Sprint Coverage at Stennis Space Center, MS?

[nybs31]

Hello all. I am new to this site but have been lurking for awhile now. There is great information here! Let me get started on this situation that I am encountering as it is a long story. Hopefully someone here can help me. I live in south Mississippi. I work at NASA John C. Stennis Space Center located in south Mississippi. This space center is the 2nd largest NASA facility in the country. The biggest facility is Kennedy Space Center. Stennis Space Center is where all the rocket engines get tested that go into flight. Every space shuttle that has been into space has been tested at Stennis. I work in a data center called NCCIPS located on Stennis space center. It is the largest Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data center in the country. Every other carrier (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and even a local Mississippi cell phone company named CSpire Wireless) have service while on site of Stennis space center. Sprint is the only carrier to not have service while on site (roaming yes, but no Sprint service). There is a Nextel antenna located on site which I found through this website http://www.antennase...est=pagehandler (this link provides the location of the antenna. Antenna is on the red tower in the middle). I have contacted Sprint about this issue. I have been speaking with Terrence Morgan with the Executive Services Department of Sprint. We have been back and forth with this situation since November of last year. The last thing he told me this week was Sprint is going to decommission this antenna as per the Nextel discontinue plans and has no plans of putting a CDMA antenna in it's place. He says he knows no further information. He refuses to give me the contact information of someone who can tell me why Sprint has made this decision and will not contact that person/department and tell them all the information I have posted here. There are many people who work at the data center who have Sprint. I am sure there are hundreds more who work on site of Stennis. I am stuck at a dead end. I am not even asking for 4g service, just Sprint service without roaming, I really do like Sprint and would like to remain a customer. My next option I was thinking of creating a petition on change.org and sending the petition link to everyone on Stennis space center and ask them to sign it if they have Sprint service. Then who or what department would I send the petition to? Do any of you know what action I should take next or who I need to contact at Sprint to get service at Stennis? Sorry for the long post, but it seems like a no-brainer for Sprint to get coverage at Stennis. I thank you all for reading and hopefully pointing me in the right direction.

[WiWavelength]

You can try an online petition, but I doubt that it will have any positive results. Sprint has ostensibly made a business decision that roaming in the area is less costly than building out native coverage. That also tends to signal that Sprint has limited market share, so you may be overestimating the number of Sprint subs at Stennis. Otherwise, Sprint would likely be more interested in building at least a roaming mitigation site to retain subs like yourself who may be terminated for excessive roaming.

 

Now, I have this question for you: why are you beating your head against the wall over this? Sprint does not sound like the right carrier for you at Stennis. Since multiple other carriers do offer native coverage there, why not go with a carrier that offers a better fit?

 

AJ

[nybs31]

The reason I am so persistent about this is I don't want to leave Sprint as they are one of the few carriers who still offer unlimited data. Sprint has had this antenna there for years (when they acquired nextel). Customers have been terminated from service due to roaming there and Sprint has not acquired new customers due to not having service there. I have talked to local Sprint store reps and they agree that Sprint should put service there. One of the Sprint reps informed me that Sprint pays 25 cents per kb of data for roaming. While I am there I am roaming off of verizon's network. It just doesn't make business sense to me that Sprint would rather pay roaming fees there and not have service. I know it will cost a lot up front to provide service there, but they will get their money back from the initial up front cost in the long run. I also know that other customers who have Sprint turn their roaming data off and even their phone off while on site to prevent roaming.

[digiblur]

It is just the way it is in this market, I'm in Baton Rouge and have watched the other carriers build out additional sites while Sprint has not. It's their decision to not have market share here in you area so just let it roam and roam and roam. They will eventually kick you to the curb.

[Jamal46409]

"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be." ~Uknown

[JeffDTD]

Sprint gives little care about mississippi. I bet you are eligible for employer discounts with att and verizon.

[WiWavelength]

The reason I am so persistent about this is I don't want to leave Sprint as they are one of the few carriers who still offer unlimited data.

 

You are going about this all wrong. Sprint does not owe you native coverage, and unless you are not telling the whole story, you went into this situation with eyes open. Furthermore, Sprint does not offer unlimited roaming data, so your roaming data usage may violate your contract. You want Sprint to be something that it is not in your market, but that is not how the system works. You really should find another carrier that better suits your needs.

 

AJ

[lordsutch]

Frankly, for Mississippi coverage it's tough to beat C-Spire (ex-Cellular South); they're actually a pretty good carrier.

 

As far as Sprint building a site at Stennis, as suggested up-thread they haven't really been in a coverage expansion mode. I expect you'll probably see some voice coverage improvements once ESMR starts going live, but a full-blown site for Stennis with 3G and LTE coverage is unlikely unless Sprint contracts with the government to improve the coverage there. And if DHS hasn't had the juice to get Sprint to build a site, nobody does. The one small bit of hope is that Sprint may decide to rebuild some ex-Nextel sites, and you are in a fairly serious coverage hole (more for I-10 than for Stennis per se, though), but that probably won't happen until 2014-15.

 

Or you could hope for Sprint to buy out C-Spire. At this point, that's probably more likely than a nice shiny Sprint tower to be honest.

[nybs31]

Thanks to all of you for your input and suggestions. I am not going to drop this. If Sprint is not going to provide service there I at least want to know why. And why are you trying to get me to drop Sprint WiWavelength? I am not violating my roaming contract as I do not exceed my data roaming usage of 300 MB (I turn roaming off) and I don't exceed my voice roaming usage of 800 minutes. I just would like to know why Sprint has decided not to provide service to the 2nd largest NASA facility in the country among other things.

[newboyx]

I just would like to know why Sprint has decided not to provide service to the 2nd largest NASA facility in the country among other things.

Because they have paid people to crush the numbers, and even though it is inconvenient to you, they have decided that it is not worth the money to build a tower there at this time.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

[digiblur]

Thanks to all of you for your input and suggestions. I am not going to drop this. If Sprint is not going to provide service there I at least want to know why. And why are you trying to get me to drop Sprint WiWavelength? I am not violating my roaming contract as I do not exceed my data roaming usage of 300 MB (I turn roaming off) and I don't exceed my voice roaming usage of 800 minutes. I just would like to know why Sprint has decided not to provide service to the 2nd largest NASA facility in the country among other things.

 

It's the coverage = customers = revenue for the network rut that they gotten themselves into. I say just let it roam. It's what I do and I live in Baton Rouge. I've gone over my roaming usage several times and got a couple of letters. I call them each time and speak with them, last time I ended up with a $50 credit and 2 tickets opened on sites. One of my lines, an older generation light phone user, uses twice the amount of roaming data than regular data every month even though they work a mile from a 4g LTE site and live half a mile from another site. I just don't worry about it and let it eat and what happens happens.

 

There is no denying though that I would be on CSpire if I was in MS, I've used their network many times in MS for roaming and wow but that's a regional carrier for you.

[JeffDTD]

nybs31, it isn't so much a "decision to NOT provide service" as it is a result of the history of our market. We were originally Gulf Coast Wireless, a Sprint affiliate. The acquisition was a result of a lawsuit filed by GCW over the nextel acquisition. http://www.wirelessindustrynews.org/news-oct-2005/0260-100405-win-news.html

 

But what else happened in late 2005? Katrina. Any funds that GCW or Sprint may have intended to spend in our market to expand (and areas of Louisiana) would have been an even less financially appetizing after fixing the site damage. I can remember some areas went without proper service for a very, very long time. Sprint notoriously neglected 3G upgrade and ignored the network in its former affiliate markets for years.

 

So why now, still? Throw in an even smaller potential market share due to the presence of Cspire (do you think its strange verizon never pursued corporate expansion here at all? They didn't have native service here until the Alltel merger) together with this being a very sparsely populated state outside of the city centers , and you have MS at darn near the bottom of their priorities, if not the bottom. Sprint has moved Cspire up in many of the PRL's over the last few years and it would be assumed they also get a much nicer roaming rate from Cspire than Verizon, if not completely "Reciprocal" up to a certain point as Cspire roams on sprint outside native Cspire markets.

 

And who can compete with Cspire's coverage? Its pointless.

 

My recommendation? In 2007, I spent 3 months in a place called Boone, NC. Appalachian State University is there. There was zero native Sprint coverage. I actually sent Sprint a very well written (printed, signed ON PAPER! ) letter, explaining to them where I was, the population density of students there, the stats on the number of snow birds who influx there yearly, and the stats on the wireless competition there (No verizon, little bit of ATT, Alltel only carrier with substantial service) . A few weeks later, I got a call from someone in their corporate office who said they appreciated my input and he explained they had put the area on a "potential buildout" list... Guess what? Today they have a little bit of native Sprint coverage there. Was it all me? I'm sure it wasn't. However, the letter got me farther than any phone call could have ever. The "executive customer service" line has become an often ran avenue today... If there is truly a compelling reason for Sprint to establish service at the Stennis Space Center , write a compelling argument and present in writing.

[S4GRU]

Thanks to all of you for your input and suggestions. I am not going to drop this. If Sprint is not going to provide service there I at least want to know why. And why are you trying to get me to drop Sprint WiWavelength? I am not violating my roaming contract as I do not exceed my data roaming usage of 300 MB (I turn roaming off) and I don't exceed my voice roaming usage of 800 minutes. I just would like to know why Sprint has decided not to provide service to the 2nd largest NASA facility in the country among other things.

 

AJ is saying that if coverage is important to you where you are at, then Sprint is a not a good choice in your area. S4GRU does not advocate Sprint service to people who are not in good areas to use the service. Actually, we do not advocate Sprint service at all.

 

And all things considered, if and when Sprint ever decided to add service at Stennis, it would still likely take a year from inception to the site being live.

 

At S4GRU, we want people to be happy with their Sprint wireless service. We love Sprint and think it is the best chance at keeping wireless competitive in America. We plead for people to hold out for NV upgrades all the time. However, in your instance, we don't see anything on the horizon that is going to improve things for you at Stennis. And if I was in your shoes, I would probably go to C-Spire. Or at least pick up a hotspot with another carrier to supplement your Sprint service.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

[lordsutch]

Here's the weird thing. If you look at Sprint's coverage map of the area, they have a tiny little island of coverage at the welcome center at I-10 and MS 607, but it doesn't seem to carry very far (if it's more than a 1 mile radius, I'd be surprised) - compare it to what you get from the towers along I-59, and it's shocking how bad it is. I have no idea why GCW or Sprint would have engineered a tower to spit out such lame coverage. It's not topography; that's a really flat area. Maybe trees don't like cell signals or something. Maybe they half-assed it when rebuilding post-K.

 

Hopefully when they put NV on that tower you'll see a radical improvement even on 1900. I doubt the 1900 coverage would go all the way into Stennis but it would help (if what I've seen on ESMR is any guide, you probably will be able to pick up 1x on ESMR there, as long as the panel is high enough on the tower to clear all the trees).

 

In the meantime, as everyone suggests, you'll just have to take it up with Sprint directly, or deal with roaming (as long as you're not going over the thresholds, the only issue is battery life). My guess is if DHS insisted on getting coverage at your worksite for their use, it would happen, given Sprint's government contracts, but that would have to come through official channels and not just a few employees.

[nybs31]

By the way for those that are interested, Sprint now has 3g service at Stennis Space Center.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

 

 

[mozamcrew]

By the way for those that are interested, Sprint now has 3g service at Stennis Space Center.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

I'm glad you got some coverage there! Did they add a site there, or is the coverage a result of improved range from NV?

[maximus1987/lou99]

By the way for those that are interested, Sprint now has 3g service at Stennis Space Center.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

LTE?

[digiblur]

The answer is on the sponsor map.

[mozamcrew]

The answer is on the sponsor map.

Yeah, I thought of that right after I asked the question.

[S4GRU]

I'm glad you got some coverage there! Did they add a site there, or is the coverage a result of improved range from NV?

 

iDEN conversion.

 

Robert

[WiWavelength]

iDEN conversion.

 

Could somebody please get the smelling salts?  digiblur just passed out from excitement and anticipation.

 

AJ

[digiblur]

Could somebody please get the smelling salts? digiblur just passed out from excitement and anticipation.

 

AJ

That won't happen until I see one in Baton Rouge Metro area. Hell I might pass out the day I see RRUs going up on the downtown site. People will think it is St Patricks day since I keep pinching myself to wake up from the dream.

[gnoj]

Definitely nice to see Sprint converting some iDEN sites. It only makes sense to do so when the site/tower already exists and their is otherwise a complete lack of native coverage. Do we know if Sprint has expanded the number of iDEN conversions it plans to do beyond the original 100 or so that it planned for at the onset of Network Vision?

[cdk]

Definitely nice to see Sprint converting some iDEN sites. It only makes sense to do so when the site/tower already exists and their is otherwise a complete lack of native coverage. Do we know if Sprint has expanded the number of iDEN conversions it plans to do beyond the original 100 or so that it planned for at the onset of Network Vision?

 

I don't think there has been any specific information beyond the 100 already mentioned. However I have to imagine they are at least looking at it.

 

I believe Robert had estimated that 1000 conversions would give the current network the same coverage as the old Nextel plus Sprint network. It would be interesting to compare the 100 done/in-progress iDen conversions to the locations of the 1000.

[cdk]

My recommendation? In 2007, I spent 3 months in a place called Boone, NC. Appalachian State University is there. There was zero native Sprint coverage. I actually sent Sprint a very well written (printed, signed ON PAPER! ) letter, explaining to them where I was, the population density of students there, the stats on the number of snow birds who influx there yearly, and the stats on the wireless competition there (No verizon, little bit of ATT, Alltel only carrier with substantial service) . A few weeks later, I got a call from someone in their corporate office who said they appreciated my input and he explained they had put the area on a "potential buildout" list... Guess what? Today they have a little bit of native Sprint coverage there. Was it all me? I'm sure it wasn't. However, the letter got me farther than any phone call could have ever. The "executive customer service" line has become an often ran avenue today... If there is truly a compelling reason for Sprint to establish service at the Stennis Space Center , write a compelling argument and present in writing.

 

You never no what impact one person might have! Where specifically did you send the letter?