Network Speed

[WiWavelength]

But then the light bulb goes on: What the (bleep) am I gonna do with 36 mbps on a BICYCLE?!

 

Get distracted, hit a curb, fly over the handlebars, and do a face plant?

 

 

AJ

[z250kid]

Sprint's speeds are suspiciously low.

I agree today at work I have a Verizon lte work phone speed test is always 65mbps down and 17 up!!! Ping was 23 ms! I Was like holy @#$%.  .  Where sprints never goes above 25 down and 7 up. Ping is 42. right next to the tower.  Im just happy to have 4g. 

[MacinJosh]

Get distracted, hit a curb, fly over the handlebars, and do a face plant?

 

 

AJ

Ouch! That would hurt extremely bad.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

[tommym65]

Ouch! That would hurt extremely bad.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

Would, does, and has! And that was BEFORE LTE!

[WiWavelength]

I agree today at work I have a Verizon lte work phone speed test is always 65mbps down and 17 up!!! Ping was 23 ms! I Was like holy @#$%.  .  Where sprints never goes above 25 down and 7 up. Ping is 42. right next to the tower.  Im just happy to have 4g. 

 

One, VZW LTE is 10 MHz FDD bandwidth -- twice Sprint's LTE 5 MHz FDD -- so peak speeds are going to be twice as fast.  And, two, I guarantee that you are not always averaging 65 Mbps down, 17 Mbps up on VZW.  Those are near theoretical peak speeds for VZW's LTE configuration, and like many users, you are just cherry picking results that show what you want to think.

 

Moreover, VZW LTE average speeds are on a consistent decline across the country.  VZW has twice as many subs as Sprint does, and VZW has already maxed out its Upper 700 MHz C block spectrum with its initial LTE deployment.  The only room for additional bandwidth is in VZW's AWS 2100+1700 MHz spectrum, and your handset does not support that band.  So, with VZW and your current handset, you are already on the downslope.

 

AJ

[irev210]

As I stated in another thread today, using incomplete deployment to judge average speeds is premature and misguided.  Here is an example.  Because LTE deployment is still patchwork, many Sprint users are currently connecting to LTE sites one, two, even three cells distant.  That distance leads to poor signal quality and lowers speeds for those users.  Plus, those distant users loading up the live LTE sites lower speeds for the users who are actually located in the cells.  Thus, many of the speeds that users are seeing right now are not representative snapshots.

 

Honestly, some of the attitudes displayed in this thread and that other thread today disappoint me.  You are just adding fuel to the argument that Sprint should have kept LTE under wraps in each market until it was almost fully deployed.  But, for many of you, that would have meant absolutely no LTE until the middle of 2014.  So, as the saying goes, do not look a gift horse in the mouth.  Be thankful that you have any LTE at all almost right away.

 

AJ

 

Your argument is flawed - there is no reason why Sprint needed to keep LTE under wraps in each market until it was almost fully deployed - let people use it.  The problem here is Sprint's marketing department, which sets the expectation, not the reality.  I'll say it again - "launching" a major city with 10-15% of sites broadcasting LTE is a mistake and I don't know why you won't hold them accountable for it.  Sprint can easily say "we are quickly building out our network, as we progress, customers will be pleased that speeds and coverage will continue to improve".  I don't really get how you feel customers should be "thankful" that they are able to use a service that is likely being advertised to them by multiple providers (Sprint included).

 

At the end of the day, look at Sprint's churn - compare it to Verizon and AT&T.  I think everyone here wants Sprint to be a strong world class competitor but the way they are doing things, it's not really working for them at the moment.  I believe it will get MUCH better but for right now, launched markets (in my opinion) are not as competitive as they should be.

 

You can't hold each carrier to a different standard.  Once a carrier launches a market, it's only to be expected that you are going to be compared to other carriers who are offering a service called "4G".  You can't let them have it both ways - if they want the credit for launching the market, they should be held accountable for how the launched market performs.

 

Also, construction won't end - you know this better than anyone.  After LTE on PCS comes LTE on ESMR followed by EBS/BRS... when do you finally say "they are done"?  The question isn't "does sprint have enough spectrum?"  The question is "will Sprint add enough capacity to keep up with the services they are offering?"  I think Softbank is the answer to allowing Sprint to keep pace with data demands, but that's just my humble opinion.

 

 

 

One, VZW LTE is 10 MHz FDD bandwidth -- twice Sprint's LTE 5 MHz FDD -- so peak speeds are going to be twice as fast.  And, two, I guarantee that you are not always averaging 65 Mbps down, 17 Mbps up on VZW.  Those are near theoretical peak speeds for VZW's LTE configuration, and like many users, you are just cherry picking results that show what you want to think.

 

Moreover, VZW LTE average speeds are on a consistent decline across the country.  VZW has twice as many subs as Sprint does, and VZW has already maxed out its Upper 700 MHz C block spectrum with its initial LTE deployment.  The only room for additional bandwidth is in VZW's AWS 2100+1700 MHz spectrum, and your handset does not support that band.  So, with VZW and your current handset, you are already on the downslope.

 

AJ

Look at Verizon's churn and net postpaid adds - for whatever reasons, customers are gaga for big red.  If Sprint was doing as well, I wouldn't be talking up how I think their marketing team is botching their LTE launch.

 

It's interesting that Verizon's marketing team nowadays touts coverage, not speed.  AT&T has been marketing "faster" as of late.

 

You often rag on the way Verizon built out LTE as an overlay, but sometimes the best approach is the least sophisticated one.  The proof, again, is in their net adds and churn (particularly at their ARPU levels).

 

It's hard to say, from any angle other than "least technically sophisticated" that Verizon didn't nail their 4G LTE deployment.  Now, the next question is going to be "how the heck are they going to keep data speeds up?" and I think that will be VERY interesting to watch.  The next two years watching LTE fully evolve should be interesting.

[Moropo]

"You can't hold each carrier to a different standard.  Once a carrier launches a market, it's only to be expected that you are going to be compared to other carriers who are offering a service called "4G".  You can't let them have it both ways - if they want the credit for launching the market, they should be held accountable for how the launched market performs."

 

I agree with this ^. I couldnt have put it better.

[WiWavelength]

Your argument is flawed - there is no reason why Sprint needed to keep LTE under wraps in each market until it was almost fully deployed - let people use it.  The problem here is Sprint's marketing department, which sets the expectation, not the reality.  I'll say it again - "launching" a major city with 10-15% of sites broadcasting LTE is a mistake and I don't know why you won't hold them accountable for it.

 

If you want to bring marketing into the argument, go right ahead.  But I will not engage it.  I do not give a rat's ass about Sprint marketing.  That plays on little more than psychology.  Instead, I am interested in spectrum utilization and infrastructure deployment.  And here at S4GRU, we do a bang up job of gathering the real facts behind Network Vision and educating basically anyone who is interested in following along.

 

However, we have users, in this thread and elsewhere, running speed tests and complaining about data rates in markets that are far from completion, even if they are dubbed "launched" (and many are not).  Heck, we have users worrying about speeds in markets that Sprint has not even officially acknowledged yet.  That is foolish and produces potentially spurious results due to the signal quality and site density issues that I described previously.  It just does not make sense when they have access to the wealth of deployment progress tracking that S4GRU provides.

 

AJ

[Mobilesolutions]

 I do not give a rat's ass about Sprint marketing. 

 

 

Sucks for us marketing majors 

[halcyoncmdr]

Sucks for us marketing majors 

 

 

People dislike marketers, this isn't news. All they do is prey on people emotions and perceptions (it's their job of course). Not as much as lawyers, but that's probably just because of how much lawyers charge.

[gr8nuguy]

 I smile everyday at work when someone ports out of the big red (getting more and more common each day! ) 

[Ascertion]

I smile everyday at work when someone ports out of the big red (getting more and more common each day! )

 

I hear stories about how Verizon treats their customers. They're stuck up and have too big of an ego.

 

"Problem? You won't leave us, we have the best nationwide network. You won't leave even if I say no to your needs."

[Fraydog]

It's easy to say "I don't give a rat's ass about marketing", especially for us geeks who care more about networking than marketing.

 

That said, the marketers are needed to move product and keep Sprint from going out of business. They should also give it straight to people.  Don't BS.  

 

My largest problem with Sprint isn't the Network Vision side.  I think they're doing well with that. It's the same dumbass marketing people who act like they came from Verizon or AT&T. A lot of them probably did after the house cleaning that came at the end of the Gary Forsee debacle. 

[irev210]

If you want to bring marketing into the argument, go right ahead.  But I will not engage it.  I do not give a rat's ass about Sprint marketing.  That plays on little more than psychology.  Instead, I am interested in spectrum utilization and infrastructure deployment.  And here at S4GRU, we do a bang up job of gathering the real facts behind Network Vision and educating basically anyone who is interested in following along.

So Sprint shouldn't communicate to its customers (and others)?  That's what marketing does.  In essence, in one sentence you are saying Sprint's marketing is nothing more than psychology and in the next you market S4GRU (I agree, S4GRU does a much better job of marketing than Sprint does, no question there).  I read it as you will not engage in Sprint's marketing, but you will engage in (and market) the way you see things.

 

At the end of the day, the average Sprint customer is going to engage in what Sprint markets and sells them, and what the customer experiences.  Customers don't care about the technical mumbojumbo - they care about the experience that they're sold and promised.  We can evaluate customer satisfaction and interest in the marketing message by looking at churn and net adds.

 

 

 

However, we have users, in this thread and elsewhere, running speed tests and complaining about data rates in markets that are far from completion, even if they are dubbed "launched" (and many are not).  Heck, we have users worrying about speeds in markets that Sprint has not even officially acknowledged yet.  That is foolish and produces potentially spurious results due to the signal quality and site density issues that I described previously.  It just does not make sense when they have access to the wealth of deployment progress tracking that S4GRU provides.

 

AJ

 

I don't follow every thread but I track LTE in Boston pretty close and it's alarming how quickly Sprint's LTE speeds are degrading.  These are based off my observations - observations I feel are worth sharing and discussing.  While you may disagree with what some of us are seeing, I don't think it is foolish to write them off.  Shouldn't we be asking why speeds are slowing down faster than Sprint can build out sites?  Shouldn't we be discussing if data consumption is going to grow faster than Sprint can keep up?  Is this a reminder of when Sprint failed to add capacity to keep up with data growth in 2008?  Is the savior tri-band?  I personally view Sprint's initial 5x5 carrier on PCS as insufficient in urban areas; I feel that data consumption will grow at a pace faster than sprint can keep up upgrading new sites (I think suburban locations, for the most part, will be in good shape, relative to urban sites).

 

It should be a more engaging discussion on why customers are seeing what they are seeing and what Sprint could do to improve the customer experience - I thought that was the mission of S4GRU.  While we typically tend to disagree on a couple of key things, we used to have much more interesting discussions (with my historically learning a lot more in the process); maybe as a result of S4GRU growing you don't have the time/patience, which I get, but it's sort of saddening to see you take a much more confrontational stand as of late, especially given the wealth of knowledge that you bring to the table.

[Mobilesolutions]

It's easy to say "I don't give a rat's ass about marketing", especially for us geeks who care more about networking than marketing.

 

That said, the marketers are needed to move product and keep Sprint from going out of business. They should also give it straight to people.  Don't BS.  

 

My largest problem with Sprint isn't the Network Vision side.  I think they're doing well with that. It's the same dumbass marketing people who act like they came from Verizon or AT&T. A lot of them probably did after the house cleaning that came at the end of the Gary Forsee debacle. 

 

Bing, the job is to sell the new network and highlight its features, not brag about absurd things.

 

Deceptive marketing leaves a nasty taste in a customers mouth when the product/service foils.  

[GorkaIQ]

Should I do speedtests of the site in Baton Rouge that gets 500 kbps / 100 kbps / 5000+ms pings at lunch time?  At 7am it gets 12-14 megabit down no problem...gets slow during the day for some reason especially during lunch time.

 

its trafic time! the same @ PR

[GorkaIQ]

I agree that lower pings are desirable, but AT&T and Verizon's pings are similar to Sprint's. So where are we now? The three other companies' LTE is faster than Sprint's on a bandwidth level, and similar in ping. In fact, many of these test results for Sprint look like 3G speeds, save for the upload speed.

 

Back to my point, how does current average speed not correlate with future network speed (many more users on LTE wanting more bits)? After all, this is what we're talking about, right? Granted, Sprint's network is probably closer to starting than close to being finished, but I just can't see how the number of users per tower is going to go down in the future. Sprint needs a growth plan to survive, and they may be increasing their number of towers with LTE (admittedly by orders of magnitude) but so will the number of data-hungry LTE smartphones. It looks, to me, like Sprint's network is already getting full.

 

How, then, do we judge "capacity," (meaning how many users the network can support while maintaining a decent speed) if not for speed? What am I missing?

 

i prefer to have a 6-8 Mbps average with ulimited data with Sprint, that take 12 or 25Mbps and only i can use 3GB data limit without paying overage

[gusherb]

I only speak for where I live and frequent or have recently spent some time in the Chicagoland area, (south loop, and south of the loop) I used to see somewhere in the range of 6-10 Mbps, now I see 2-6 Mbps down. There have been instances in the city where LTE was unusable at times either due to weak signal and/or congestion. Though I also have to admit, the times that happened were often in places where LTE 800 was really needed, LTE 1900 wasn't up to the task (outside facing rooms in dense old high rises). EVDO and voice performance were pretty good though, I'm thinking a large amount has moved onto LTE and now EVDO has lost some of the crippling congestion! (think max EVDO rev A speeds late at night, and 1 Mbps down .5 meg up during the day where as almost nothing before) 

Last time I was on the north side I saw pretty fast performance, like in the 10-20 Mbps range depending on distance/line of sight. (think near Loyola around Clark and Devon) 

 

In the suburbs where I live my experience speed wise has mostly been at a plateau since shortly after I started on Sprint (coverage has increased dramatically since then of course) I average 6-12 Mbps in the house, and 2-7 up. When I'm line of sight of a site I see between 20-35 Mbps.

The only place I can say out by where I live is the mall, which if you picture it everything revolves around a big old mall, a couple high rises and tons of standalone buildings and a large shopping center across the street which = very high traffic. Sprint for the longest time didn't turn on LTE at the site serving the mall and it's immediate vicinity until just almost two months ago, before that EVDO was continuously only seeing 200 Kbps and crippling latency. Now that they've turned on LTE I'm seeing 6 Mbps max, line of sight of the cell site, so they still appear to be battling congestion but that's still a huge improvement. 

 

I must note that Chicagoland is one of the most completed area's for NV. It is just now getting to a point where it's near done enough that you can start to tell where it's already coming due for the next upgrades in LTE. 

[JeffDTD]

"What .... AT&T has the fastest LTE ?  Screw that, I'm gone!".....  said no one ever. 

 

Sprint is a value carrier.  I don't quite understand how or why anyone would get a pantie bunch about Verizon or ATT being faster.... T-MOBILE is the competition, front and center.  Until they can top Sprint's geographic high speed coverage, sprint will continue to be painted as "the loser with a 3-4mb average" that I'm too cheap to leave.  I've actually lost interest in the speedtest whore-offs.  If it works, i'm happy

[halcyoncmdr]

"What .... AT&T has the fastest LTE ?  Screw that, I'm gone!".....  said no one ever. 

 

Sprint is a value carrier.  I don't quite understand how or why anyone would get a pantie bunch about Verizon or ATT being faster.... T-MOBILE is the competition, front and center.  Until they can top Sprint's geographic high speed coverage, sprint will continue to be painted as "the loser with a 3-4mb average" that I'm too cheap to leave.  I've actually lost interest in the speedtest whore-offs.  If it works, i'm happy

 

That's most customers honestly. If it works for them, they won't think twice about it, unless it's too expensive. The only ones that care about speed tests are e-Peen users, or those who aren't getting good speeds/latency. Both of which will be fixed with Network Vision on Sprint. As NV comes to completion I predict the negative comments about Sprint's network and speeds dying off rapidly.

 

There will still be the few true issues with tower outages, etc. but the major complaints will be remedied.

[Kaixor]

Queue TDLTE

[Mobilesolutions]

That's most customers honestly. If it works for them, they won't think twice about it, unless it's too expensive. The only ones that care about speed tests are e-Peen users, or those who aren't getting good speeds/latency. Both of which will be fixed with Network Vision on Sprint. As NV comes to completion I predict the negative comments about Sprint's network and speeds dying off rapidly.

 

There will still be the few true issues with tower outages, etc. but the major complaints will be remedied.

 

 

Nv is halfway complete at best.

[halcyoncmdr]

Nv is halfway complete at best.

 

I wasn't referring to currently, I was referring to NV completion, or almost completion where only a handful of towers remain to be upgraded.

[Moropo]

Another study:

 

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Another-Study-Shows-ATT-LTE-The-Fastest-124401

 

Sprint still in the bottom.

[Rawvega]

That's not another study. That's the same study as in the OP being recycled over at BBR/DSLR.

 

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