I am NEVER considering a carrier phone again

[s44]

"Stuck" on a band that has much better building penetration? Cry them a river...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

"Stuck" on a band that has much better building penetration? Cry them a river...

Ok, there's obviously technical advantages and disadvantages of frequencies, but from a fragmentation perspective, let's look at things differently. The new HTC One will probably be split AT&T and global and whatever other versions there are. It would be nice to have one united device such that development can cover everyone. That's my concern ok? If you value your building penetration that much, great.

Clearly UMTS 2100mhz hasn't resulted in piss poor reception in Asia or Europe or the rest of the world, so it's not like our cell phones will stop working on AWS either.

 

[lothar]

Sorry I didn't mean to exclude T-Mobile. My point is that with GSM carriers, Google can easily include LTE support. The carrier doesn't really need to have a say in the connectivity options of the phone. As the world moves towards LTE, it'd be nice to see these phones LTE ready and so as soon as the towers are enabled, you're good to go.

On that note of bands and frequencies, the failure of the AT&T T-mobile merger means that AT&T's stuck on 700mhz, which will probably never be fully embraced by the world. AWS seems to be the new 850/1900 for LTE which at last Canada and Mexico are climbing on board for. I mean ideally phones support every single damn band, but given that Google's an American company, we can hope that they will at least tailor the phone to support one GSM carrier in the future.

Bottom line is if we continue with fragmentation of cellular frequencies, the ability of unlocked phones to jump carriers is going to be severely limited. It was one thing to deal with quad band 2G, but it took a while before we could get away from dual band 3G to quad band 3G only to hit pentaband recently, and only in a few select phones.

I know you did not.
My main point with this is that people always complained and were up in arms about T-Mobile AWS 3G frequency fragmentation, but yet everyone seems to keep silent about AT&T LTE Band 17 frequency fragmentation.
AWS:T-Mobile 3G::Band 17:AT&T LTE
This analogy is repeating itself all over again...except this time it's AT&T on the receiving end, and not T-Mobile.

I just don't see the point of Google creating a separate or special SKU for Nexus devices just for AT&T's LTE network when no one else in the world uses it...Nexus devices don't sell that much to warrant a separate SKU.
It's probably better for Google to do T-Mobile's LTE frequency on their Nexus lines which a lot more countries in Canada and Europe support and have whoever is manufacturing the Nexus have an inherent monopoly on AT&T's fragmented LTE network similar to how it is with the Nexus 4(was compatible with T-Mobile's future LTE network prior to Google patching that out) and LG Optimus G(compatible with AT&T's LTE band 17, and therefore not directly competing with each other because the Nexus isn't compatible with it anyway).

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I know you did not.
My main point with this is that people always complained and were up in arms about T-Mobile AWS 3G frequency fragmentation, but yet everyone seems to keep silent about AT&T LTE Band 4 frequency fragmentation.
AWS:T-Mobile 3G::Band 4:AT&T LTE
This analogy is repeating itself all over again...except this time it's AT&T on the receiving end, and not T-Mobile.

I just don't see the point of Google creating a separate or special SKU for Nexus devices just for AT&T's LTE network when no one else in the world uses it...Nexus devices don't sell that much to warrant a separate SKU.
It's probably better for Google to do T-Mobile's LTE frequency on their Nexus lines which a lot more countries in Canada and Europe support and have whoever is manufacturing the Nexus have an inherent monopoly on AT&T's fragmented LTE network similar to how it is with the Nexus 4(was compatible with T-Mobile's future LTE network prior to Google patching that out) and LG Optimus G(compatible with AT&T's LTE band 4, and therefore not directly competing with each other because the Nexus isn't compatible with it anyway).

Well T-Mobile's AWS 3G fragmentation is a reason why only a handful of phones today have T-Mobile 3G. You're right, AT&T's going to get my end of bitching soon enough when LTE becomes mainstream across the globe and people wonder why 700mhz Band 14 or whatever AT&T uses is never included.

The second part was probably a typo on my part, but what i meant to say was that because Google is a US company, their next Nexus phone will make sure that at least one US GSM carrier is supported--be it T-Mobile or AT&T (I'm talking about LTE support here assuming their next Nexus is going to be an LTE device and T-Mobile's LTE network takes off). Unless they want to withdraw from US GSM and then fall back in bed with Verizon. Ideally, they make their next Nexus support as many bands as possible amongst the GSM carriers, but I'd be dreaming if they gave me a phone that I could use LTE on AT&T, T-Mobile, and roam the world... hah.

 

[Ararat]

Ideally, networks will have LTE on multiple bands, and with carrier aggregation we'll have the best of both worlds. Building penetration, as well as higher frequencies to meet bandwidth demands, hopefully moving seamlessly between bands.

The side effect will be that foreign phones will be more likely to support at least one of the bands on a given network.

I think all new phones should support at least 2600 (supposedly the global roaming band) as well as 1800 MHz, as they seem to be the most widely used bands as far as I can tell. But if they're going to be sold in the US (and to be honest even if they're not) then they should have 700 MHz support as well.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Ideally, networks will have LTE on multiple bands, and with carrier aggregation we'll have the best of both worlds. Building penetration, as well as higher frequencies to meet bandwidth demands, hopefully moving seamlessly between bands.

The side effect will be that foreign phones will be more likely to support at least one of the bands on a given network.

I think all new phones should support at least 2600 (supposedly the global roaming band) as well as 1800 MHz, as they seem to be the most widely used bands as far as I can tell. But if they're going to be sold in the US (and to be honest even if they're not) then they should have 700 MHz support as well.

I think a fair LTE setup would be 1700/1800/2600. Of course being an AT&T user, I'm hoping for 700, but I can understand if we don't see phones with that many bands for a while. After all it did take years for us to get past dual band 3G to tri/quad band 3G.

 

[lothar]

Well T-Mobile's AWS 3G fragmentation is a reason why only a handful of phones today have T-Mobile 3G. You're right, AT&T's going to get my end of bitching soon enough when LTE becomes mainstream across the globe and people wonder why 700mhz Band 14 or whatever AT&T uses is never included.

The second part was probably a typo on my part, but what i meant to say was that because Google is a US company, their next Nexus phone will make sure that at least one US GSM carrier is supported--be it T-Mobile or AT&T (I'm talking about LTE support here assuming their next Nexus is going to be an LTE device and T-Mobile's LTE network takes off). Unless they want to withdraw from US GSM and then fall back in bed with Verizon. Ideally, they make their next Nexus support as many bands as possible amongst the GSM carriers, but I'd be dreaming if they gave me a phone that I could use LTE on AT&T, T-Mobile, and roam the world... hah.

*EDIT*: I made a mistake in mentioning band 4 instead of band 17 in the post that you quoted. I have since fixed it.

AT&T supposedly has AWS LTE band 4(which T-Mobile, Canada, and Latin America supports and is how the Nexus owners there are able to get LTE) in addition to the band 17(that no one else in the world uses).
They probably won't ever use it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6474/nexus-4-includes-support-for-lte-on-band-4-aws

...in the USA, AT&T previously discussed plans for LTE on Band 4 but has only rolled out LTE on Band 17 to date, and is rumored to be turning to refarming its PCS (1900 Band 2) and Cellular (850 Band 5) holdings for additional LTE capacity, perhaps instead of AWS. T-Mobile US however will use AWS for LTE. Nexus 4 LTE support is definitely unofficial (and somewhat surprising) at this point, but if you're lucky enough to be in a place where your carrier has rolled it out on Band 4, it's just a setting away.

 

[lothar]

Well T-Mobile's AWS 3G fragmentation is a reason why only a handful of phones today have T-Mobile 3G. You're right, AT&T's going to get my end of bitching soon enough when LTE becomes mainstream across the globe and people wonder why 700mhz Band 14 or whatever AT&T uses is never included.

The second part was probably a typo on my part, but what i meant to say was that because Google is a US company, their next Nexus phone will make sure that at least one US GSM carrier is supported--be it T-Mobile or AT&T (I'm talking about LTE support here assuming their next Nexus is going to be an LTE device and T-Mobile's LTE network takes off). Unless they want to withdraw from US GSM and then fall back in bed with Verizon. Ideally, they make their next Nexus support as many bands as possible amongst the GSM carriers, but I'd be dreaming if they gave me a phone that I could use LTE on AT&T, T-Mobile, and roam the world... hah.

That depends mostly on Qualcomm, Broadcom, and the other LTE baseband chipset manufacturers and not Google.
If Qualcomm or Broadcom can make a single LTE baseband chip or two that's supported almost everywhere we could go, that would be great.

 

[s44]

I actually think the Icera software-tuneable radio may be the magic bullet. (More fodder for my Nexus 4i theory!) We'll see.

 

[Ararat]

I think a fair LTE setup would be 1700/1800/2600. Of course being an AT&T user, I'm hoping for 700, but I can understand if we don't see phones with that many bands for a while. After all it did take years for us to get past dual band 3G to tri/quad band 3G.

It's there a technical reason why they aren't? Or do they just not want to? I mean, I'm sure they could drop one or two of the gsm bands if need be.