Topic: Networks
Ookla Speed Tests Put T-Mobile Top for Wireless, Comcast Top for Wired Broadband (Sep 7, 2017)
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T-Mobile Begins Lighting up 600MHz Network, Before Devices are Available (Aug 16, 2017)
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Amazon and DISH Reportedly Discussing IoT or Other Wireless Partnership (Jul 6, 2017)
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Apple Seeks Permission to Test 5G Network Technology (May 23, 2017)
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Sprint and Windstream Sue FCC Over Telecom Price Deregulation (May 11, 2017)
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AT&T wins FirstNet network contract – RCR Wireless News (Mar 30, 2017)
This contract has been in the works for an extremely long time, and even now the award was almost derailed by a lawsuit from a losing bidder. The concept of FirstNet arose out of incidents like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which general purpose communication networks were knocked out or overwhelmed and first responders were left without interoperable means to communicate with each other. AT&T has therefore won the contract to build a national communications network for first responders alongside the traditional mobile network it operates. That’s worth a good chunk of money up front but should also lead to a decent revenue stream over the long term too – and it had better, because AT&T is apparently going to be spending $40 billion to build and maintain the network over the next 25 years.
T-Mobile Continues to Boost Capacity for Customers with LTE-U Launching in Spring 2017 – T-Mobile (Feb 22, 2017)
T-Mobile has been touting LTE-U as a potential extension of its current LTE capabilities for several years now, but needed FCC permission to begin actually deploying the technology, which operates in some of the same bands as WiFi. It now has that permission and will apparently begin rolling out the technology to customers in the Spring, though none of the devices currently in T-Mobile customers’ hands actually support LTE-U – those will start arriving later this year, CTO Neville Ray told me. The technical marketing lead for Qualcomm’s LTE and 5G modems tells me that devices carrying the new Snapdragon 835 chip and X16 LTE modem will support it. So until there’s widespread adoption of new devices capable of supporting the technology, and widespread support in the network, this isn’t going to have much consumer impact. In the meantime, there’s good marketing fodder here about being first (as with Verizon’s 5G announcement earlier).
via T-Mobile
T-Mobile’s Network Cleans Up in Latest OpenSignal Report – T-Mobile (Feb 8, 2017)
T-Mobile likes OpenSignal, Speedtest.net, and other network testing services and apps which rely largely on reporting from users’ devices, as opposed to the industry’s traditional reliance on professional testing services like RootMetrics. And the reasons are obvious: T-Mobile consistently puts in a much better showing in these reports than it does on the ones used by the rest of the industry. On the basis of this OpenSignal report, it looks like T-Mobile is basically tied with Verizon for the network available in most places and at the highest speeds nationally. That totally flies in the face of the reporting done by the professionals (see this RootMetrics report for H1 2016), and also goes against official coverage numbers from the other carriers.T-Mobile reasonably make the claim that the OpenSignal results are from real people actually using its networks throughout the country, not from testers only going to certain places, but self-selecting surveys of any kind are always unreliable. The reality is that T-Mobile has caught up a ton over the last few years with the two big carriers, but it’s still behind in coverage and quality, and you’ll see far more people complaining about their T-Mobile coverage than AT&T and Verizon customers do. Perception also lags reality – T-Mobile still has a reputation for poor coverage and quality even as the true gap with the big guys narrows.
via T-Mobile