What's your speed like RIGHT NOW?

[BenChase7]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

 

Well, up until recently I was pulling about .25 down, but lately, things have gotten much better, just ran two speed tests via the OpenSignal app. I wonder if this is signs of Network Vision improvements.

This is on 3G:

Test 1: 896kbps Download, 395 uplaod

Test 2: 759 Download, 342 upload

I'm in North Phoenix

[S4GRU]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

 

Sprint is doing some band-aid enhancements ahead of Network Vision. This is likely what you're experiencing. Network Vision should bring 1.4MB to 2.5MB 3G download speeds.

[Guest JaniceLee92]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

[S4GRU]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

@JaniceLee92...Welcome to the S4GRU forums! I'm not sure why your post didn't show up. You may want to try again. Hope to see you around.

[jpkjeff]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

Since I spent a lot of time on the 3rd floor of the building where I work yesterday, I decided to run some additional speed tests to see if height would help. All I can say is...WOW! Being up that high helped (I'm assuming), because I got the fastest 3G and 4G speeds I've ever seen on my Samsung Epic 4G: 1425 kbps down, and 552 kbps up (subsequent tests were all very close to this figure, lowest was 1311 kbps/down and 448kbps up). On 4G, best I got was 6937kbps/down, and 1297kbps up, with subesquent tests all above 6mbp/s. Previously, the best 3G speed I had ever received was just over 1mbps, and best 4G about 3.5mbps. (Test was run near I-44 & NW 36th Street in NW OKC).

[S4GRU]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

Being up high in a building or on a hill or mountain can be positive for data speed or negative. Sometimes it raises the noise floor, experiences more interference or your device sees too many towers (especially in really urban environments). But it's usually fine until you get above 50' to 60' off the ground. Sounds good in your case!

[owensri2]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 26 January 2012

 

 

Good Lord!

 

[jpkjeff]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 31 January 2012

 

Had some faster speeds (briefly) at home and work back in early January but since then back to the same old same old.

 

Speed tests ran right now at 6:25pm CST showed 588/401 (kbps) and then 440/291 (kbps) with 189 and 181ms ping rates, respectively. That's pretty typical during peak times here, though when I've run tests later at night it will often be double that...but not always.

 

4G speed tests remain the same at work...generally in the 3-4 mbp/s down and about 700-800kbps up.

 

However, the 3G speeds are better then when they were tanking in the 100-200 (and sometimes less) range back in October and early November.

[Roberto]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 1 February 2012

 

In my bedroom in Jacksonville, FL.

[S4GRU]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 1 February 2012

 

Roberto...I've only had one 3G tower ever with performance like that. It was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And that one tower consistently puts out 1.8MB to 2.2MB download times. However, the rest of the city is around 100k. LOL

 

BTW, thanks for joining S4GRU. Welcome!

 

-Robert, S4GRU

[Guest SprintingWolf]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 4 February 2012

 

sup all! new to the board and first post.

i am sitting in my office at present (on a saturday no less) and here is what i am getting :-D

Using SpeedTest.net app...

(3g) ping = 193ms, down = .2Mbps, up = .03Mbps

(4g) ping = 241ms, down = .1Mbps, up = timed out!

[pyroscott]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 4 February 2012

 

I ventured to Minneapolis tonight for a basketball game. I ran a speed test on the Wimax and it got 13.92 Mbps down 1.5 up. When I got home, I tried the 3G and got .95Mbps down and .43 up. Turned on Wifi and got 29.92 Mbps down and 1.91 down... I guess I stay on wifi...

[Guest christopherc18]

In Westford, Mass. I usually get .80 down and .70 up and that's with the data speed upgrade according to network.sprint.com.

[S4GRU]

In Westford, Mass. I usually get .80 down and .70 up and that's with the data speed upgrade according to network.sprint.com.

 

Hey christopherc18. I sent you your account login in a Private Message to the old site. Go check it out so you can sign in and post in the new forums.

 

We are going to be blocking Guest comments. Too many problems with that, in general.

 

Sent from Tapatalk App

[Guest jared1202]

In Corpus Christi, Tx. Speedtest shows .09 Mbps down and .20 Mbps up. According to CDMA Field test its connected to a tower further away than a tower located on the TAMUCC campus where my office is located.

[S4GRU]

In Corpus Christi, Tx. Speedtest shows .09 Mbps down and .20 Mbps up. According to CDMA Field test its connected to a tower further away than a tower located on the TAMUCC campus where my office is located.

 

Hey, Jared1202...were you able to sign into your account with the temporary password I sent you? You are showing up as a Guest in this post.

[owensri2]

I was thrilled earlier today:

 

[S4GRU]

I was thrilled earlier today:

 

I've only had 2MB+ 3G speed tests twice. And like Chris Matthews, I had a thrill running up my leg both times!

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Migrated from Original Forum. Originally Posted 11 January 2012

 

 

Sprint is doing some band-aid enhancements ahead of Network Vision. This is likely what you're experiencing. Network Vision should bring 1.4MB to 2.5MB 3G download speeds.

 

I was under the impression that NetworkVision isn't directly going to help speeds in Sprints current "troubled" areas. the whole NetworkVision thing is mainly about Sprint being able to cover more area with less towers since they will be able to switch between all freq seamlessly.

It will help speeds in areas where if you currently get 2 bars of signal, and then after the upgrade you are getting stronger better signal, but areas that are troubled and over capacity greatly I understand it wont help them as much.

 

Example my tower I'm within .5mi to my home and it is extremely over capacity which in turn has absolutely destroyed my 3G speeds here. Full signal and I along with everyone else pull speeds way below Sprints posted Average's(600kbps). 6am I can pull about 500kbps, and then by 11am speeds drop already off to 300kbps average for me and never get better.

 

So for people like me in my situation, which is a ton of people, speeds wont improve until they add the backhaul to the tower to handle the capacity. In my case thats set to be done by 3/30 according to the last chat I had where the Advance Tech rep screenshot me the orders for that tower exactly.

[S4GRU]

I was under the impression that NetworkVision isn't directly going to help speeds in Sprints current "troubled" areas. the whole NetworkVision thing is mainly about Sprint being able to cover more area with less towers since they will be able to switch between all freq seamlessly.

It will help speeds in areas where if you currently get 2 bars of signal, and then after the upgrade you are getting stronger better signal, but areas that are troubled and over capacity greatly I understand it wont help them as much.

 

Example my tower I'm within .5mi to my home and it is extremely over capacity which in turn has absolutely destroyed my 3G speeds here. Full signal and I along with everyone else pull speeds way below Sprints posted Average's(600kbps). 6am I can pull about 500kbps, and then by 11am speeds drop already off to 300kbps average for me and never get better.

 

So for people like me in my situation, which is a ton of people, speeds wont improve until they add the backhaul to the tower to handle the capacity. In my case thats set to be done by 3/30 according to the last chat I had where the Advance Tech rep screenshot me the orders for that tower exactly.

 

It's going to be very different, depending on the dynamics of each individual cell. Backhaul will be upgraded to microwave bridge or fiber at all NV sites. So this will dramatically improve 3G speeds. For most users, it will result in speeds from 1.4MB to 2.5MB speeds, with a good signal. And good signals are going to be more plentiful with radios being installed up high behind antennas.

 

However, if after an NV system upgrade the cell site is over carrier capacity, Sprint may still need to add additional EVDO carriers to create these types of 3G speeds. Performance could falter if there are not enough EVDO carriers installed at the new NV tower to handle the needs of the users within the cell.

 

But beyond additional carriers, Sprint has many Capacity Constrained Markets. Places where all the licensed spectrum they have is used up. This is the case on many cell sites in Chicago. We did a write up about Sprint's challenges with Network Vision and limited spectrum last Friday.

 

In the cases where CCM's are an issue, there is no quick and easy fix for Sprint to keep 3G speeds up for users within the spectrum maxed out cell. Sprint will need to split the cell and add towers in these instances. And Sprint hasn't said whether they will do the cell splitting with Network Vision, or in some future capex.

 

The people in CCM's within a cell that needs to be split will be the folks who will not get as much relief from Network Vision as everyone else. I do believe that 80% or more of the Sprint 3G network will have speeds above 1.4MB when NV is complete.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Nice article write up there with solid information!

 

I did notice you said they were currently adding T1 to some towers in certain areas to help aid issues in the mean time. Is this really correct? The line item the tech I have been in talks with showed "T1 EVDO..." for my tower and I was just under the assumption that the "T1" was really an old place holder they have kept around. Adding T1 lines to towers seems a bit "old school" and I would think a regular T1 line would add little if any help to a tower by itself as a T1 line is 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64kbps if i remember correctly. I would think that at an absolute minimum they would be adding T3/DS3 lines to towers if not OC3 lines really....no???

 

Also the WiMax offload you mentioned in that article is very interesting information and finally makes some sense as to wtf Sprint was planning to do with the SmithMicro agreement announced earlier. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sprint-selects-mobile-network-director-124500905.html

 

Now how they actually implement this is going to be very interesting to me personally. Usually IF someone can even connect to WiMax/4G then they will. It seems forcing the connection would do a great amount of harm to the battery in that the only way would be to keep cycling the wimax radio on/off to see if it can get signal and connect....

[S4GRU]

When I say additional T1 lines, I'm using the term very loosely. I'm using the term to mean all subscriber based all-copper backhaul solutions. Sprint mostly uses bundled T1 lines for its backhaul to date at cell sites. But they use several different backhaul solutions.

 

This was a good and very scalable solution for sites for years. But when everyone else started switching to enhanced backhaul methods a few years ago, Sprint stayed with bundled T1's just adding a few more lines each time additional backhaul capacity is needed. The enhancements shown on the network.sprint.com website where it denotes "Speed Upgrades" usually means additional subscriber line based backhaul was added to the tower to get additional backhaul capacity. This has resulted in highly variable results from tower to tower.

 

Fortunately, these are all going by the wayside as they move to fiber and microwave-bridge-to-fiber backhaul solutions.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

When I say additional T1 lines, I'm using the term very loosely. I'm using the term to mean all subscriber based all-copper backhaul solutions. Sprint mostly uses bundled T1 lines for its backhaul to date at cell sites. But they use several different backhaul solutions.

 

This was a good and very scalable solution for sites for years. But when everyone else started switching to enhanced backhaul methods a few years ago, Sprint stayed with bundled T1's just adding a few more lines each time additional backhaul capacity is needed. The enhancements shown on the network.sprint.com website where it denotes "Speed Upgrades" usually means additional subscriber line based backhaul was added to the tower to get additional backhaul capacity. This has resulted in highly variable results from tower to tower.

 

Fortunately, these are all going by the wayside as they move to fiber and microwave-bridge-to-fiber backhaul solutions.

 

Okay that's what i figured. Though personally I'm surprised that they would waste time this year adding any lines to towers if they are just going to do away with them when the tower gets upgraded in the NV rollout and switched to fiber...or am I missing something there as in the existing runs would still be used somehow?

 

I still can't get over the whole Wimax offload mentioned earlier. Seems like it will cause more problems to users than they want, less the actual offloading is done at the tower somehow and the users Wimax radio isn't involved, but that seems like a stretch at best to me. No?

 

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

I was surprised by all the additional band-aid capex they are spending just months in advance of Network Vision. Especially in markets where NV is already under way. But I guess they figure they have to do something about the network, especially with all these new iPhone users staring at them, asking "WTH???"

 

I was definitely shocked about the thought of forced WiMax offload. If I hadn't seen the Sprint documentation with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

I was surprised by all the additional band-aid capex they are spending just months in advance of Network Vision. Especially in markets where NV is already under way. But I guess they figure they have to do something about the network, especially with all these new iPhone users staring at them, asking "WTH???"

 

I was definitely shocked about the though of forced WiMax offload. If I hadn't seen the Sprint documentation with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

 

 

I am eager to see how it will actually work; and if its how I assume it will, then I can not wait for the absolute uproar from users when they complain about it killing their battery life b/c it keeps cycling the radio on/off....I would hope there is a better way than doing it like that though...odd they do this with WiMax now with it only being around for 3 more years and no more devices made with it either...eagerly awaiting to see the full blown SmithMicro MobileNetwork Manager deployed on devices to see how it really ticks. Last Evo3D update had a smith.apk but looks just like a general logger and not it.