Jump to content

How is sprints coverage along interstate highways across the nation?


Recommended Posts

Is it a barren wasteland for lte?  Is there acceptable 3g?  I ask because I have a relative that drives trucks and travels across the country and wants to get unlimited data for movie watching.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depends. Is he a regional driver focused on a specific region or does he drive nationwide? Sprint has some major gaps in the north part of the country (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska). Most interstates in those states lack native coverage and users rely on roaming partners. Outside of those states, they mostly have major interstates covered.

 

Check the Sprint website to see specific coverage. I know they have the southeast and Texas locked down with 3G in every interstate. Even Verizon doesn't cover all of I-10 in West Texas while Sprint does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it a barren wasteland for lte?  Is there acceptable 3g?  I ask because I have a relative that drives trucks and travels across the country and wants to get unlimited data for movie watching.

Upgrade and you can check out the maps on here....

 

Depends. Is he a regional driver focused on a specific region or does he drive nationwide? Sprint has some major gaps in the north part of the country (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Nebraska). Most interstates in those states lack native coverage and users rely on roaming partners. Outside of those states, they mostly have major interstates covered.

 

Check the Sprint website to see specific coverage. I know they have the southeast and Texas locked down with 3G in every interstate. Even Verizon doesn't cover all of I-10 in West Texas while Sprint does.

Sprint's website is not always up to date, S4GRU's site is usually more up to date then the horrible coverage maps on Sprint's site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sprint covers most interstate highways well, with the exceptions of the Upper Midwest and Upper InterMountain West as noted above. How well they are covered is highly variable by region.

 

A review of coverages is really important. A coverage map review will give a general idea. A review of specific site locations in our Sponsor maps will give a better indication of service.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sprint covers most interstate highways well, with the exceptions of the Upper Midwest and Upper InterMountain West as noted above. How well they are covered is highly variable by region.

 

A review of coverages is really important. A coverage map review will give a general idea. A review of specific site locations in our Sponsor maps will give a better indication of service.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

Thank you, you summed it up better then I did, lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint#|coverage

 

Depending on what routes are taken.  

 

If there is a bit of none Sprint coverage, or 3G coverage, could maybe also pick up Cricket Wireless maybe on a secondary device (they generally have free devices after MIR that are decent).  10GB for $55 is the best in terms of more complete coverage and a sizable data bucket. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I-15 between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is okay, small drops but 1x800 helped a lot to increase coverage. LTE has yet t be deployed and I hope it happens soon.

 

Calling service is usable, data not so much. In Primm you can use LTE like for 4 miles then it reverts back to 3G. Usually get all app data notification while stuck in traffic in that section of the freeway. 

 

I know theres no Verizon data on the I-15 towards Vegas, my best friend whines a bit while in the car. ATT has some LTE and then it reverts back to 4G. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well... up here in Northern Wisconsin, most interstates are covered fairly well.

 

However I've noticed that I-39 has many spots where it drops LTE very quickly. Either because of the tower not having any bands of LTE, or the LTE on the tower doesn't reach anywhere near what the coverage maps say they do (no surprise there).

 

If we talk highways, there are numerous where I drop all data and only have 1x800 available or have nothing at all. Again, due to many towers sitting at 3G only.

 

I will say though where it is deployed, 1x800 has made an EXTRAORDINARY difference. I just hope with expansion and all the projects going on, we see more native coverage so more highways are covered.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Calling service is usable, data not so much. In Primm you can use LTE like for 4 miles then it reverts back to 3G. Usually get all app data notification while stuck in traffic in that section of the freeway. 

 

I know theres no Verizon data on the I-15 towards Vegas, my best friend whines a bit while in the car. ATT has some LTE and then it reverts back to 4G. 

 

Primm is a funny island of LTE coverage because B25 & B41 are working well. Not sure why Jean was left out but after MGM sold the Gold Strike to Terrible's, they don't need coverage anymore (because Terribles has messed up any Casino they ever touched).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I-95 and I-84 from NYC to Boston is something like 75-80% LTE now. In LTE only mode, it's more like 85-90% of the trip is LTE. Both Band 25 and Band 26 are available. In some larger cities like New Haven and Bridgeport, I'll connect to Band 41 and drop it just outside the city limits. The greatest area of no LTE is in Nipmuck State Forest on the CT/MA border. Once you get past that, you latch onto LTE for the remainder of the trip to Boston. Massachusetts is covered really well in LTE.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I travel from Ohio to either Nashville TN or Atlanta and from my experience I have lte throughout the whole trip. There will be 3 times when I will fall back to 3g but a quick flip into airplane mode throws me back on lte. But even when it did fall back to 3g I didnt notice a difference with my data. I was on a facetime call when it fell to 3g and it was working fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I drove from Milwaukee, WI to Fort Lauderdale, FL a couple times in the last 12 months, and I always had decent coverage along the highways (I90 I94, I55, I24, I75, I95). I was able to stream music (while running the Maps App) along the trip during my 2 day drive. The last trip was in May, 2015. I hit 3G at a few spots along the way, but the data was usable and I never got frustrated with the service. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The I5 in California is rather roughly covered.

 

Are you saying the coverage along I-5 is not ubiquitelous?

 

;)

 

AJ

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I-15 between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is okay, small drops but 1x800 helped a lot to increase coverage. LTE has yet t be deployed and I hope it happens soon.

same with 15 in Utah outside the major pop hubs....wish they could get these covered so, streaming either video, but mostly audio would work better for those long drives i miss my local sports shows

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

If he or she makes a habit of parking in truck stops, most of them have wifi or idle air now a days anyhow.

 

Idle air is a thing of the past, you'll still find some places with the setups, but they don't work. It's simply cheaper to just idle your truck.....And you generally have to pay for wifi, and coverage of wifi is very spotty depending where you are parked in the lot.

 

I drive mostly in the midwest, and sprint coverage works well for me. it's rare that I stop somewhere for the night that I can't watch netflix.

Edited by BKayrac
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Leaving MA and entering VT through I-91 is a fairly large dead zone. I didn't have service for roughly 30 mins. 

I second that. Sprint is spotty at best throughout Vermont and Western NH. Reentering the US from Québec, there's some LTE coverage a few miles away from the border down through Burlington, but past Burlington, I-89 is pretty Sprint LTE-less until you hit White River Junction. I-91 is no bueno, no LTE at all in Keene NH, I didn't hit any LTE signal until Fitzwilliam NH, where I picked up towers in Winchendon MA. 

 

T-Mobile was better in the rural parts of VT and NH, but Sprint was better in the rural parts of MA. Go figure. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Idle air is a thing of the past, you'll still find some places with the setups, but they don't work. It's simply cheaper to just idle your truck.....And you generally have to pay for wifi, and coverage of wifi is very spotty depending where you are parked in the lot.

 

I drive mostly in the midwest, and sprint coverage works well for me. it's rare that I stop somewhere for the night that I can't watch netflix.

That's kind of odd since they are still adding locations, but it has been a few years since i was on the road so you would know better than I. Its good to hear that Sprint coverage in the midwest is good. That's where I had the most issues. I would have no coverage west of Salinas Kansas Until I got close to Denver and no coverage through most of Wyoming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • large.unreadcontent.png.6ef00db54e758d06

  • gallery_1_23_9202.png

  • Posts

    • Fury Gran Coupe (My First Car - What a Boat...)
    • Definite usage quirks in hunting down these sites with a rainbow sim in a s24 ultra. Fell into a hole yesterday so sent off to T-Mobile purgatory. Try my various techniques. No Dish. Get within binocular range of former Sprint colocation and can see Dish equipment. Try to manually set network and everybody but no Dish is listed.  Airplane mode, restart, turn on and off sim, still no Dish. Pull upto 200ft from site straight on with antenna.  Still no Dish. Get to manual network hunting again on phone, power off phone for two minutes. Finally see Dish in manual network selection and choose it. Great signal as expected. I still think the 15 minute rule might work but lack patience. (With Sprint years ago, while roaming on AT&T, the phone would check for Sprint about every fifteen minutes. So at highway speed you could get to about the third Sprint site before roaming would end). Using both cellmapper and signalcheck.net maps to hunt down these sites. Cellmapper response is almost immediate these days (was taking weeks many months ago).  Their idea of where a site can be is often many miles apart. Of course not the same dataset. Also different ideas as how to label a site, but sector details can match with enough data (mimo makes this hard with its many sectors). Dish was using county spacing in a flat suburban area, but is now denser in a hilly richer suburban area.  Likely density of customers makes no difference as a poorer urban area with likely more Dish customers still has country spacing of sites.
    • Mike if you need more Dish data, I have been hunting down sites in western Columbus.  So far just n70 and n71 reporting although I CA all three.
    • Good catch! I meant 115932/119932. Edited my original post I've noticed the same thing lately and have just assumed that they're skipping it now because they're finally able to deploy mmWave small cells.
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...