Itunes Match on Sprint 3G

[Justindcarter79]

I would say don't sign up for it, at this point sprint thinks 100kbps is sufficient when it isn't. I like to use my iphone in the car to listen to music and I must say I am pretty let down by all the cutting out and buffering. So if you have a Sprint iphone I would advise against signing up for iTunes match at least until they improve speeds.

[MacinJosh]

My crappy data speeds are sufficient for Pandora, but not normal web browsing. Can't understand why iTunes Match wouldn't work. I suppose Apple streams at a higher rate.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

[WiWavelength]

Uh, a lot of subs should and do use their iPhones on Wi-Fi at home, school, work, etc. Not to mention, most subs do not live where you do, so their Sprint network experiences may be quite different. Thus, your assumption that your use of the iPhone to listen to music in the car where you live is representative of that of all Sprint iPhone users is off base.

 

Honestly, this thread seems rather unproductive.

 

AJ

[wyattwalter]

It's a pain streaming Rdio over 3G, though it's improving ever so slightly. Download speeds are low but ping/upload are great!

[danielholt]

I respectfully disagree. I feel a paying customer who lives in a rural area and pays the same rate as people in major cities has the right to have the same experience consistently in any area sprint serves. isnt that the purpose of network vision?

[Fraydog]

Apple streams at a 256 Kbps. For overloaded EV-DO, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Load the music you like on at home, and use that. Save the network load for others.

[JonnygATL]

I can do pandora and google play music (cloud stored) but not my amazon cloud player. Different bit rate, I assume. But it works ok on wimax and i'm sure lte even morw reliably where it's actually live.

[xenadu]

I can stream just fine with my iPhone 5 on the DFW LTE network, so YMMV.

 

The only time LTE has let me down is at the Rangers stadium, but that's fairly common with all the carriers, as there are just too many devices crammed into a small area.

[S4GRU]

I respectfully disagree. I feel a paying customer who lives in a rural area and pays the same rate as people in major cities has the right to have the same experience consistently in any area sprint serves. isnt that the purpose of network vision?

 

Yes and no. They should receive good and usable experience within their coverage area. However, the coverage in rural areas is not going to ever be up to the same level as urban areas. Carriers cannot provide the density for an equal experience. But what service is there should be well maintained and have the appropriate backhaul. But this is probably what you're getting at.

 

Rurals need low frequency spectrum. And Sprint's SMR 800 CDMA and LTE will help a lot.

 

Robert

[Justindcarter79]

Yeah about my post I meant don't signup for it if you are limitted to 100kbps 3g. It streams at 256kbps so no wonder I am having problems with it. On the plus side network vision is in progress here so my problem days are limitted.

[Txmtx]

I respectfully disagree. I feel a paying customer who lives in a rural area and pays the same rate as people in major cities has the right to have the same experience consistently in any area sprint serves. isnt that the purpose of network vision?

 

I've personally experienced better speeds in rural areas on 3G, as a general rule, with Sprint. Put another way, bad 3G speeds on Sprint is typically bottlenecked by oversubscription at the wireless spectrum level, not the backhaul. But, YMMV, since its all about the subscriber-to-spectrum ratio.

 

As for bitrates, yeah... Apple streams ABR AAC at 256k, as someone earlier said. Pandora mobile (even if you are a One subscriber, frustratingly) streams VBR AAC+PS around 28 - 32k by default, and VBR AAC+SBR around 56 - 64k if you select "higher quality audio" in the options. (Desktop Pandora One is 192k something or other.) So, pandora mobile sounds like crap... infinitely better than sat radio, and a tad worse than a good terrestrial FM HD radio. But I guess it does stream a lot better

[S4GRU]

Put another way, bad 3G speeds on Sprint is typically bottlenecked by oversubscription at the wireless spectrum level, not the backhaul. But, YMMV, since its all about the subscriber-to-spectrum ratio.

 

It's both. Both have been a problem for years. Inadequate T1 backhaul on legacy sites, and insufficient number of EVDO carriers to serve demand. Rarely does fixing one but not the other provide long term solutions to 3G performance at Sprint sites.

 

Robert

[Txmtx]

 

It's both. Both have been a problem for years. Inadequate T1 backhaul on legacy sites, and insufficient number of EVDO carriers to serve demand. Rarely does fixing one but not the other provide long term solutions to 3G performance at Sprint sites.

 

Robert

 

Sure. I guess it depends how legacy the site is... I know that in most places I've been (which is by definition a highly subjective statement!) I can say with certainty I have witnessed the bottleneck be lack of spectrum maybe... 80 or 90% of the time.

[S4GRU]

Sure. I guess it depends how legacy the site is... I know that in most places I've been (which is by definition a highly subjective statement!) I can say with certainty I have witnessed the bottleneck be lack of spectrum maybe... 80 or 90% of the time.

 

What do you do to determine that all the EVDO carriers in the sector you are in are full of users?

 

Robert

[Txmtx]

 

What do you do to determine that all the EVDO carriers in the sector you are in are full of users?

 

Robert

 

Guess I should also state that, with the NV upgrades where they upgraded the 3G and we're waiting on backhaul, in THAT case it is becoming more often the underlying bandwidth limitation, until it is finished completely.

 

"Signal 2" (http://signal.kssh.ca/) tells plenty already. RF spec-an shows even more how "hot" an area is relative to a available carriers. Combined with population and and extrapolated to subscriber densities. There are too many users usually, breathing on the same airspace, and there is a point at which CDMA just slows to a crawl keeping all the users associated. Everyone is connected, good signal, but there's just not a lot of slices left for actual data transmission.

 

This is most evident in crowded suburbs. It is easier to add capacity to backhaul than acquire spectrum. Where I am, Verizon is almost as slow as Sprint on 3G, and the difference is Verizon has more spectrum.

 

Most of my research has occurred smack in the middle of Ericcson country, but I don't think that makes a huge difference in the factuality of anything I said here...

[MacPCS]

On AT&T here, my wife has iTunes Match.  Until they rolled out LTE it would buffer quite a bit as well.  I think it's a great service and it works well on WiFi or LTE.  

 

Sprint, or any other carrier's 3G though might not cut it for high quality streaming of anything.  

 

I'll certainly be getting iTunes match (and a smaller iPhone as a result) once LTE is up and running here.  Probably be about the time the next iPhone is out so timing is pretty good.