article claims that Sprint LTE launches with "3G speeds"

[irev210]

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/132847-sprint-4g-lte-launches-promises-3g-speeds-for-its-path-to-domination

 

 

Sad that this author is completely ignorant on all things Sprint and they post up this garbage.

 

However, Sprint is also likely using exactly the same backhaul that it used for 3G. As we’ve discussed previously, deploying LTE without improving the backhaul will result in speeds that most people commonly associate with 3G. Indeed, it compares only slightly favorably to AT&T’s HSPA service. However, performance will get worse as more Sprint LTE users use the network if the backhaul situation doesn’t improve quickly.

 

Another one:

 

http://gizmodo.com/5919387/sprints-upcoming-4g-lte-networkat-least-its-faster-than-wimax

 

 

Sprint needs to shake up their reputation. Sad they are still getting crushed by bloggers.

[blkmiles]

I have no problem with them stating Sprint's stand on their LTE is 6-8Mbps down and 2-3Mbps up. That is what Sprint is guaranteeing and what they are basing their review off of. What didn't happen in this article is any actual tests. Users are reporting speeds in excess of 20Mbps.

[WiWavelength]

Neal Gompa is a friend of mine and usually knows his stuff, but this is without a doubt a speculative, "poorly researched" article. Kudos to S4GRU member irev210 for a strong, factual rebuttal.

 

http://www.extremete...h-to-domination

 

AJ

[pii100]

Wow, why even post that article? Its more like a forum post based on speculation and no research.

[S4GRU]

Neal Gompa is a friend of mine and usually knows his stuff, but this is without a doubt a speculative, "poorly researched" article. Kudos to S4GRU member irev210 for a strong, factual rebuttal.

 

http://www.extremete...h-to-domination

 

AJ

 

Wow! I would never have thought one of the worst article of the year awards would go to Neal. That was very, very poor. Wow. Good job, irev210!!! S4GRU members should go over there and like irev210's post en masse!!!

 

Robert

[twospirits]

Wow. Went over and like the rebuttal post.

[S4GRU]

The 6-8Mbps speeds quoted by Sprint are not so much a fully burdened network speed, but more about average speeds in the outer half of a cell.

 

If you take a Sprint LTE site and built a heat map around it in the signal area, and tied colors to speed ranges, in an ideal site, you would see this:

• White = 25Mbps+
  
• Red = 15 - 25Mbps
  
• Yellow = 8 - 15Mbps
  
• Green = 5 - 8Mbps
  
• Blue = < 5Mbps
  

You would only have white, immediately around the site. Red would ring around that pretty tightly too. Yellow is a little larger still, but the bulk of the area around the site would be green. And the fringe would be blue.

 

LTE performance is very signal strength dependent. Seeing the above explained, what should Sprint advertise? Should they advertise the white, or red? Heck no. It makes sense to advertise the green. They can easily support it, and a lot of the network will be in green areas...at least more than any other. There will also be a lot of yellow, especially in denser deployed areas, where the heat maps will overlap quite a bit.

 

People who don't know what they're talking about need to shut up and get an education before they start blabbing. I think I may need a vacation.

[WiWavelength]

Neal is a strong T-Mobile advocate. Maybe this is just speculation on my part, but Neal is probably influenced by a bit of envy, as Sprint's significant jump start on LTE is coming to fruition. And T-Mobile is once again the odd man out in the mobile data scene.

 

We all let sentiment and irrationality get to us sometimes. But that does not excuse disseminating specious info that is so contrary to fact.

 

AJ

[iansltx]

Added my 2¢ in the article comments...a bit more lengthy than the previous comment. As a current T_Mobile data customer, I can say for a fact that T-Mo's H+ network will be slower, on average, than Sprint's LTE one once Sprint is anywhere near complete with a market launch.

 

Now, when T-Mobile launches LTE on its AWS spectrum, they'll have similar cell sizes to Sprint, even fewer customers, and maybe even the capacity to put i a 10x10 carrier in many places. But by that point Clear TD-LTE and Sprint SMR LTE should be online...and in some cases T-Mobile will have the exact same 5x5 LTE carrier size as Sprint, since T-Mo will have to keep 10 MHz of HSPA+ online in every market where they have AWS for the foreseeable future, and AWS is the only place they plan on deploying LTE for now.

[WiWavelength]

Added my 2¢ in the article comments...a bit more lengthy than the previous comment.

 

Nah, I would give you at least 11¢ for that well formulated comment. Very nice job.

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

I'm so proud of you guys. The responses to the article are fantastic. We are the preeminent site for wireless enthusiasts. Yeehaww!

 

Robert

[Josh]

I'm so proud of you guys. The responses to the article are fantastic. We are the preeminent site for wireless enthusiasts. Yeehaww!

 

Robert

 

The thing that still surprises me is how much other sites think that sprint will actually go bankrupt and fail as a company. They have some irrational unhealthy hatred for sprint and want to cut them down before they can even research the difference. Anyway, I know that I post in other blogs as well and have recently noticed that when someone responds with good factual information, they are usually either from this site or quote information from it!

My opinion is that sprint should send any people with complaints to view this site so that they can be better informed on what is happening and when.

[WiWavelength]

My opinion is that sprint should send any people with complaints to view this site so that they can be better informed on what is happening and when.

 

...but give them read only access. Otherwise, spare us the ill informed but highly vocal complainers.

 

AJ

[QWIKSTRIKE]

I'm so proud of you guys. The responses to the article are fantastic. We are the preeminent site for wireless enthusiasts. Yeehaww!

 

Robert

 

Hell I am also proud of you man, telling him to come over here to get his info straight.ROFL You, and Irev gave as well as a few others gave it to him.

[Rawvega]

...but give them read only access. Otherwise, spare us the ill informed but highly vocal complainers.

 

AJ

 

Amen. Had my fill of that over on SprintUsers.

[Ghostalker]

Chalk one up for the good guys!

[irev210]

 

We all let sentiment and irrationality get to us sometimes. But that does not excuse disseminating specious info that is so contrary to fact.

 

AJ

 

Like 100Gbps backhaul

 

New post in the comment section from Conan Kudo.

 

Doing the math... I can't even get my head around how 10Gbps of backhaul would even be remotely usable for T-Mobile. Might as well light some money on fire.

 

 

 

Fiber is definitely good, but what is the aggregate amount of backhaul to a given base station? Because from what I've heard, Sprint's not giving even half as much as what T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are putting up.

At the very least, T-Mobile is beefing up to 10Gbps of aggregate backhaul with a combination of several types of backhaul links. And that's per base station.

I've already heard rumblings of 100Gbps of aggregate backhaul being connected to base station equipment on AT&T and Verizon in areas where they plan to dual-band LTE really soon. So far, I've only seen 10Gbps on the stations now, though.

[Josh]

...but give them read only access. Otherwise, spare us the ill informed but highly vocal complainers.

 

AJ

 

Agreed sir!

[Conan Kudo]

I would love to be wrong. I really would. But the information I have shows that Sprint isn't putting out enough to offer what others are or will offer.

I'll freely admit that I'm a huge T-Mobile advocate, but I regularly use all four carriers (as well as one regional carrier).

I'm still angry that T-Mobile doesn't have 3G deployed where I live, and AT&T data performance is mostly acceptable nowadays in Starkville. In my hometown of Clinton, it has issues though. Sprint performance stinks here. Verizon's performance on CDMA is equally bad, while its LTE performance is fantastic. In Jackson (the capital city, right next to my hometown), Sprint performance is pretty good, Verizon CDMA stinks, AT&T HSPA stinks, T-Mobile HSPA+ is excellent, and Verizon LTE is fantastic.

If there's information that S4GRU has that is better than what I've got, I would definitely like to know. Until then, I work with what I have.

[pyroscott]

I'm so proud of you guys. The responses to the article are fantastic. We are the preeminent site for wireless enthusiasts. Yeehaww!

 

Robert

 

I don't get how you would write an article like that without proper research. If Sprint used the 3G backhaul it would be so pitifully insufficient nearly everywhere, it wouldn't even make sense to upgrade the network to LTE.

[iansltx]

I can see 10 Gbps of backhaul per major market, or 100 Gbps for the entire country, but a single cell site can't do anything with more than a gigabit or so, unless it's a microwave hub. Even if you have four 5x5 LTE channels per sector, all running at full tilt, with six sectors on a cell site, that's still shy of 700 Mbps...and that's a stratospheric combination of carriers and sectors at this point.

 

Never mind the fact that AT&T's backhaul RFQs call for two Ethernet PVCs with a sliding scale from 50 to 500 Mbps per PVC. I hear VZW is trying to get dark fiber to its cell sites but my guess is that, out of the hundreds of thousands of cell sites in the U.S. right now (spread over every single carrier), maybe a handful have anything more than a gigabit (or maybe a redundant gigabit) provisioned to them, with an actual commit of something much lower than 1 Gbps.

[iansltx]

I would love to be wrong. I really would. But the information I have shows that Sprint isn't putting out enough to offer what others are or will offer.

 

...

 

If there's information that S4GRU has that is better than what I've got, I would definitely like to know. Until then, I work with what I have.

 

Welcome to S4GRU.

 

Take a look at the speedtests of folks who are in current Sprint LTE markets. They're all over the map right now, but folks are getting some pretty high numbers. Not VZW in early 2011 numbers, but pretty high numbers nonetheless. Eventually that network, with that capacity, will hit your neighborhood (there's a thread in this forum with estimated dates or the first few rounds of markets). Though, depending on where you are, that may take a year or two.

 

If you're in a market where Sprint will be applying band-aid 3G fixes (rather than Network Vision/LTE) for the next eighteen months, I wouldn't fault you at all for switching to VZ LTE (and its associated, low, caps and high overages per gigabyte). However don't knock Sprint LTE for the sole reason that you can't get it.

 

Don't get me wrong. Sprint 3G performance is not great, to put it lightly, in many markets right now. Clear WiMAX is unreliable in many of the markets where it's deployed...I've used the former for the past five-plus years (five on contract, plus on and off before then back into 2005 or so when EvDO was just being released), and the latter over the past couple years when I've been able to find it. I, out of anyone, would be very likely to paint their LTE with a tainted brush from my past experiences. But it's a different animal...and that's why I now have another couple years on my Sprint contract, instead of a couple months, followed by two years with Verizon or T-Mobile (actually, I'd just get SIMple Mobile, but you get my point).

[Rawvega]

I would love to be wrong. I really would. But the information I have shows that Sprint isn't putting out enough to offer what others are or will offer.

 

I'll freely admit that I'm a huge T-Mobile advocate, but I regularly use all four carriers (as well as one regional carrier).

 

I'm still angry that T-Mobile doesn't have 3G deployed where I live, and AT&T data performance is mostly acceptable nowadays in Starkville. In my hometown of Clinton, it has issues though. Sprint performance stinks here. Verizon's performance on CDMA is equally bad, while its LTE performance is fantastic. In Jackson (the capital city, right next to my hometown), Sprint performance is pretty good, Verizon CDMA stinks, AT&T HSPA stinks, T-Mobile HSPA+ is excellent, and Verizon LTE is fantastic.

 

If there's information that S4GRU has that is better than what I've got, I would definitely like to know. Until then, I work with what I have.

 

Fiber is definitely good, but what is the aggregate amount of backhaul to a given base station? Because from what I've heard, Sprint's not giving even half as much as what T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are putting up.

 

At the very least, T-Mobile is beefing up to 10Gbps of aggregate backhaul with a combination of several types of backhaul links. And that's per base station.

 

I've already heard rumblings of 100Gbps of aggregate backhaul being connected to base station equipment on AT&T and Verizon in areas where they plan to dual-band LTE really soon. So far, I've only seen 10Gbps on the stations now, though.

 

Seems like what you're working with is mostly hearsay. Just sayin'....

[pii100]

I would love to see the equipment with a 100GbE card they are putting in those base stations!

[ericdabbs]

Added my 2¢ in the article comments...a bit more lengthy than the previous comment. As a current T_Mobile data customer, I can say for a fact that T-Mo's H+ network will be slower, on average, than Sprint's LTE one once Sprint is anywhere near complete with a market launch.

 

Now, when T-Mobile launches LTE on its AWS spectrum, they'll have similar cell sizes to Sprint, even fewer customers, and maybe even the capacity to put i a 10x10 carrier in many places. But by that point Clear TD-LTE and Sprint SMR LTE should be online...and in some cases T-Mobile will have the exact same 5x5 LTE carrier size as Sprint, since T-Mo will have to keep 10 MHz of HSPA+ online in every market where they have AWS for the foreseeable future, and AWS is the only place they plan on deploying LTE for now.

 

I love your response to the ExtremeTech article.