Now that I've had the GN for a couple weeks and am back on Verizon I have some observations about cell coverage. I've had cell phones since 1995 and for most of that time (1995-2008) I was on Verizon. I traveled a good bit so having a carrier with good nation wide coverage was important.
But that was before I had a smart phone and in 2008 I got my first smart phone, the iPhone 3G. Switching to the iPhone meant dropping Verizon and going with ATT -- something I wasn't happy about due to past issues I had with ATT. When I first got the iPhone 3G service was still kind of new and the talk was that you had to turn 3G off to get good battery life out of the iPhone. Within a few months the 3G coverage by ATT was pretty good and I didn't worry about battery life all that much
Move into 2010 and I switched the iPhone for an HTC Evo 4G and, of course, that meant dropping ATT in favor of Sprint. The 4G (WiMax) coverage that Sprint provided was almost nonexistent in Jun 2008 but Sprint was promising a rapid roll out of WiMax so I waited. Turns out that in the 15 months I had the Evo Sprint (Clear) did a sh*ty job of deploying Wimax and as my job puts me on the road 85% of the time I was able to judge there coverage in many parts of the country.
OK, so on 12/23/2011 I picked up the GN and am now on Verizon again. In that time I've been in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Albany NY and I've had 4G LTE coverage everywhere I've been. SLC got WiMax at the end of Jun 2010 and the WiMax coverage was spotty more than 15 months later. I wasn't able to find a place in the greater SLC are that I couldn't get LTE...
As I said I travel a lot and am at present working at a FAB in Malta NY, about 25 miles north of Albany in a tiny little berg that could pass for Mayberry. My Evo had terrible coverage here with seldom more than a single bar and often times no coverage at all -- you know, the kind of coverage where you step outside to see if that helps. But, in this tiny little berg my GN is getting 5 bars of LTE with over 17Mbps -- consistent. I'm even getting 5 bars inside the FAB.
So, my take on this is that... Sprint has crumby service or no service whereas ATT and Verizon have good coverage. Verizon started rolling out 4G about 6 months after Sprint started rolling out 4G but in less time Verizon has long since passed Sprint by.
Now don't get me wrong, there are thing about the the way Verizon and ATT do business that pisses me off and on paper they cost more but they are light years better than Sprint.
In the time since I've had smart phones I've traveled to: California (all over), Virginia (all over), North Carolina, Texas (Dallas/Richardson mostly), Idaho (Boise), New York (all over), Utah (all over), Nevada, and many other places so I think I can say with some experience that my coverage analysis is based on more than one area. I could never get 4G on my Evo at ANY airport at any time -- I've been able to get LTE at EVERY airport so far!
Brian
I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
aindow said:
I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.
ianwood said:
Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, WiMax drops off more significantly inside due to the spectrum. Where I live in SLC the Sprint tower closest to me is just over a mile away and inside my apartment it's maybe one bar and often no bars of WiMax and even outside it seldom rises above one bar. That WiMax may need 2X or more the towers to provide the same coverage is only half the problem -- the other half is that Sprint seems to have less than half as many towers!
I think ATT will be relatively aggressive in rolling out LTE, but Sprint, well, I wouldn't hold my breath!
Brian
Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
teamgreen02 said:
Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed this as well. When Verizon rolled out LTE in Chicago, they rolled it out as far as my school in Kenosha, Wisconsin which is at least 50 miles away from Chicago. A pleasant surprise.
No doubt Sprint has struggled and will continue to struggle. WiMax was the wrong bet. Sprint has racked up debt, recently cut back unlimited data plans for air cards/hotspots, and will do the same for mobile phones. On top of that, their current broadband network stinks and LTE roll-out will be very slow. I wouldn't sign up with Sprint any time soon.
Related
So with Sprints current network and their future network vision, what are your opinions and thoughts as far as carrier reliability and/or will you be leaving for better signal?
Sprint is not getting much better ... For a major carrier they are the slowest.. Even metro is faster and thats sad to say.. I think they cap the data cause they offer unlimited and call it 3g ..but its really 2g/edge on unlimited so of course they can afford to give 2g unlimited...
Ill be leaving after a yr or so... Im gonna wait and see how there 4g pans out in 2012
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA Premium App
It sucks, I spend more time roaming on verizon than I do on Sprint's network.
The last thing I am is "the Forum police" but how is this related to the E4GT?
I pretty sure you should reqest to have this moved to the Forum>>General area.
dcraig723 said:
So with Sprints current network and their future network vision, what are your opinions and thoughts as far as carrier reliability and/or will you be leaving for better signal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks like you already have your mind made up and decided to make a thread to create a further ***** session
sent from my Motorola StarTac 4g
Honestly it depends on the location when it comes to reliability...As for speed, any cdma carrier right now is about the same in terms of 3G speeds. I do not feel that Sprint caps their 3G data at all. In Seattle I get anywhere from 500k-1.2mb, which is about the same as any of my Verizon friends on 3G. Only reason T-mobile and AT&T are ahead is because they invested in HSDPA+ which is like 3.5G.
I have a super cheap plan so I will ride it out. As long as I can stream my prog rock audio podcasts I am happy. Los Angeles radio is truly crappy.
And to appease the police, my E4GT is awesome.
Coming from Tmobile, the sprint network sucks! I just signed my contract 2 or 3 weeks ago and while I have yet to have any call quality issues, my data is horrible here in Orlando,Fl the 4G is beyond spotty and the 3G is laughable. that being said with the price that I pay for my monthly I can't complain...
It's pretty much impossible to just make a generalization about a carriers data speeds. You should just look up coverage and speeds between the carriers in your area and areas that you might frequent since those are really the only numbers that matter.
I get 1.25mbps down on 3g and around 7.5 mbps down on 4g in chicago.
LordFan21 said:
It's pretty much impossible to just make a generalization about a carriers data speeds. You should just look up coverage and speeds between the carriers in your area and areas that you might frequent since those are really the only numbers that matter.
I get 1.25mbps down on 3g and around 7.5 mbps down on 4g in chicago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly.
This is not an opinion topic.
Its all dependent on your area.
I know that companies like Verizon have convinced you via commercials that they're 373748484mbit/s everywhere but that's just not the case.
Find the network that best suits your area and your needs and go to them.
On long island it sucks beyond belief lately. Things seem to have gone down hill for me. I am always roaming when at some locations at work or if I'm visiting a location I usually have unusable 3g.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
I also just switched from t-mobile, I use to get 5mb on tmobile 3g, now i get around 1mb average on sprint. 4g on the other hand I'd a different story, the fastest i ever got was 11.40mb and an average of about 8mb in San Diego county. I hope they improve their 3g coverage or roll out more 4g to more locations.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I have cell phone service with AT&T (iPhone 4S), Verizon (Soon to be Galaxy Nexus) and now Sprint, again (Epic 4G Touch)... All unlimited data plans. I'm data HUNGRY!
After my departure from Sprint in 2008, I wanted to give Sprint another go around. I am very surprised that the customer service is still horrible! The 4G network is very inconsistent, too many disconnects. 3G is very slow, pulling 800k max on a strong signal. Over all, looks like this 2 day Epic 4G Touch is going back and good by Sprint for the second time!
Sent from my iPhone 4S!..
I know that when I purchased the Evo I was kind of upset that I didn't have 4G because of my area. Now i'm onto the ET4G and still no 4g =/. What's my solution? Move to the city to get 4G? Curious I suppose and its a shame to have a 4g capable phone and not get 4g network.
Trust me I was with ATT and didn't get 4g either and not even 3G because a lot of there network isn't even 3G build yet. And they are way more expensive. Though now I at least have 3g with Sprint.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
i hate to be the one to break the news to you bro. all the WiMax 4g towers that are currently installed and operational right now are all the 4g WiMax towers there ever will be. Sprint canned it since it was on a not power/non building penetrating frequency of like 2.6 ghz or something. verizon i beleive uses like 700mhz or something close to that which allows the single to penetrate buildings deeper and travel farther. Sprint just anounced its "Sprint Visions" plan i beleive its called. What it entails apon aproval from the FCC i beleive since its 20 or 40 mhz away from the GPS frequency. they are moving to LTE towers like Verizon. what does this mean for your WiMax handset? it will never see the light of day with 4g. it will not work on LTE as the 4g chip does not work on those frequncys. in early 2012 sprint will start to release new handsets with the new radio chip in them. i beleive they said it should all be deployed within 3 years? also that are moving to Rev B 3g so its faster. also will be able to use the internet and phone voice calls at the same time. they use all the push to talk nextel for the new 3g or something like that. idk, people if you know whats the plan better than i please feel free to correct me. but thats just the general idea of whats happening
You summed it up pretty well. WiMax won't be expanded, but it will continue to be supported for a few years. Sprint actually basically has 3 types of connections. EVDO, Nextel's PTT, and WiMax. They'll be able to put a multi-band antenna up at all the disparate sites, providing some awesome coverage! Of course this is still a ways away.
4g
Sprint hasn't canned 4g in my state they just put up two more towers one in my town and one about 6 miles outside the north side indy which will make a total of 4 towers in indy and that doesn't include the iu and iupui campuses. And they are putting up more so i don't know where you got your info that sprint canned 4g but they aren't now we are hosting the super bowl and that could be why They are putting up towers left and right in my city.
Sprint hasn't canned 4g, but is changing over to lte next year. All of this information came from the investment talk they gave I believe at the start of October. Sprint covered how this would work and that work on the towers was starting in order to move to the new 4g. Wimax will still run side by side with lte for a few years.
With all the hubbub surrounding the Clearwire Wimax deal that was signed for the next few years, and the looming launch of LTE (mid-2012?), is it really foolish to sign a new contract and get a Wimax device?
All of the LTE devices I've seen on VZW/AT&T have atrocious battery life at the expense of crazy speeds (20Mbps+). A few coworkers got the Droid Bionic and barely make it to the end of the work day. Old college roommate works for AT&T and he says most of their LTE stuff needs extended batteries in order to be usable for a whole day.
Frankly I can live with Wimax's 3-5Mbps if it means I don't have to keep hovering around a charger all day. The Epic 4G Touch is so very tempting but I'm afraid I'm committing to "old" tech and that in 12 months I'll have regretted it.
(current VZW customer off-contract with an OG Droid)
dparm said:
With all the hubbub surrounding the Clearwire Wimax deal that was signed for the next few years, and the looming launch of LTE (mid-2012?), is it really foolish to sign a new contract and get a Wimax device?
All of the LTE devices I've seen on VZW/AT&T have atrocious battery life at the expense of crazy speeds (20Mbps+). A few coworkers got the Droid Bionic and barely make it to the end of the work day. Old college roommate works for AT&T and he says most of their LTE stuff needs extended batteries in order to be usable for a whole day.
Frankly I can live with Wimax's 3-5Mbps if it means I don't have to keep hovering around a charger all day. The Epic 4G Touch is so very tempting but I'm afraid I'm committing to "old" tech and that in 12 months I'll have regretted it.
(current VZW customer off-contract with an OG Droid)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First and foremost the spectrum allocated to Sprint's WiMax sucks. It's a razor thin chunk. That is why Sprint's 4G sucks...LTE isn't inherently better in this regard. If LTE was on the same crappy spectrum it would suck too.
When you can connect to WiMax it's fantastic. I used to get 12-15mbps all day long in my area. Now it's in the 3-8mbps range depending on time of day.
That razor thin strip of spectrum allocated to Sprint/Clearwire's "4G" WiMax makes your connection easily disrupted by such disturbances as a closed window or a stiff breeze...seriously. If you aren't in a very solid 4G area (don't ask Sprint or Clearwire, ask people who have the service in your area) I wouldn't bank on getting a 4G signal very often, if at all. When a rom comes out that doesn't support 4G I don't care at all...yeah, it can be that bad.
With that out of the way it should be noted that you likely won't have Sprint LTE coverage in your area for at least a year, likely 2, maybe 3 or 4. Sprint has some rosy estimates flying around right now, but, I remember how their 3G and 4G rollouts went, so, I wouldn't take their word with a grain of salt...I would outright disregard it.
So where does this leave you? Most likely in an area with sparse (if any) 4G and LTE anywhere from 1.5-3 years away and you want a phone now.
Luckily Sprint's 3G service is improving quickly around the country--quicker in some places than others of course. Also the level of improvement will vary wildly depending on many factors, so, don't even bet on the future...especially when it's in Sprint's hands.
My advice? If you want to be/stay on Sprint and are currently satisfied with your service and would also like the ET4G, well, just go get it. By time your contract is up the LTE devices will actually exist and the LTE will be rolled out and WiMax will still be up and running and hopefully the 3G network is up to snuff.
EDIT: As a current Vzw customer you will likely be either disappointed or even horrified by Sprint's current 3G speeds. Ask around, some markets/areas have amazing performance. Where I live is so-so. I'm now getting 600-1000kbps regularly, though last month it was 300-500kbps. However 5 miles away at my friends house I actually saw 2.8mbps and killer 15mbps 4G all the time. Many people here are nowhere near as lucky as either me or my friend, so, ask around....you can never tell.
I'm in downtown Chicago, so I'm sure that it'll be a high priority area for deployment.
My job is 100% travel though, so for a few months at a time I could be anywhere else in the US (Mon-Fri). Typically it's big cities though, like Houston, NYC, Miami, Denver, etc. I just want something fast but consistent. Voice quality/coverage is priority 1, then battery, then data speeds.
I visited two Sprint stores in different parts of the city this week and the web browsing on their 4G seemed plenty fast.
dparm said:
I'm in downtown Chicago, so I'm sure that it'll be a high priority area for deployment.
My job is 100% travel though, so for a few months at a time I could be anywhere else in the US (Mon-Fri). Typically it's big cities though, like Houston, NYC, Miami, Denver, etc. I just want something fast but consistent. Voice quality/coverage is priority 1, then battery, then data speeds.
I visited two Sprint stores in different parts of the city this week and the web browsing on their 4G seemed plenty fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I travel for work sometimes. Chicago is covered in 4G as are most major metropolitan areas.
So far as voice/text ("2G") is concerned you will be well served everywhere. Sprint has pretty thorough 2G coverage and you will roam on Verizon if not. You get "Unlimited" Roaming. If you roam too much they'll give you the boot. I wouldn't worry about it.
So long as you understand all said about 4G and are fine with that 3G is the only real sticking point and is as I described earlier. You will roam on Verizon (at 1x, ick...but we have ways around that if you are forced to roam momentarily), but, it's usually not Sprint's coverage so much as the performance. I personally have never experienced horribly un-usable 3G anywhere...even tethered to my laptop. But I haven't gone on any business trips in the past 9 months when things have gone downhill rapidly--or so the posts here would have me believe.
I'd say buy a VZW phone outright and stay out of contract. Their speeds will be faster as well as the reliability. If this were my only phone I would've dove headfirst off a bunk bed.
I have a company Blackberry on AT&T and a regular feature phone on AT&T so I'm covered service wise. To give you an idea AT&T's HSDPA (3.5G) technology is faster than Sprint's faux 4G.
I love this phone but something needs to happen soon or people are going to leave in droves. The phone is awesome but the service is something to be desired.
I'm in Northern NJ by the way.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
Lately the Verizon 3G coverage in downtown Chicago and the burbs have been sucking. I have updated my PRL several times and even flashed a different ROM just to be certain.
I get 4g in plenty of places. (I live in the bay area). Sprint just gave clear some money so I'm still good with buying my next wimax phone. From what I see and hear, lte isn't better than wimax just yet. Fastest speed I've seen is on hspa+ 22mbps.
I think its a waste if you live in an area like I do that doesn't have Wimax and never will.
I am coming from Verizon and the Thunderbolt and until phones get better battery's lte is not worth it unless you want 8 to 12 hours of battery depending on your usage(on my wifi and 4g and 3g service with sprint after 16hours of usage moderate I have 33% life left) In a few years when sprint gets lte maybe batterys will be caught up. Or if sprint doesnt ill switch to at&t or Verizon again. But I am happy with sprint. And I love this phone
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I have known since the beginning of the year when the Galaxy S II became available internationally that that was the phone I wanted to upgrade to. The decider for me to go for the Epic Touch 4G variant on Sprint was the truly unlimited data. I was off contract on AT&T, and even though I was fortunate enough to actually get very good service in my area on AT&T, I liked the idea of never having to worry about my data usage, no matter how I might choose to use my phone.
I don't generally get as good data coverage on Sprint as I did on AT&T, but when I do have service it is generally faster than what I got on AT&T, most especially on 4G. And when it does lose Sprint coverage, it roams on Verizon towers, so I really am never completely without service.
And the phone itself is great. No regrets there.
Thanks. Like I said, Verizon's coverage down here lately seems really lousy. The data speed is "acceptable". My OG Droid is still hanging on by a thread and I am still on an unlimited data plan, though I rarely go over 2-3GB per month.
I'm having trouble finding Chicago Sprint owners to comment on coverage and data speeds, though. Only one or two friends of mine have it and they're not really geeky enough to know what I'm interested in...they see a phone as a phone.
dparm said:
Thanks. Like I said, Verizon's coverage down here lately seems really lousy. The data speed is "acceptable". My OG Droid is still hanging on by a thread and I am still on an unlimited data plan, though I rarely go over 2-3GB per month.
I'm having trouble finding Chicago Sprint owners to comment on coverage and data speeds, though. Only one or two friends of mine have it and they're not really geeky enough to know what I'm interested in...they see a phone as a phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You definitely needs to find someone. You do have a buyer's remorse period you could use.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
CODteabagger said:
You definitely needs to find someone. You do have a buyer's remorse period you could use.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the 30 day return period is nice. Would give me a shot at really test driving the thing.
Any suggestions on how to get some real details on Chicago Wimax and voice?
wimax will be around thru 2015 at the least... buying a wimax device now wouldnt be the end of the world.
also.. the first sprint lte devices wont get super awesome. and we wont be seeing the good lte chips(the ones that work on multiple bands) until 2013(sprints 2nd lte gen).
Upgrading to a Wimax phone this year seems fine. And you can enjoy the unlimited data. It will set you up to upgrade in 2013, when new phones will be ready to utilize Sprint's LTE (800MHz/1.9GHz) and Clear's LTE-Advanced (2.5GHz).
dparm said:
Yes, the 30 day return period is nice. Would give me a shot at really test driving the thing.
Any suggestions on how to get some real details on Chicago Wimax and voice?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's 14 days now.
daneurysm said:
It's 14 days now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooo that sucks. It'll probably get ****ty 3G speeds on the 15th day.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
CODteabagger said:
I'd say buy a VZW phone outright and stay out of contract. Their speeds will be faster as well as the reliability. If this were my only phone I would've dove headfirst off a bunk bed.
I have a company Blackberry on AT&T and a regular feature phone on AT&T so I'm covered service wise. To give you an idea AT&T's HSDPA (3.5G) technology is faster than Sprint's faux 4G.
I love this phone but something needs to happen soon or people are going to leave in droves. The phone is awesome but the service is something to be desired.
I'm in Northern NJ by the way.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea Im gonna have to disagree here, one of my customer just bought a skyrocket from att and my touch destroyed his phones speeds while he was on the socalled 4gLTE hspa+ network and I was only in a 3g area (all of san diego county) there is nothing faux bout WiMax, it is all a money issue when it comes down to it.
Yes I am anxious for LTE-A as well as more power efficient radios. I remember when the first "3G" stuff came out years ago (HSDPA or whatever)...the battery life sucked but within a year or two they got it worked out.
daneurysm said:
...Sprint's 4G sucks... When a rom comes out that doesn't support 4G I don't care at all...yeah, it can be that bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it's not anything to write home about.
But I mostly use wifi at home and work so I'm not too put out by the slow speeds.
It is good enough to have a halfway decent skype session, youtube, etc...
I was hoping to get some gaming action though.
That ain't happening unless it's on wifi, at least in my area.
For well over a year now Sprint customers have been dealing with sluggish 3G and 4G WiMAX data speeds. Network woes for America’s third largest wireless carrier have worsened over the past six months or so, as the carrier’s outdated WiMAX 4G offerings were halted in an effort to focus on building a new 4G LTE network. While this decision has good intentions, it has left the bulk of Sprint’s customers stranded on its old, overcrowded CDMA 3G network. However, all hope may not be lost for Sprint and its customers, as the troubled carrier has pledged to deploy its new LTE services by mid-2012, which is literally a couple of weeks away. Set to hit Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, and San Antonio, the question remains if Sprint’s new network setup can hold its own with already established 4G LTE from its competition.
In an effort to answer this burning question, PCMag recently spent some candid time with Sprint’s new LTE network and ran several tests comparing it to both Verizon’s and AT&T’s LTE services. The tests were conducted in Atlanta, Georgia in five different locations using a “specially provisioned” LG Viper 4G LTE phone and a PC Mag’s in-house Sensorly app, along with Ookla’s Speedtest.net app.
The results reveal that Sprint’s LTE is indeed fast, but not quite as fast as peak speeds seen on AT&T’s and Verizon’s networks. This is to be expected, due to Sprint decision to use 5MHz channels band instead of the 10MHz channels that its competition uses. However, the networks still appear to be very competitive. Using the Sensorly speed test app in four different test locations, PCMag found that Sprint’s network produced an average download speed between 9 and 13Mbps, which is on a par with AT&T’s 5MHz channel LTE. Sprint’s download speeds peaked at 26.5Mbps, which also remained competitive with AT&T’s peak 5MHz speeds of around 27.8Mbps.
Surprisingly Sprint’s network speeds were comparable to Verizon’s 10MHz setup, but keep in mind that Verizon’s network is already used by its customers, while Sprint’s was near empty and in a controlled testing environment. In regards to upload speeds, Sprint’s LTE averaged 2.19Mbps, which remained consistant with its own WiMAX 4G, AT&T’s LTE, T-Mobile HSPA+, but was still slower than Verizon.
Obviously focused on LTE, Sprint is aggressively pushing new LTE-capable phones such as the Galaxy Nexus, LG Viper, and HTC EVO 4G LTE, but as it stands these new devices are stuck in the mud on Sprint’s 3G network until its 4G LTE network goes live for customers. While Sprint has committed to a midyear LTE deployment, the carrier has remained coy about its complete network release schedule. This restrictive strategy places a great deal of Sprint’s customers in the dark about their network’s future, and the carrier runs the risk of losing customers to existing LTE networks offered by its competitors.
While Sprint continues to remain in network limbo, its biggest beacon of hope for its customers is its noted commitment to true unlimited data. This is something that its major competitors have abandoned and will likely be Sprint’s saving grace if the carrier’s data speeds are attractive to consumers. However, if Sprint doesn’t deliver on its promises sooner than later, the only speed the carrier will be experiencing is a rapid loss of existing customers.
Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405675,00.asp
Good article and nice find, but...
Did you paraphrase the article?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
squshy 7 said:
Good article and nice find, but...
Did you paraphrase the article?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The article is from techno Buffalo but they were not the actual testers so I put the original source if somebody wanted to read the full article
Sent from my GS2 the next big thing
Well its a win win when lte is live everywhere it will be easing congestion but otherwise if people leave in droves it will still free resources LOL
But unlimited data is the only thing keeping anyone here anyway
I rather have slow steady unlimited than capped super sonic speeds
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
If those are the speeds they're getting with nobody on the network, then that's poor.
Imagine when it actually launches, even in only the 6 initial markets and millions actually start using it...
LordLugard said:
If those are the speeds they're getting with nobody on the network, then that's poor.
Imagine when it actually launches, even in only the 6 initial markets and millions actually start using it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it will hold up
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
revamper said:
I think it will hold up
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think so too. The network is still growing so I doubt it'll be that slow.
Plus, once your above a consistent 4-5Mbps that holds while actually moving itll only ever make a noticable difference whike downloading ROMs, and that will still be WiFi recommended.
Those speeds arent good at all though, my WiMAX is right there with it. The difference will be in the connectivity while mobile.
auau465121 said:
For well over a year now Sprint customers have been dealing with sluggish 3G and 4G WiMAX data speeds. Network woes for America’s third largest wireless carrier have worsened over the past six months or so, as the carrier’s outdated WiMAX 4G offerings were halted in an effort to focus on building a new 4G LTE network. While this decision has good intentions, it has left the bulk of Sprint’s customers stranded on its old, overcrowded CDMA 3G network. However, all hope may not be lost for Sprint and its customers, as the troubled carrier has pledged to deploy its new LTE services by mid-2012, which is literally a couple of weeks away. Set to hit Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, and San Antonio, the question remains if Sprint’s new network setup can hold its own with already established 4G LTE from its competition.
In an effort to answer this burning question, PCMag recently spent some candid time with Sprint’s new LTE network and ran several tests comparing it to both Verizon’s and AT&T’s LTE services. The tests were conducted in Atlanta, Georgia in five different locations using a “specially provisioned” LG Viper 4G LTE phone and a PC Mag’s in-house Sensorly app, along with Ookla’s Speedtest.net app.
The results reveal that Sprint’s LTE is indeed fast, but not quite as fast as peak speeds seen on AT&T’s and Verizon’s networks. This is to be expected, due to Sprint decision to use 5MHz channels band instead of the 10MHz channels that its competition uses. However, the networks still appear to be very competitive. Using the Sensorly speed test app in four different test locations, PCMag found that Sprint’s network produced an average download speed between 9 and 13Mbps, which is on a par with AT&T’s 5MHz channel LTE. Sprint’s download speeds peaked at 26.5Mbps, which also remained competitive with AT&T’s peak 5MHz speeds of around 27.8Mbps.
Surprisingly Sprint’s network speeds were comparable to Verizon’s 10MHz setup, but keep in mind that Verizon’s network is already used by its customers, while Sprint’s was near empty and in a controlled testing environment. In regards to upload speeds, Sprint’s LTE averaged 2.19Mbps, which remained consistant with its own WiMAX 4G, AT&T’s LTE, T-Mobile HSPA+, but was still slower than Verizon.
Obviously focused on LTE, Sprint is aggressively pushing new LTE-capable phones such as the Galaxy Nexus, LG Viper, and HTC EVO 4G LTE, but as it stands these new devices are stuck in the mud on Sprint’s 3G network until its 4G LTE network goes live for customers. While Sprint has committed to a midyear LTE deployment, the carrier has remained coy about its complete network release schedule. This restrictive strategy places a great deal of Sprint’s customers in the dark about their network’s future, and the carrier runs the risk of losing customers to existing LTE networks offered by its competitors.
While Sprint continues to remain in network limbo, its biggest beacon of hope for its customers is its noted commitment to true unlimited data. This is something that its major competitors have abandoned and will likely be Sprint’s saving grace if the carrier’s data speeds are attractive to consumers. However, if Sprint doesn’t deliver on its promises sooner than later, the only speed the carrier will be experiencing is a rapid loss of existing customers.
Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405675,00.asp
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll have to disagree on a couple points. The truly unlimited data was the first enticing thing to bring me to Sprint in the first place. Second, was the fact that they have the least demanding credit assessment. AT&T wanted me to pay a deposit of $146+, more or less, asking for my landline that I owe them on still. Verizon? Don't get me started there.. after my credit assessment through them, they wanted over $1G for the deposit.. I laughed and immediately went to AT&T's go phone at that time. Limited in data, yes, but the only way I could get on a cell with poor credit, as Sprint was wanting a $100 deposit, not bad, but being unsure of where my next funding was coming from, this did not bode well. It was a couple years before I tried Sprint again, and found out, not only did I have no deposit this time, I could trade in my old AT&T go phone, and got a nice credit towards a descent phone within my price range, the Nexus S 4G. On top of that, Sprint works with several companies to offer an employment discount, mine being 17%, something AT&T has abandoned for a LOT of employers.
Now, let's talk about customer service. IMHO, Sprint is unmatched in providing excellent customer service (in fact, I just found out recently, they've been ranked #1 in this department). Something you won't find with the other 2. They let me know of services they offer, that in order to get it out of AT&T or Verizon, you have to go through an area manager - not something a LOT of people want to deal with. Verizon? The sales rep that ran my credit couldn't understand half of what I was saying. With Sprint, I have only gotten a foreign rep* ONE time (out of the maybe, 15, times, I've had to call in), and they STILL were able to CLEARLY understand the problem I was having and easily helped me to resolve it.
So the bottom line here is, they have too many ups to have the down of their technology being a little behind, to lose too much of a customer base.
I know your article is put together from research and comment follow-ups to the testing articles, but it is still a good write-up, nonetheless.
BTW, if you've looked a little more recently, July 15th is the rollout date for the above mentioned cities, for LTE. Fortunately, I just happened to be in Metro ATL.
Well, that sums up my rebuttle. (however, that's spelled) Please don't take it personally. I'm just preaching from personal experience.
Peace,
~WickiD_D~
* edited to add: I mean no disrespect, no racism, and no stereo-typing in any way. I just think that there are a LOT of people who will agree that there is a natural language barrier that can occur when calling a customer service line, and it makes it very difficult to resolve customer service issues, at those times, for both the caller and the rep, because of it. I sincerely apologize if I offended anyone in any way, because I know we all come from different parts of the world in this forum, and would never intentionally want to hurt anyone here..
So as I am sure many of you will be doing eventually. I and thinking about getting the S4. Only issue I am having is Sprints network. I am really debating in my mind if sprint is worth the cost considering they have one of the slowest networks. I have been thinking about going to t mobile since most of my phone use is in major cities in the US, with and occasional use in the Caribbean.
So will you be staying with Sprint or moving to a new network?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
I get good wimax and this phone does everything. S4 is S3 on steroids so I am thinking about passing for S5!
Mship said:
So as I am sure many of you will be doing eventually. I and thinking about getting the S4. Only issue I am having is Sprints network. I am really debating in my mind if sprint is worth the cost considering they have one of the slowest networks. I have been thinking about going to t mobile since most of my phone use is in major cities in the US, with and occasional use in the Caribbean.
So will you be staying with Sprint or moving to a new network?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i've already moved from Sprint over to Verizon.. I live in nyc and for me Sprint just sucks out here, the 4g is like 3g and the 3g is like 1x. Lots of dropped calls too, so i flashed over to Verizon. Much better network IMO. T-mobile is good to my g/f has them, great 4G speeds.
It depends on where you spend most of your time. The Sprint network is great in some places and sub par in others. We dont have any official 4G service in KY and 3G is sometimes questionable, but I lived in TX last year and had great service. I occasionally get unofficial wimax here and have no interest in switching phones until LTE arrives. My wallet can't handle Verizon so if I switch service in the future it will probably be to prepaid or back to TMO.
I personally think you should drop sprint like a rock because I have sprint out here in Detroit and their empty promises of 4G for the last 2 years has been nothing shy of an insult, not to mention their signal sucks horribly out here and their 3G speeds rival that of Dial-Up, and that's if you're lucky enough to get data over the 3G connection at all...
T-Mobile also has one of the smallest 4G networks (from what I've heard, don't know how true that is), and I've heard of nothing but problems from the few people that I know that own a T-Mobile phone. My other friends with AT&T never have a single issue, and my other friend with Verizon also has absolutely no problems with them what-so-ever, so I'd say go with AT&T or Verizon - I know I will be as soon as my sprint contract is up in a year.
TMO's LTE network just launched I think so it's naturally almost nonexistent. Their HSPA+ network is more than enough though.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda app-developers app
For those with bad call & data connections, it'd probably be best to switch to a different carrier. As for me, I switched to Sprint from T-Mobile last year because T-Mobile had crappy call quality and connection problems. Fortunately, Orange County has really good 4G WiMax coverage and speeds (my 4G WiMax is faster than my friend's at&t LTE speed on his Note 2) and we're due for 4G LTE in a month or so.
New York City is an active Network Deployment market that is well under way by Alcatel-Lucent. The only places where I wouldn't upgrade to an LTE device on Sprint are in areas where NV has not yet begun and won't begun for an another few months (and then it'll take a month or two to get the stuff up and running after they begin).
Look here to see what other people reported..
http://www.sensorly.com/
and look here for more info about Network Vision.
http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1901-network-visionlte-new-york-city-market/
It depends on how strong the T-Mobile network is in your area. In mine, it isn't that good. I have this phone, s2, and I have a lte backup phone. My area does have lte coverage but it's not completely saturated yet. I have 4g lte at home and an area of one of my jobs. My best dl speed test with lte has been just shy of 4000 KB. There are a lot of if's to consider if switching to another carrier. Do your homework first before making a final decision. There's an app out there, I forgot the name, that shows the coverage area on a map with different carriers and modes. I'd suggest checking that out to gather more information. Here you go. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sensorly.viewer
Your question is very area dependent. I live in Pittsburgh PA there's no lte in my area yet but it's coming. My 3g/4g is awesome though, I rarely find myself running 4g because the 3g is so good. I will be getting the S4 but not right away, I'm gonna wait for the price to drop and development to pick up.
Thanks for all the responses. I think I'm going to stay with the S2 for at least 2 two 3 more months or so before making a switch. I want to see what sprint has to offer in my area of NYC.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
In my area Memphis, TN we have bad sprint coverage and i don't like it. Internet is very slow and sometimes calls don't come through
optimummind said:
For those with bad call & data connections, it'd probably be best to switch to a different carrier. As for me, I switched to Sprint from T-Mobile last year because T-Mobile had crappy call quality and connection problems. Fortunately, Orange County has really good 4G WiMax coverage and speeds (my 4G WiMax is faster than my friend's at&t LTE speed on his Note 2) and we're due for 4G LTE in a month or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
inland empire is terrible wish it was like orange county...
i travel to and from inland empire, orange county, SGV and Las vegas alot and inland empire is terrible which is were i am the most of the time...
was thinking of going to tmobile but worried about there coverage.. some people say its good but others have nothing but problems.. wonder how there service is away from the major cities.. Verizon is the best but too much .. thinking of flashing phone to verizon prepaid but would only get 2-3mb download but still alot better than sprint in the inland empire.