Definitely not in vain. Sprint never would have had the number of customers and value without it to be sold. It would have been bankruptcy. But after all these years and effort, it kinda feels like it.
But for most of us, it sure was fun. T-Mobile network hunting is also fun. Just not quite in the same way.
Your post made me nostalgic, though. Making me think back on all the years we have been tower chasing. I have moved from Nevada to New Mexico to South Dakota to Washington State in all this time. Some of us have gotten married, had kids. Some have lost spouses and kids. There have been car accidents out there on the roads chasing towers.
But the joy when finding a WiMax signal where there wasn't supposed to be one. Or the first Sprint LTE signal to light up your phone. And you may have driven hundreds to miles to get to it. Or that 1x 800 signal from over 50 miles away that you wondered if it was real. Or seeing activity at your local Sprint site. Or falling asleep at your keyboard updating map pins. Or zooming in and out of layers in Sensorly to see if all your recently laid trails appear.
It was a blast! And though I single handedly am responsible from draining oil from one part of the Alaskan wilderness, I am glad to have done it all.
Now I am ready to start to get back to it. Part Deux. I traded in my full size Lincoln pickup for a compact Ford Maverick with much better fuel economy and teaching my youngest to drive. I got out my spectrum analyzer, binoculars and started watching towers again. I got to pass this on to the next generation.
"Son, come here for a moment. Let me tell you about the magic inside your cellphone..."
Robert