Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

[lilotimz]

An *opinion* article full of slightly biased viewpoints and some ambiguous "facts." Yes. A very interesting article.

 

One of the worst click bait articles I've ever seen on fierce wireless. It's literally targeted straight at the typical sprint article comment section.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

[NYC126]

They need to write crap like that because their survival is based on traffic. All the mangetrolls are there.

[utiz4321]

It's a bit whinny, but it has some fair points on sprint's failure to execute. NV under delivered and took much longer and that has hurt sprint's brand. Sprint needs to both finish NV 1.0 and execute on NGN.

[EvanA]

It's a bit whinny, but it has some fair points on sprint's failure to execute. NV under delivered and took much longer and that has hurt sprint's brand. Sprint needs to both finish NV 1.0 and execute on NGN.

NV provided the solid base for future improvements. Yes, it took way too long, but it has yielded much improved voice coverage and a software based network that can easily be upgraded.

 

NV1.0 is substantially complete and has been for many months. 8T8R and NGN are the two major projects, one in progress and one in planning.

[utiz4321]

NV provided the solid base for future improvements. Yes, it took way too long, but it has yielded much improved voice coverage and a software based network that can easily be upgraded.

 

NV1.0 is substantially complete and has been for many months. 8T8R and NGN are the two major projects, one in progress and one in planning.

Look NV 1.0 by any fair assessment was a something of a small failure. It was over budget, delivered far less benefit to Sprint than was forecasted and wasn't finished on time (it still hasn't been finished). Has there been substantial improvement in their network? Yes, but it comes way late to the game and their competition have maintained their networks for the most part. Is sprint's network on par with that of the other choices out there in most places no.

 

I like sprint as a company and use their service. That doesn't mean they didn't for the most part fall flat on their faces with NV 1.0. The author of the article is right when he says that sprint has a long history of a great network just around the Conner, someday soon and never quite getting there.

[joshuam]

Look NV 1.0 by any fair assessment was a something of a small failure. It was over budget, delivered far less benefit to Sprint than was forecasted and wasn't finished on time (it still hasn't been finished). Has there been substantial improvement in their network? Yes, but it comes way late to the game and their competition have maintained their networks for the most part. Is sprint's network on par with that of the other choices out there in most places no.

 

I like sprint as a company and use their service. That doesn't mean they didn't for the most part fall flat on their faces with NV 1.0. The author of the article is right when he says that sprint has a long history of a great network just around the Conner, someday soon and never quite getting there.

That is a grossly inaccurate assessment of what Sprint accomished with NV1. Sprints call quality has improved to match Verizon in many markets, HD voice was launched, texting performance is significantly better, LTE launched and covered 225m or more POPs. Of course their competitors worked on their networks too, that is a dumb argument. Sprint now has a brand new network that has uniform gear, and will be easier to maintain moving forward...something none of their competitors can claim.

[greencat]

Offering tethering is not an industry trend, it's a desperate move by John 'The Candy Man' Legere. Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, they are all businesses. They don't make money by not charging people. Fair tethering prices, sure, but free tethering is forgoing profits they would otherwise earn on something that isn't typically a deal breaker for customers. It would be throwing money away. I hope Sprint doesn't offer free tethering, B25 and B26 are already insanely congested, and profits are good.

 

Legere gives and gives and what happens when you feed the animals? They keep coming back begging for more. Claure is a brilliant CEO, he wouldn't be foolish enough to give Sprint profits away to win some ego-stroking contest Legere is having with himself. 

You'd be a good Wireless Industry corporate drone. Just because it isn't a deal breaker doesn't mean it couldn't be a nice differentiator, possibly something that could drive business to Sprint.

 

Btw, Claure can't give away Sprint profits if they don't have any... And right now Sprint would be a lot better off getting more $60+/month customers than trying to squeeze an extra $20 from their existing base. There are 2 things that are going to make Sprint look good to customers: More customers and a better network.

[greencat]

That is a grossly inaccurate assessment of what Sprint accomished with NV1. Sprints call quality has improved to match Verizon in many markets, HD voice was launched, texting performance is significantly better, LTE launched and covered 225m or more POPs. Of course their competitors worked on their networks too, that is a dumb argument. Sprint now has a brand new network that has uniform gear, and will be easier to maintain moving forward...something none of their competitors can claim.

I don't think you have a firm grasp of what "grossly inaccurate" means. Yes Sprint's call quality improved, but here we are 3-4 years later and it still isn't finished. Did it take too long and was it over budget? Yep. Let us please hope that fiasco isn't repeated in the future, but I don't think any of us will be holding our breath.

[EvanA]

I don't think you have a firm grasp of what "grossly inaccurate" means. Yes Sprint's call quality improved, but here we are 3-4 years later and it still isn't finished. Did it take too long and was it over budget? Yep. Let us please hope that fiasco isn't repeated in the future, but I don't think any of us will be holding our breath.

NV1.0 is substantially complete.  Only a few thousand sites nationwide remain untouched by upgrades, and some of those are under extenuating circumstances or in areas where Sprint has not deemed it a priority.  The network rip and replace had a huge impact on Sprint's service quality, and for all intents and purposes, it is finished.  The massive service interruptions are over, and Sprint now has the modern network platform they need to continue upgrading and improving.

[BlueAngel]

NV1.0 is substantially complete. Only a few thousand sites nationwide remain untouched by upgrades, and some of those are under extenuating circumstances or in areas where Sprint has not deemed it a priority. The network rip and replace had a huge impact on Sprint's service quality, and for all intents and purposes, it is finished. The massive service interruptions are over, and Sprint now has the modern network platform they need to continue upgrading and improving.

I agree for the most part, service has improved quite a bit. But what really hurts Sprint right now is lack of B26, or lack of optimization. The network could be great in most areas if they focused on getting LTE to almost everyone. I personally know a few areas I frequent often and I am stuck on 3G when there is a tower 1000 feet from here. An optimized B26 would fix that quickly, I mean B26 here is worse than B25 by a large margin, while 1x800 is amazing here.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[EvanA]

I agree for the most part, service has improved quite a bit. But what really hurts Sprint right now is lack of B26, or lack of optimization. The network could be great in most areas if they focused on getting LTE to almost everyone. I personally know a few areas I frequent often and I am stuck on 3G when there is a tower 1000 feet from here. An optimized B26 would fix that quickly, I mean B26 here is worse than B25 by a large margin, while 1x800 is amazing here.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Agreed.  The tower that serves my house has optimization issues on band 26.  It should easily reach my location with great SINR, but instead it's barely reaching here and the LTE B26 SINR is piss poor (<5dB).  I've contacted Sprint and supposedly they submitted a network ticket for Ericsson, but we all know how good Ericsson is at network management....

[greencat]

NV1.0 is substantially complete.  Only a few thousand sites nationwide remain untouched by upgrades, and some of those are under extenuating circumstances or in areas where Sprint has not deemed it a priority.  The network rip and replace had a huge impact on Sprint's service quality, and for all intents and purposes, it is finished.  The massive service interruptions are over, and Sprint now has the modern network platform they need to continue upgrading and improving.

So I'm right. You just want to add a footnote because why? To not make it seem as bad as it is/was? We know there has been an improvement. There would have to be, it couldn't get much worse. As far as areas where Sprint has not deemed it a priority, I highly doubt they decided 15-20% of their network is not a priority. Maybe they'll fix those sites when they add in the 9,000 towers? You gonna hold your breath to wait and see?

[EvanA]

So I'm right. You just want to add a footnote because why? To not make it seem as bad as it is/was? We know there has been an improvement. There would have to be, it couldn't get much worse. As far as areas where Sprint has not deemed it a priority, I highly doubt they decided 15-20% of their network is not a priority. Maybe they'll fix those sites when they add in the 9,000 towers? You gonna hold your breath to wait and see?

If you wanna be technical, no carrier has 100% site upgrade completion.  That's just the way things are right now.

 

Where are you pulling this 15-20% figure from? It's not that high, it's more like 5% or less.  

[greencat]

Side note: "Substantially complete" is one of the stupidest things ever said. It was stupid last year and it makes you guys look silly to parrot it over and over again after 1000's more sites have been completed since it was 1st said by Sprint. Unless those were perhaps unsubstantial sites? LOL.

[greencat]

If you wanna be technical, no carrier has 100% site upgrade completion.  That's just the way things are right now.

 

Where are you pulling this 15-20% figure from? It's not that high, it's more like 5% or less.  

I think WiWavelength said there are "over 32,000 sites with LTE on them" (paraphrased) just the other week. Sprint had approx 38,000 sites, so roughly, not counting for new sites 15-20% don't have it, still. Believe me, I want them to have it done. It'd make me happy for it to be 5%. But when they're below 90% in major markets like LA and NY and then also behind in others mathematically it gets pretty difficult to only have 5% of sites not done.

[S4GRU]

Side note: "Substantially complete" is one of the stupidest things ever said. It was stupid last year and it makes you guys look silly to parrot it over and over again after 1000's more sites have been completed since it was 1st said by Sprint. Unless those were perhaps unsubstantial sites? LOL.

It is substantially complete. Did you know that AT&T is nowhere near 100% conversion of their sites? Per the Upper Midwest Regional Manager I spoke with a week ago, he said they were around 85% in his region. In my city, they have converted 10 of 13 sites. Which is 77%. Verizon is likely much higher, and Tmo is probably somewhere between Sprint and AT&T.

 

We get additional info here at S4GRU that we get to use to micro review the progress. Something we can't do with the other carriers. To use that data against Sprint and then try to pretend the other carriers are done because there is no similar measure will not fly here.

 

I'm not going to let you come into my house and talk crap like that. You're done, now you're just trolling.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[EvanA]

I think WiWavelength said there are "over 32,000 sites with LTE on them" (paraphrased) just the other week. Sprint had approx 38,000 sites, so roughly, not counting for new sites 15-20% don't have it, still. Believe me, I want them to have it done. It'd make me happy for it to be 5%. But when they're below 90% in major markets like LA and NY and then also behind in others mathematically it gets pretty difficult to only have 5% of sites not done.

A site without LTE does not mean that it hasn't been upgraded. There are plenty of sites with NV equipment that don't have LTE due to Sprint's poor handling of backhaul orders or backhaul providers dragging their feet.

 

Being at lower completion in a single market does not make it difficult to be at <5% incomplete nationwide. Sprint has many markets with 99-100% completed physical upgrades.

[greencat]

A site without LTE does not mean that it hasn't been upgraded. There are plenty of sites with NV equipment that don't have LTE due to Sprint's poor handling of backhaul orders.

 

Being at lower completion in a single market does not make it difficult to be at <5% completion nationwide. Sprint has many markets with 99-100% completed physical upgrades.

THANK YOU!!!

[buckhunter]

Haven't been around for awhile... Life had been busy lol. Anyway This has been happening for over 2 years.... I am .06 of a mile from the tower which was "Upgraded" over 2 yrs ago. Before the upgrade 3G speeds were great. Sprint continues to act like everything is working on the new equipment.... Not sure how much longer I can deal with this BS. Everybody else is happy or waiting to be happy with lte.... I'm just trying to get decent 3G speeds back for now.....

 

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/sprint-stops-throttling-heavy-users-to-avoid-net-neutrality-complaints/

Hope they don't throttle me or I will just have to turn data off when not near WiFi [emoji23]

[Arysyn]

I just wanted to quickly state that I'm hoping the best for Sprint's NGN project in what hopefully will be the last major network development process they will need to do for quite some time.

 

I've had both good and bad experiences using Sprint's network, which in speaking with my very kind friend and S4GRU-based Sprint service provider/consultant, helped me to figure out what likely caused the bad experience I had, and what is needed to resolve that for me and others with related/similar issues with Sprint's network.

 

The main complaint seems to be coverage holes where LTE and/or the signal drops completely. By adding additional towers, this ought to resolve that issue, and if those towers are full with band 41 at least 10x10, then there is only one other issue I've noted, though only from my own experience.

 

Sprint's band 41 is excellent! So much I've noticed, along with as much of that spectrum Sprint has of it, that if Sprint were to get even a third of it fully implemented and powered on all towers, a good 20x20 of it would be enough to seriously rival AT&T and Verizon. The more of that spectrum beyond that, which is enough for up to 60x60, then as long as it is fully active everywhere, then at the very least Sprint will go to being revered rather than loathed in its reputation for speed.

 

Again, I'd love to see Sprint succeed with this. However, my biggest complaint other than the signal drops was the mysteriously very slow 800mhz and 1900mhz speeds I experienced. If most of the towers had full band 41, which I imagine will happen with carrier aggregation, then Sprint will be awesome!

[Dkoellerwx]

Sprint's band 41 is excellent! So much I've noticed, along with as much of that spectrum Sprint has of it, that if Sprint were to get even a third of it fully implemented and powered on all towers, a good 20x20 of it would be enough to seriously rival AT&T and Verizon. The more of that spectrum beyond that, which is enough for up to 60x60, then as long as it is fully active everywhere, then at the very least Sprint will go to being revered rather than loathed in its reputation for speed.

 

There is no 20x20 or 60x60 Band 41. It is TDD-LTE, not FDD-LTE. 

[Arysyn]

There is no 20x20 or 60x60 Band 41. It is TDD-LTE, not FDD-LTE.

Someone explained that to me here yesterday with a similar effect to it once carrier aggregation is fully active. I also mentioned carrier aggregation in my post, except for the TDD bit, as I didn't mean to be technical in that post, beyond information of those network aspects which relate to speed enhancement.

[BlueAngel]

Agreed. The tower that serves my house has optimization issues on band 26. It should easily reach my location with great SINR, but instead it's barely reaching here and the LTE B26 SINR is piss poor (<5dB). I've contacted Sprint and supposedly they submitted a network ticket for Ericsson, but we all know how good Ericsson is at network management....

I've contacted corporate and got told things are as they should be, and "depending on your terrain" etc etc they're clueless.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Fraydog]

If you look at most of the world, Sprint's network would measure very well at this point. The problem seems to be that the other networks are even better here. Lots of people miss the global perspective.

 

Sprint has already significantly increased their cell count and we're in 1H 2015. It's good to see positive momentum for a change.

 

That said, there's still a long way to go.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[utiz4321]

That is a grossly inaccurate assessment of what Sprint accomished with NV1. Sprints call quality has improved to match Verizon in many markets, HD voice was launched, texting performance is significantly better, LTE launched and covered 225m or more POPs. Of course their competitors worked on their networks too, that is a dumb argument. Sprint now has a brand new network that has uniform gear, and will be easier to maintain moving forward...something none of their competitors can claim.

No it isn't. You are miss understanding what i am getting at. Sprint made this investment to see a return, the original timetable was decided on because it maximized the return to their investment. Since they missed their time table so badly they didn't achieve that benefit. The fact that it is stil not complete continues to prevent them from seeing the full benefit of NV 1.0. There network has improved but it stil under performs the other carriers in most markets and all you have to do is look at root to see that. Their share of the root awards has jumped but they still have the fewest. Also, in some of the markets they lose in the gap between them and the rest is wider than in markets the perform well in.