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 I do not know if there is already a thread for this but I left Sprint back in June due to the horrible speeds after 10 years with them I went to T-Mobile. I plan on switching back before the year is over once NV is more blanketed in Ohio more so Columbus OH. But for anyone who has a good amount of LTE in their state, How are you LTE speeds. Currently I am pulling in 30mbps on T-Mobile which is nice but I do not need all that. So how are Sprint's LTE speeds and how consistent are they?

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When you are in a completed area I'm sure it's 5-12 mbps on average. I have seen as fast as 39mbps in my 5x5 market. If you just use the web, apps, etc it will be plenty fast.

Thats about all I need, I stream music and watch netflix but on Tmo HSPA+ which capped at 10mbps for me I was doing them things with no effort or buffering. But the lte speeds for sprint are kinda in line with what Verizon offers in real world situations.

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I was pulling 28.5 down in Mountain View, CA the other day. I was 150-200 feet from the tower. It was really good.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

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Thats about all I need, I stream music and watch netflix but on Tmo HSPA+ which capped at 10mbps for me I was doing them things with no effort or buffering. But the lte speeds for sprint are kinda in line with what Verizon offers in real world situations.

Yes very similar.

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Keep in mind speed tests are not 100% scientifically accurate. There are hundreds of different little things that affect the overall speed you receive and the algorithm used to determine it. Packet size, tower load, overall test payload size, the specific server you are connecting to, the sector on the tower you are on, etc. Speed tests are decently accurate to get a general picture, but are not scientifically accurate in any way, there are too many variable that you cannot account for.

 

The above posts are evidence of that. a 5x5MHz LTE carrier is theoretically limited to 37.5Mbps. This is in optimal lab conditions, you likely will almost never get that in the real world. Any tests showing speeds above that are impossible and a glitch in the speed test being performed. The speeds are likely close to what it says, with a margin of error, but any tests you see above 37.5MHz are not possible on either Sprint's 1900MHz or 800MHz LTE networks. Now, if they happened to be connected to a Clearwire 2600MHz site, that's a different story as you're seeing potential speeds up into the 90MBps range, but no phones support that band currently, only mobile broadband hotspots and USB cards.

 

All of that being said, likely if you are getting 4-5Mbps you won't notice a difference from 30Mbps speeds unless you are downloading a large file. The main thing that you will notice however, is ping time. How long it takes from when you click on something until the signal for it actually reaches the server, and then how long it takes to get back after the server processes it. You can have a 50Mbps connection, but if you have a 150mb ping it will feel much slower than a 40ms ping on a 4Mbps connection. For 90% of users, the ping is the major factor in what they perceive as speed on a mobile device when browsing, playing games, etc. True bandwidth throughput is only perceived as speed when they are doing speed tests or downloading a file.

 

Sprint is focusing on ping and consistent speeds with Network Vision. They are not trying to have the fastest overall, they are trying to have the most stable. This is much more likely possible with LTE spread across 3 different frequencies nationwide. The idea is users will connect to the highest frequency available, leaving the lower frequencies for others that aren't in range.

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Keep in mind speed tests are not 100% scientifically accurate. There are hundreds of different little things that affect the overall speed you receive and the algorithm used to determine it. Packet size, tower load, overall test payload size, the specific server you are connecting to, the sector on the tower you are on, etc. Speed tests are decently accurate to get a general picture, but are not scientifically accurate in any way, there are too many variable that you cannot account for.

 

The above posts are evidence of that. a 5x5MHz LTE carrier is theoretically limited to 37.5Mbps. This is in optimal lab conditions, you likely will almost never get that in the real world. Any tests showing speeds above that are impossible and a glitch in the speed test being performed. The speeds are likely close to what it says, with a margin of error, but any tests you see above 37.5MHz are not possible on either Sprint's 1900MHz or 800MHz LTE networks. Now, if they happened to be connected to a Clearwire 2600MHz site, that's a different story as you're seeing potential speeds up into the 90MBps range, but no phones support that band currently, only mobile broadband hotspots and USB cards.

 

All of that being said, likely if you are getting 4-5Mbps you won't notice a difference from 30Mbps speeds unless you are downloading a large file. The main thing that you will notice however, is ping time. How long it takes from when you click on something until the signal for it actually reaches the server, and then how long it takes to get back after the server processes it. You can have a 50Mbps connection, but if you have a 150mb ping it will feel much slower than a 40ms ping on a 4Mbps connection. For 90% of users, the ping is the major factor in what they perceive as speed on a mobile device when browsing, playing games, etc. True bandwidth throughput is only perceived as speed when they are doing speed tests or downloading a file.

 

Sprint is focusing on ping and consistent speeds with Network Vision. They are not trying to have the fastest overall, they are trying to have the most stable. This is much more likely possible with LTE spread across 3 different frequencies nationwide. The idea is users will connect to the highest frequency available, leaving the lower frequencies for others that aren't in range.

I would rather have a quality network over the 30mbps that I am getting now with T-Mobile. At times when I am on the web it will hang up and take a little longer to get the info to and from. Even on spotify my music at times will stop as if I had a bad data connection. But like you said your not gonna notice too much of a difference if you were getting 4mbps or 30mbps except in downloading a large file but even then is the difference really that great but for sprint to focus on its ping is the better move than the speed. Verizon may not be as fast as At&t and T-Mobile but there is a difference in how fast info comes and goes and I witnessed that on my friends phone and his speeds on lte was slower than mine. I would have a burst of speed then it hangs up finishing out the loading where his would flow through with the loading. For sprint and even verizon the speed will come at a later time after they tweak their network the way they want it.

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I see speedtests ranging from 35 megabits in rural areas to overloaded sites running at 30 kilobits in the heart of town. It just varies so much depending on the area that you will have to look for yourself.

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 I do not know if there is already a thread for this but I left Sprint back in June due to the horrible speeds after 10 years with them I went to T-Mobile. I plan on switching back before the year is over once NV is more blanketed in Ohio more so Columbus OH. But for anyone who has a good amount of LTE in their state, How are you LTE speeds. Currently I am pulling in 30mbps on T-Mobile which is nice but I do not need all that. So how are Sprint's LTE speeds and how consistent are they?

 

To be honest, if you are looking for consistent LTE speeds, I would advise you to wait until mid 2014 before switching back to Sprint. Columbus has very little LTE and I don't feel confident that there will be enough improvement before the end of 2013.  I know is Sprint is trying in Columbus to catch up but there are still too many unknowns with the in progress sites and don't know how long it will take before those get launched.

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I was pulling 28.5 down in Mountain View, CA the other day. I was 150-200 feet from the tower. It was really good.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

Did you pick up any 800 in mtn view? I haven't yet in mtn view and epa.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

 

 

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Did you pick up any 800 in mtn view? I haven't yet in mtn view and epa.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

iPhone PRL's put 800 CDMA lower than PCS voice, so I didn't think to check and see if it showed up. When I go back up on the 20th I'll see if I can get it to show up.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

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iPhone PRL's put 800 CDMA lower than PCS voice, so I didn't think to check and see if it showed up. When I go back up on the 20th I'll see if I can get it to show up.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

Ah ok. Visiting the big G? I miss it there.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

 

 

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Ah ok. Visiting the big G? I miss it there.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

No, I'm going to see a cardiologist up there. I was up for a 3M meeting last week.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

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...

The above posts are evidence of that. a 5x5MHz LTE carrier is theoretically limited to 37.5Mbps. This is in optimal lab conditions, you likely will almost never get that in the real world. Any tests showing speeds above that are impossible and a glitch in the speed test being performed. The speeds are likely close to what it says, with a margin of error, but any tests you see above 37.5MHz are not possible on either Sprint's 1900MHz or 800MHz LTE networks.

Plus 37.5M could actually be 38,400K or even 39,320K in a lot of applications that don't unambiguously state or account for the difference between when they mean Mib and Kib and Mb and Kb... This is related to the common rage on how a "1TB" HDD is like "931GB" on some OSes.

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To be honest, if you are looking for consistent LTE speeds, I would advise you to wait until mid 2014 before switching back to Sprint. Columbus has very little LTE and I don't feel confident that there will be enough improvement before the end of 2013. I know is Sprint is trying in Columbus to catch up but there are still too many unknowns with the in progress sites and don't know how long it will take before those get launched.

Ahh-hem...

 

Remember, Columbus is a WiMax market. It's possible Clearwire will have all these site TD-LTE capable before the end of the year. So a triband LTE device may have very nice coverage in Columbus much sooner than Mid 2014.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

 

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Plus 37.5M could actually be 38,400K or even 39,320K in a lot of applications that don't unambiguously state or account for the difference between when they mean Mib and Kib and Mb and Kb... This is related to the common rage on how a "1TB" HDD is like "931GB" on some OSes.

Well, the industry standard is supposed to be, for computer memory, 1 KB = 1024 B (aka 1 KiB). For storage and data transmission (networks, etc), 1 KB = 1000 B. 37.5 Mbps should be 37,500,000,000 bits per second (maintaining the 3 sig figs). Should be. I wish we could all just agree and kick the asses of people who use the units wrong.

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Well, the industry standard is supposed to be, for computer memory, 1 KB = 1024 B (aka 1 KiB). For storage and data transmission (networks, etc), 1 KB = 1000 B. 37.5 Mbps should be 37,500,000,000 bits per second (maintaining the 3 sig figs). Should be. I wish we could all just agree and kick the asses of people who use the units wrong.

True story. Specifically, I wish it would be unified and enforced like it is in it uTorrent, which displays any combination of bps, Bps, K, Ki, M, and Mi that you like, if you ask, but converts and displays them all correctly. And therefore that anytime the "K" prefix is used, regardless of setting, it means 1000; and if you really want to display multiples of 1024, use KiB. Pretty sure the public will quickly either get the drift or not notice at all.

 

This is akin to the Y2K bug to me... really shitty, shortsighted planning, a massive failure by those who arguably should know math quite well, that every multiple increases the magnitude of the error proportionally. Thus, if you're the NSA (and presumably you are familiar with this math, but why are we doing it at all?), and you order up a zettabyte of disk space, you'd be required to realize that is actually 867 EiB, and some things will indeed report that as 1 ZB, some as 867 EiB, and sadly, sometimes as 867 EB. That last one is the confounding bit, since it itself should mean 752 EiB. How is one to track all the apps and OSes that mess this up? With the latter, a report of 1 ZB (when it is wrong and mislabels KiB etc as KB) would mean 1.18 ZB in reality! Utter nonsense.

 

Thus my above suspicion that the Speedtest app is probably converting wrong somewhere. But an Ookla dev is more than welcome to clear it up for me. ;)

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