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Thread: Flow LTE

  1. #601
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brandysull View Post
    Digicel is now Jamaica's ONLY certified LTE network for iPhone.
    Is me alone find this very funny??? Flow is officially certified by Apple to sell iPhones in Jamaica... yet Digicel got the LTE certification..

    I guess Digicel will be able to use iPhones in marketing pics now.. lol
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  2. #602
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    Quote Originally Posted by GPRS Internet View Post
    Is me alone find this very funny??? Flow is officially certified by Apple to sell iPhones in Jamaica... yet Digicel got the LTE certification..

    I guess Digicel will be able to use iPhones in marketing pics now.. lol
    Yep. The leadership at FLOW Jamaica is very obviously lackluster. Little need to innovate it seems. I’m legit shocked to quite honest. Digicel has 1up’ed them AGAIN

  3. #603
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    Is that factual though? LIME was the only official carrier for the iphone up until a few years ago unless they got back the official status recently.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thy View Post
    Is that factual though? LIME was the only official carrier for the iphone up until a few years ago unless they got back the official status recently.
    It is, this was pulled from Apple's official website. Digicel acquired official status in 2016. But for some reason they are the only network to achieve LTE certification here despite their coverage still being smaller than FLOW's.... I'm confused to be honest.

  5. #605
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    Well Well Well, Guys! Your LTE is gonna get a lot faster! I just got back to Montego Bay and if I'd thought that FLOW's LTE in Kingston was fast, just wait until FLOW is done with Montego Bay! I arrived in town only to see that FLOW now has LTE over Band 2 (1900 MHz).



    It is at 10 MHz Bandwidth. The same as Digicel's Band 17 LTE layer. This speed test proves it. Speeds peak near around 70 Mbit/s down and 20 or so Mbit/s up.



    This means that FLOW will start offering LTE-Advanced with its Huawei hardware as soon as they begin aggregating the Bands (which will happen without you knowing). This has pushed FLOW's max data rate to up to 225 Mbit/s down . This is happening after word that Digicel began deploying LTE on Band 4 (in 10 MHz) to complement their highly subscribed 700 MHz network. FLOW is now using their full spectrum portfolio in Montego Bay; all 20 MHz of spectrum they have at their disposal.

    P.S. And in case you forgot that their original Band 4 network was slow... Think again!



    Still kicking!

    FLOW may probably be aggregating Band 2 and 4 but my iPhone may not be able to do so unless FLOW pushes out a Carrier Update. Samsung Galaxy users in the areas of Catherine Hall, Fairview, Freeport, Mount Salem and the like... try it out and see if you pass the 150 Mbit/s mark or see if the Secondary Component Carrier shows up in the Field Test Mode (*#0011#).
    Last edited by Brandysull; May 20, 2018 at 07:37 PM.

  6. #606
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brandysull View Post
    Well Well Well, Guys! Your LTE is gonna get a lot faster! I just got back to Montego Bay and if I'd thought that FLOW's LTE in Kingston was fast, just wait until FLOW is done with Montego Bay! I arrived in town only to see that FLOW now has LTE over Band 2 (1900 MHz).

    https://i.imgur.com/kz5nYcN.png

    It is at 10 MHz Bandwidth. The same as Digicel's Band 17 LTE layer. This speed test proves it. Speeds peak near around 70 Mbit/s down and 20 or so Mbit/s up.

    clipped for brevity
    ...
    Whoa, amazing. So glad I went ahead and choose Flow as my service provider. The only problem I have is that they wont allow users to utilize the full power of the LTE Network. I mean, cant they offer additional services to the data plans they offer, like video streaming (Netflix YouTube) even if customers have to pay differently. When I was in the States I got unlimited streaming and data from T-Mobile and speed wasn't throttled unless the area tower was congested, which never happened to me. I'm not liking their unlimited data plan. Its too expensive for the offerings in it. Will Flow offer the band 2 LTE in Kingston and ST Andrew as well?, or is it strictly Montego Bay?.
    Last edited by Arch_Angel; May 21, 2018 at 01:28 PM. Reason: removed large pics from quote | clipped quote for brevity

  7. #607
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ryan2277 View Post
    Whoa, amazing. So glad I went ahead and choose Flow as my service provider. The only problem I have is that they wont allow users to utilize the full power of the LTE Network. I mean, cant they offer additional services to the data plans they offer, like video streaming (Netflix YouTube) even if customers have to pay differently. When I was in the States I got unlimited streaming and data from T-Mobile and speed wasn't throttled unless the area tower was congested, which never happened to me. I'm not liking their unlimited data plan. Its too expensive for the offerings in it. Will Flow offer the band 2 LTE in Kingston and ST Andrew as well?, or is it strictly Montego Bay?.
    From what I am seeing, Band 2 is likely being deployed in Kingston & St. Andrew as we speak and may be live. Phones already are selecting 1900 MHz 3G where possible which is a band preference defined by the network. What this means is FLOW is leveraging 3GPP Release 13 specs which will truly begin to tap into their core network's true potential. All of this spells increased spectral efficiency. The reasoning behind why FLOW opted to do this in Montego Bay first is complex but it was really down to what happened back in 2015. FLOW switched out its network vendor from Ericsson to Huawei on the North Coast in record time in 2015. Happening at that time too was FLOW's buildout of second and third carriers on UMTS (3G) to supplement 3G capacity which, at the time, was gravely lacking. Capacity demands in Kingston, St. Andrew and its environs required up to 3 UMTS carriers (1 on 850 MHz and 2 on 1900 MHz) to adequately service consumer demand. In Montego Bay however, FLOW only added a second carrier, on 1900 MHz to complement the one on 850 MHz. This meant that FLOW had been 'wasting' a whole 5 MHz chunk of spectrum, essentially paying for something it was not using. Now, in order to realize greater cost efficiencies in the business and, instead of investing in adding another 3G layer to sites in Montego Bay, FLOW (and if I'm being totally honest, Liberty Latin America) found it best to invest in the most spectrally efficient technology with the cheapest cost per bit available on the market, LTE. In addition, Huawei's RAN solutions are all software-defined which means that everything that would be done in a separate radio card or digital unit in an Ericsson site is all done within the Huawei BTS's baseband & Remote Radio Units (which were GSM, UMTS and LTE enabled since 2015 unbeknownst to the public; smart forward thinking from FLOW). FLOW simply needed to do some light tinkering and voila, LTE on 1900 MHz for everyone! Of course, work is ongoing on the band AFAIK; obvious kinks are being ironed out but, at this rate I would not be surprised if we see LTE over Band 5 (850 MHz) and perhaps VoLTE in short order... even 2G GSM is defaulting to 1900 MHz and DELIBERATELY hiding 850 MHz.

    Note: The process is a bit more involved in the case of Ericsson but I've seen a recent set of upgrades that were conducted by FLOW in April which included new antennas and some new RRUs as well. LTE Band 2 should come online soon in Kingston in my opinion.

    As to the question of tying in popular products and services into data packages, FLOW has tried this route before but I think Liberty much prefers the route of larger data allotments and greater customer 'liberty' if you will LOL. Just look at their Gig-Up combo plans, essentially 9 GB of data for 28 days (10 GB if you add a 2 day plan in the 2 day gap to make for 30 days). That alone is more than adequate for most users especially given the lightning fast speeds on LTE. In addition, Head of Products at FLOW also said that revisions to FLOW Lyf on PostPaid and PrePaid (IIRC) will be made in July. He also said that further revisions will be made to the Unlimited plan, increasing the high speed allotment and adding more amenities as well. Perhaps they'll defer to a more forgiving model of Fair Usage but what I can tell you is that Unlimited plan isn't necessarily where FLOW wants to be, they want to offer larger data plans... and that's obvious given their push for LTE data.

  8. #608
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    I say this without reservation, FLOW cannot and will not beat Digicel unless they go unlimited data. Digicel even have a plan that gives 1gig at nights i think for just 20 jmd per day. Digicel likes to compete and the moment flow increases they just increase as well. Digicel even has unlimited whatsapp data in their plans and unlimited text and calling. Listen flow needs to go sit down and go back to selling landlines only.

    Their entire management is lacking. They believe that people dont deserve the best. Thats the approach they love to take to give you little stuff for lots of money. They couldve teased the offering by giving unlimited data nights from even 11pm on certain days for a fee. I cant wait til Digicel rolls out their unlimited data once they complete their spectrum stuff.

    FLOW needs to rebrand again cause they still Following Lime Old Ways

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    Quote Originally Posted by 876 View Post
    Their entire management is lacking. They believe that people dont deserve the best. Thats the approach they love to take to give you little stuff for lots of money.
    AMEN TO THAT, I couldn't agree anymore that's exactly how they are.
    Last edited by Joel_; May 21, 2018 at 01:02 PM.

  10. #610
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    Quote Originally Posted by 876 View Post
    I say this without reservation, FLOW cannot and will not beat Digicel unless they go unlimited data. Digicel even have a plan that gives 1gig at nights i think for just 20 jmd per day. Digicel likes to compete and the moment flow increases they just increase as well. Digicel even has unlimited whatsapp data in their plans and unlimited text and calling. Listen flow needs to go sit down and go back to selling landlines only.

    Their entire management is lacking. They believe that people dont deserve the best. Thats the approach they love to take to give you little stuff for lots of money. They couldve teased the offering by giving unlimited data nights from even 11pm on certain days for a fee. I cant wait til Digicel rolls out their unlimited data once they complete their spectrum stuff.

    FLOW needs to rebrand again cause they still Following Lime Old Ways
    Okay, let's unpack what you said just now. Firstly, I've been repeating this statement ever since the talk came about... Unlimited Data does not work! A mobile network has a finite amount of resources and the network needs to be planned around projected numbers. Honestly, Unlimited data is a horrible prospect... Again, FLOW's management of following the European model by giving customer data allotments north of 10 GB at the minimum. FLOW's preference there is well founded and I believe that is the same model Digicel will follow. No one here can argue tat 30 GB of high speed data is too small. How is unlimited WhatsApp a thing? Any data plan can sustain good amounts of messaging... and Data Free Nights? Not when the average FLOW subscriber spends more on average more than a Digicel user does. 'Free Data Nights' does not seem like a good enough ploy to get more people on their network. By that same metric, one could argue that FLOW's Gig-Up combo plans are far superior to what Digicel has considering that you can use your data allotment from Gig-Up (or any FLOW combo plan in any country) in every FLOW market free of cost, without a roaming plan. A network like Digicel, with 33 markets, hasn't that kind of integrative capacity to offer Tariff-Free roaming across the Caribbean? That's more of an issue to me than this reversion to old tactics the industry saw back in the days of 2G Voice. Jamaicans love a nickel and dime... It's time we have simple, straight forward plans and great pricing with excellent networks. The only network I can truly, objectively say is able to do so adequately is FLOW! I agree that still some changes need to be made but there are a number of projects on going that will truly push the envelope; this is exactly why Digicel is competing on price basis and not on quality, they cannot offer parity! FLOW's mobile network is a behemoth and it's only growing larger... C&W, being one of the integral players of 5G Americas, is intent on deploying 5G region-wide. A number of the technologies that subtend 5G are being tested here in Jamaica and we will soon see the mad rush Digicel will be in to offer something similar. FLOW is not LIME... the company is not the same one you knew in 2015.

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