

So, the only difference in performance between eHRPD and EVDO-A on the same site occurs at the MSC vs. the LTE core. Everything else is identical between the two. Each site in the Sprint network is tied to a very specific MSC for 1x voice and EVDO data. Sprint has dozens of MSC's scattered around the country. When that MSC experiences problems or has a logjam, it affects all the sites connected to it. And EVDO can slow down (although this is not the big culprit in Sprint 3G deterioration).

 

In contrast to how the MSC's handle 1x and 3G EVDO data, 3G eHRPD and 4G LTE data are processed through 4G cores. Unlike MSC, sites are not limited to only one core. Sprint is setting up their 4G LTE cores to be dynamic. So if one core is too busy, data can be routed to a different under burdened core.

 

So, as you can see in this explanation, it is much less likely that eHRPD will get slowed down by the network than EVDO will. LTE cores are very under burdened at this time. However, many Sprint MSC's are at capacity and sometimes exceed capacity. If something 3G gets slowed down by the network, it is going to almost always be EVDO.

 

That being said, there are two possible issues that I can think of that can be the reason why you are experiencing slower eHRPD speeds than EVDO.

 

1. You are connected to different sites/carriers and not aware

2. You may need to change speed test servers

 

Whenever you change from CDMA only to CDMA/LTE, it forces your device to rescan all the channels available to your device. And in a place like Chicago, there will likely be several sites available for your device to connect to. In your instance, there may be dozens of channel/site connection scenarios that you can end up with.

 

This makes it extremely difficult to do an Apples to Apples comparison of eHRPD and EVDO. Because each channel and each site are going to have different loads. Vastly different. And thus will have very different performance. I'm suggesting that you may be connecting eHRPD on a channel that is saturated. But you are connecting to a completely different EVDO channel (maybe even from another site) that is not having problems.

 

And it is quite possible where you are at, that eHRPD may not even be deployed at all on the site near you that is performing well, and you are getting eHRPD from a more distant site and thus the performance difference. There are a lot of variables here.

 

The best way to check this is to access your internal Debug menu and check the EVDO Engineering and eHRPD Engineering screens. Monitor which site/channel combinations you have with good and bad performance. They will likely be different.

 

Reason #2 above is also a common issue. You should change speed test servers that you use when comparing EVDO and eHRPD. And here is why...

 

Since EVDO connects to the internet at an MSC Center and eHRPD connects to the internet through a 4G core, they can be hundreds or even a thousand miles apart. So the speed test server that is ideal for EVDO data is not likely going to be ideal for the eHRPD.

 

The next time you get lesser eHRPD performance than EVDO, change your speed test servers. Try a good half dozen or so, expanding out a few hundred miles each time and see if the results improved. I did this when doing performance testing in the Waco FIT a few weeks ago and was surprised how different the speed tests were initially between EVDO and eHRPD on the same site/channel. However, switching eHRPD from a Ft. Worth speed test server to a Houston one and the eHRPD pulled the same speeds.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

Would you mind expanding on this a little...?