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Yesterday the FCC announced that they’ll be approving T-Mobile’s acquisition of MetroPCS. Right now T-Mobile is the fourth largest carrier, far behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint for complete coverage and customers. The merger will help them gain additional coverage, pick up more subscribers and have access to an existing 4G LTE network. If you’re wondering why this deal was allowed, an agency said the new merger between T-Mobile and MetroPCS wouldn’t have "the ability to unilaterally raise price or otherwise harm competition at the national level," unlike the attempted merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. FCC boss Julius Genachowski commented in a statement saying the deal would shift the market "toward robust competition and revitalized competitors."

Earlier today a report was released by RootMetrics that showed AT&T’s 4G LTE network offered the fastest overall download/upload speeds when compared to other LTE carriers. Within the tests the managed to average 18.6Mbps downstream, 9Mbps upstream, and reached a maximum speed of 57.7Mbps across the 149 markets that offer AT&T LTE service. For comparison Verizon’s LTE network delivered average speeds of 14.3Mbps downstream, 8.5Mbps upstream and reached a maximum speed of 49.3Mbps across 470 active LTE markets.

So, the tests show that AT&T has a slightly faster overall network, but highlight the fact that Verizon offers 3.1x the LTE coverage that AT&T does. If you’re not in an LTE area on AT&T you’ll either drop down to 4G HSPA+ or 3G, which is significantly slower than either carriers 4G LTE network. Sprint was also tested in their 77 markets where 4G LTE is available and they fell to the bottom of the pack averaging 10.3Mbps downstream, 4.4Mbps upstream and a maximum throughput of 32.7Mbps.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said "We will ultimately get to voice over LTE, probably end of this year, beginning of next year," yesterday at Deutsche Bank’s Media, Internet and Telecom conference. Back in December early tests reports indicated that VoLTE enabled devices reduced battery life by more than 50% and according to Shammo, Verizon expects to remove the CDMA chipset from phones.

This decision will allow them to increase the battery life of future devices and without a CDMA chipset reduce the cost of devices in the future saving customers money. Shammo stated "So over the next two to three years I think we will start to see subsidies come down," but for customers that don’t have 4G LTE now this would present major issues because the phones wouldn’t work. Current phones are a hybrid of 3G CDMA and 4G LTE and use 3G CDMA for voice/data service, and 4G LTE is exclusive for enhanced data connectivity.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), March 04, 2013 - Sprint (NYSE:S) today announced that it is launching 4G LTE in Altoona, Pa., Asheville, N.C., Columbus, Ind., Elkhart/Goshen, Ind., Hammond, La., La Crosse, Wis., San Juan, Puerto Rico, Statesville, N.C., and Temple, Texas. Customers in these areas will now be able to experience faster speeds for uploading photos, surfing the Web and streaming videos. Sprint 4G LTE service has also expanded in San Germán, Yauco, Salinas and Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. Through its Network Vision program, Sprint is continuing to bring a better wireless experience to more customers every day as it builds out its all-new 3G and 4G LTE network.

“With today’s announcement, Sprint is enabling even more customers to sample the power of 4G LTE on their smartphones, tablets and wireless hotspots,” said Bob Azzi, senior vice president-Network, Sprint. “The network team continues to build and test the new network across the country, including areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Customers report they are already finding a 4G LTE signal in these places, and we look forward to providing even more reliable access to the data they need with our official launches.”

Customers can expect to experience the following improvements once 3G upgrades and 4G LTE service come to their area:

• Faster data speeds to enable instant Web access for news updates, HD viewing and game-playing, quicker video downloads and clearer video chats.
• Better signal strength when accessing the Web.
• Fewer dropped calls for peace of mind when talking to friends, family or colleagues.

Sprint’s network buildout, known as Network Vision, not only delivers 4G LTE but also is expected to provide 3G customers better wireless signal strength, in-building coverage, and fewer dropped/blocked calls. All Sprint 3G customers, including the company’s prepaid customers on Assurance Wireless, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA can expect to see better coverage and improved network reliability and voice quality once the improvements come to their areas.

Earlier this month the FCC released their new regulations for cellular amplifiers that boost cellular service. Within the ruling it was made clear that cellular signal boosters are completely legal for both business and consumer use, and all major carriers have given consent to use signal boosters. The FCC will give manufactures a one year transition period, until March 2014 to move to the new technical standards and allow sales of existing amplifiers while the transition occurs. The new regulations may increase the cost of signal boosters in the future because some of the components may need to be redesigned to comply with the new regulations.

In an interview with Wireless Week Cellphone-Mate speaks out about signal boosters. Within the interview Hongtao Zhan, CEO of Cellphone-Mate talks about the company manufacturing both commercial and residential signal boosters and believes the commission made the right decision. About five years ago the FCC started complaining that signal boosters could cause interference and should not be legal, despite the fact that millions of people across the country rely on them for signal in their home, office or while traveling. In rare occurrences signal boosters can cause interference and Zhan said that in the two million plus signal boosters have been sold throughout the U.S. and the number of devices that interfered with the network was very small.

While the FCC investigated signal amplifiers Cellphone-Mate helped them a lot with their research, and assisted them in understanding the issues and resolving technical concerns. Zhan also said that it was essential for the carriers and manufacturers of signal boosters to come to a resolution and solve any outstanding concerns. “In a sense it’s a live or die issue for the industry,” Zhan said. “Who wants to manufacture if FCC says it’s illegal?” The new regulations that the FCC has put in place will ensure that carriers remain happy and won’t need to worry about a cellular amplifier bringing down their cellular network.

When it comes to LTE chipsets for phones and tablets one of the biggest problems is having enough radios to support all the different frequency bands carriers use. For example, this is the reason that your iPhone 5 on Verizon will not work on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, they both use different LTE frequency bands. Qualcomm is now trying to solve the issue with their new RF360 mobile chip which supports global LTE including: LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, WCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA 1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM / EDGE.

If you count up all the different radio bands available there are roughly 40 different LTE bands and the new chipset will enhance battery life, antenna performance and connection reliability. QualComm also unveiled the WTR1625L chip that will be an industry first support carrier aggregation including international LTE support. If you’re anxious for a globally capable LTE handset that supports all LTE bands you can expect the RF360 to arrive on the shelves towards the second half of 2013.

In the first part of January Peplink announced their Router Utility for iOS, which allowed users to receive push notification upon system startup, WAN connections up/down and SpeedFusion up/down. The wait is now over for Android users because Peplink has officially released the application to Google Play. The application will allow you to receive push notifications to any Peplink Balance or Pepwave Max mobile router with up-to-the-second status updates. From a network admin perspective this can be incredibly useful if you’re outside the office or traveling on business and need to keep tabs on the network at the office. The application is a free download so be sure to get the Router Utility app today!

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