To so many consumers, why is Sprint's name "mud"? (was: Sprint vs Carriers A,B and C)

[lordsutch]

The only exception I'd make to mr.phoneguy's commentary is that in general, where Sprint corporate built the market (the major metros, Florida, etc.), they built it properly with overlapping towers, at least to cover the POPs they planned to cover.  For example, when we've had towers in Macon go down due to NV work, we've still had nearly 100% outdoor native coverage (indoor is a different story, but of course the footprint wasn't designed for 100% indoor coverage with phones with internal antennas like we have today).

 

The bad markets are almost always the former affiliate markets, such as the notorious Baton Rouge market, where the affiliate was often building on the cheap.  Those definitely do need to be fixed with small cells if ESMR doesn't do the job, and if they do it will help Sprint's reputation in those markets substantially.

 

Of course there are exceptions to every rule; Shentel for example seems to be one of the affiliates that was on the ball, and not surprisingly it's one of the few Sprint hasn't insisted on gobbling up.  And even corporate markets have issues with event crowds, since Sprint seems to lag the Big Two on DAS deployments and COWs for events.

[mr.phoneguy]

Network vision isn't going to correct the coverage issues they have in many cities. Actually network vision LTE makes it more obvious now with the LTE islands. Only new sites can fix the issue. Hopefully they will start addressing this next year as even 800 won't fix some situations.

 Sprint claims nv will give customers 20%-30% better coverage. As for the "lte islands"  Not a single lte city is 100% complete. Even Verizon had these isues this time last year While I had a lte phone with them. There were a few pockets in my town without lte

[mr.phoneguy]

The only exception I'd make to mr.phoneguy's commentary is that in general, where Sprint corporate built the market (the major metros, Florida, etc.), they built it properly with overlapping towers, at least to cover the POPs they planned to cover.  For example, when we've had towers in Macon go down due to NV work, we've still had nearly 100% outdoor native coverage (indoor is a different story, but of course the footprint wasn't designed for 100% indoor coverage with phones with internal antennas like we have today).

 

The bad markets are almost always the former affiliate markets, such as the notorious Baton Rouge market, where the affiliate was often building on the cheap.  Those definitely do need to be fixed with small cells if ESMR doesn't do the job, and if they do it will help Sprint's reputation in those markets substantially.

 

Of course there are exceptions to every rule; Shentel for example seems to be one of the affiliates that was on the ball, and not surprisingly it's one of the few Sprint hasn't insisted on gobbling up.  And even corporate markets have issues with event crowds, since Sprint seems to lag the Big Two on DAS deployments and COWs for events.

 

 Hence the reason I said ''In a lot of cities".

 

Btw, One thing I left out in my original commentary....People were pissed off with the whole 4g wimax thing. see original post for the edit

[mr.phoneguy]

 Hence the reason I said ''In a lot of cities".

 

Btw, One thing I left out in my original commentary....People were pissed off with the whole 4g wimax thing. see original post for the edit

 

Nevermind. I cant edit it now 

[Moropo]

I have been with Sprint for around 4 years and I have a family plan of 5 with them for which I pay $280 including taxes and fees etc.

 

I'm not leaving Sprint since I can't go to a carrier that has data limits as I can't herd 4 other people so they don't go over the limits etc.

 

With that said, I'm not blind and I'm able to comprehend that all those people you all hate because they whine about Sprint, they speak the absolute truth. Obviously I can only speak of where I live (Miami) and where my parents live (Cape Coral) but Sprint's data service truly suck. It's not usable at all. I'm not saying that it is slow. I'm saying that a simple Google search times out and it's just useless.

 

Also, a lot of people try to justify Sprint's current atrocious network by saying they put all of their faith on WiMax/Clearwire and it didn't work out. While true, while should this be of any consolation for the current customers? They don't care and shouldn't. All they know is they keep paying Sprint for something that doesn't work at all (data). Also, another thing, there's always the mention of Sprint NV which will solve all the problems etc. There was a recent article on BroadbandReports. com and of course someone complained about Sprint and someone came to the rescue talking about Sprint's NV to which the other person replied something like "oh I was talking about Sprint's current state, not the future".

 

In summary, all of this is what has brought the Sprint brand to have such a broken recognition and it's more than justifiable in my opinion. Hopefully NV will change all the negatives but there's no reason in denying the atrocious past.

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[digiblur]

 

 

Network vision isn't going to correct the coverage issues they have in many cities. Actually network vision LTE makes it more obvious now with the LTE islands. Only new sites can fix the issue. Hopefully they will start addressing this next year as even 800 won't fix some situations.

 

 

Sprint claims nv will give customers 20%-30% better coverage. As for the "lte islands" Not a single lte city is 100% complete. Even Verizon had these isues this time last year While I had a lte phone with them. There were a few pockets in my town without lte

That has not been the case I have found on 3g active sites. Signal is marginally better but not really noticeable, some areas it is now worse. Incorrect, there are cities that have all of their sites upgraded with active 4g. There may not be 100% complete markets, but no carrier has 100% wall to wall coverage in the US anyways. I can go to a few areas in my market with all adjacent sites to me that are upgraded yet have no useable LTE signal. Just the nature of the beast deploying LTE on site spacing designed in 2000 for outdoor 1x coverage with handsets with external antennas. Unfortunately they were kind of sloppy on the RF design with NV upgrades. Hopefully with Softbank they will revisit and start to address these mistakes if indeed they want to draw more customers from an already stagnant market.

[mr.phoneguy]

That has not been the case I have found on 3g active sites. Signal is marginally better but not really noticeable, some areas it is now worse. Incorrect, there are cities that have all of their sites upgraded with active 4g. There may not be 100% complete markets, but no carrier has 100% wall to wall coverage in the US anyways. I can go to a few areas in my market with all adjacent sites to me that are upgraded yet have no useable LTE signal. Just the nature of the beast deploying LTE on site spacing designed in 2000 for outdoor 1x coverage with handsets with external antennas. Unfortunately they were kind of sloppy on the RF design with NV upgrades. Hopefully with Softbank they will revisit and start to address these mistakes if indeed they want to draw more customers from an already stagnant market.

I mention not every city is 100% complete. I mean to say, not a single city is 100% network vision/lte complete.

[digiblur]

 

 

That has not been the case I have found on 3g active sites. Signal is marginally better but not really noticeable, some areas it is now worse. Incorrect, there are cities that have all of their sites upgraded with active 4g. There may not be 100% complete markets, but no carrier has 100% wall to wall coverage in the US anyways. I can go to a few areas in my market with all adjacent sites to me that are upgraded yet have no useable LTE signal. Just the nature of the beast deploying LTE on site spacing designed in 2000 for outdoor 1x coverage with handsets with external antennas. Unfortunately they were kind of sloppy on the RF design with NV upgrades. Hopefully with Softbank they will revisit and start to address these mistakes if indeed they want to draw more customers from an already stagnant market.

 

 

I mention not every city is 100% complete. I mean to say, not a single city is 100% network vision/lte complete.

Yes there is, there are plenty of cities 100% complete.

[WiWavelength]

 you are one of "those guys"

 

When you are communicating with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people online, you should put your best foot forward.  If you repeatedly cannot spell simple words or observe standard grammar, then that indicates deficiency.  You lack knowledge or attention to detail, and that cheapens the validity of your message.  So, I will poke fun, especially when I can make a quite clever play on your mistake.  In the end, that should be motivation for you to improve.

 

AJ

[mr.phoneguy]

When you are communicating with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people online, you should put your best foot forward.  If you repeatedly cannot spell simple words or observe standard grammar, then that indicates deficiency.  You lack knowledge or attention to detail, and that cheapens the validity of your message.  So, I will poke fun, especially when I can make a quite clever play on your mistake.  In the end, that should be motivation for you to improve.

 

AJ

So you poke fun at peoples mistakes? yep that makes you one of those guys. Did Robert hire you as the grammar police? No? So why the F**K is it any of your concern? Instead of making a contribution to this thread, you point out my mistakes and for some sick reason you get off on that. you seem like the person who would point and laugh at a person you see at a resturant who is missing an arm, like all the other people with low self esteem would do.

 

 It's cool though, I'm really not upset. I feel bad for you AJ as it seems like you were the kid getting picked on in school. Now that thousands of people who visit this site know about you, look in a mirror and repeat after me." I'm smart, I'm funny, and by golly people like me". It may not be true but whatever it takes to make you feel better as a person. I hope what I said gives you the motivation for you to grow, mature and improve as a person.

Edited June 22, 2013 by mr.phoneguy

[WiWavelength]

So you poke fun at peoples mistakes? yep that makes you one of those guys. Did Robert hire you as the grammar police? No? So why the F**K is it any of your concern? Instead of making a contribution to this thread, you point out my mistakes and for some sick reason you get off on that. you seem like the person who would point and laugh at a person you see at a resturant who is missing an arm, like all the other people with low self esteem would do.

 

 It's cool though, I'm really not upset. I feel bad for you AJ as it seems like you were the kid getting picked on in school. Now that thousands of people who visit this site know about you, look in a mirror and repeat after me." I'm smart, I'm funny, and by golly people like me". It may not be true but whatever it takes to make you feel better as a person.

 

Tsk, tsk, mr.phoneguy, none of what you say about me above is true.  That is your wishful thinking.  Not to mention, I have already contributed significantly to this thread several times.  But I make a creative riff on your error, and you take umbrage.

 

You have been at S4GRU for three months, have posted many times, yet have not given a dime to sponsor this non profit site.  Now, you use inappropriate language and challenge a staff member.  Keep it up, and you will be disciplined or banned.

 

AJ

[cletus]

<snip>

And even corporate markets have issues with event crowds, since Sprint seems to lag the Big Two on DAS deployments and COWs for events.

This is actually very true. Here in Austin the Verizon and AT&T (even T-Mobile) trucks that were parked around big event areas for SXSW really highlighted the weak Sprint network. I had literally no data during these events because Sprint didn't roll out additional coverage. In 2010 Sprint had one of the better network performances during events but this year they were dead last. This kind of thing is what really frustrates people who have Sprint service. I actually ended up having to connect to a friend's Verizon hotspot to get an email sent out.

[mr.phoneguy]

Are you telling me it's ok that you being a staff member of this site and getting into an argument with a member, pointing out flaws of a member, making a threat to ban a member all on a public forum for hundreds of people to read is ok?

 

As a member of this site who has not paid a dime, I dont have the privilage to access certian content and I'm fine with that. You are really sending a bad message for all the people on here who are not premium members.

 

I think you are very un professional and are of very poor character of how you represent yourself as a member of staff.

 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend sir.

[tommym65]

That has not been the case I have found on 3g active sites. Signal is marginally better but not really noticeable, some areas it is now worse. Incorrect, there are cities that have all of their sites upgraded with active 4g. There may not be 100% complete markets, but no carrier has 100% wall to wall coverage in the US anyways. I can go to a few areas in my market with all adjacent sites to me that are upgraded yet have no useable LTE signal. Just the nature of the beast deploying LTE on site spacing designed in 2000 for outdoor 1x coverage with handsets with external antennas. Unfortunately they were kind of sloppy on the RF design with NV upgrades. Hopefully with Softbank they will revisit and start to address these mistakes if indeed they want to draw more customers from an already stagnant market.

I mention not every city is 100% complete. I mean to say, not a single city is 100% network vision/lte complete.

Yes there is, there are plenty of cities 100% complete.

 

I am a little confused here. I can't find any markets that are 100% NV complete, nor 100% LTE complete. For example, the Chicago market is 98% "complete", but that only means that 98% of its sites have had 1 or more NV technologies completed: Only 77% of Chicago sites have LTE at this point, and from personal experience, where LTE is complete here, it is virtually wall-to-wall, even to a large degree inside buildings.  And no part of the market, whether we're talking about "cities" or large geographic areas of any kind, is 100% NV or LTE complete.

 

Even Atlanta, which seems to have the most LTE completion, is at only 81%.

 

Please help me understand what I am missing here?

[WiWavelength]

Please help me understand what I am missing here?

Well, some *penny ante* cities are complete. Oh, you Chicagoans and your broad shoulders...

 

 

AJ

[mr.phoneguy]

Yes there is, there are plenty of cities 100% complete.

 according to the Network vision running list thread on this site there are zero markets that are 100% complete. Please show me where you got your information?

[tommym65]

Well, some *penny ante* cities are complete. Oh, you Chicagoans and your broad shoulders...

 

 

AJ

 

Don't forget our hog butchering and little-cat-feeting.  Oh, and Bruin butchering I'd better not say that, Mikejeep might be watching.

[AJC1973]

 according to the Network vision running list thread on this site there are zero markets that are 100% complete. Please show me where you got your information?

there is a difference between a market and a city and hes not allowed to show you where he got that info if you want that you need to make a donation and become a member...  

[digiblur]

 

 

according to the Network vision running list thread on this site there are zero markets that are 100% complete. Please show me where you got your information?

 

 

there is a difference between a market and a city and hes not allowed to show you where he got that info if you want that you need to make a donation and become a member...

 

No hidden info. It's all on Sensorly. It doesn't matter about markets being complete. Not sure why people get hung up on that. If one city has 4 sites and all are done with active LTE what difference does it matter that the city 60 miles away is not complete? It has absolutely zero impact on the coverage of the other. Hell it's probably even a different NID and/or license.

[AJC1973]

No hidden info. It's all on Sensorly. It doesn't matter about markets being complete. Not sure why people get hung up on that. If one city has 4 sites and all are done with active LTE what difference does it matter that the city 60 miles away is not complete? It has absolutely zero impact on the coverage of the other. Hell it's probably even a different NID and/or license.

i agree 100% but someone said city, and this guy said "there are no markets complete..  prove there are markets complete..." thats not what was said... hes trolling for trouble...the proof he needs (outside of sensorly) is in the sponsor area...since robert made it against the rules to post sponsor data outside but on the same site(which i agree with completely) if he wants the proof he needs to pony up some money and sponsor to get it...  

[digiblur]

i agree 100% but someone said city, and this guy said "there are no markets complete..  prove there are markets complete..." thats not what was said... hes trolling for trouble...the proof he needs (outside of sensorly) is in the sponsor area...since robert made it against the rules to post sponsor data outside but on the same site(which i agree with completely) if he wants the proof he needs to pony up some money and sponsor to get it...  

 

I could show proof on Sprint.com coverage maps for that matter.  Not sure where the market thing came up, I was talking about areas and such then it just got all muddied up with stupid market stuff.  I can care less about market coverage as I don't go everywhere in my market anyways.  All about the areas I go.  I bet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone here who regularly travels in 100% of their market.

[z250kid]

Same here no idea really... I say I have sprint and people almost feel bad for me lol.

Most people laugh at me.  May family had sprint hated it and keeping asking when you going to get real service.

[z250kid]

Network vision isn't going to correct the coverage issues they have in many cities. Actually network vision LTE makes it more obvious now with the LTE islands. Only new sites can fix the issue. Hopefully they will start addressing this next year as even 800 won't fix some situations.

I agree 100%.  They need to add to towers 4g is Spotty.  I hope after nv process they add to towers to cover dead spots.  I mean theres a lot in my area.  Att is tower hogging in my area and have best coverage. 

[centermedic]

Or maybe bad planning and decision making?  

Neither. Sprint was in a use it or lose it position concerning the 2500 mhz spectrum. Wimax was ready. LTE was not. The rest is history.

[JeffDTD]

Sprint has a checkered past. Not news. Sprint has a smaller native network than ATT and Verizon. Not news. Open ended, vague threads like this are the equivalent to bashing our heads against pavement to make sure it still hurts and are easily guaranteed to bring the whine from anyone with a less than perfect experience in the last 15+ years. This isnt su.com. Sprint is a value carrier with many challenges and a brilliant and rich japanese man saddled to take the reigns. Despite what changing the name and color of the company would positively accomplish in the psyche of the short sighted average American consumer, Sprint chooses to hold on to its legacy. So get patient, get excited, respect the mods and godfathers of knowledge like AJ and Digiblur, or just get out.

 

Sent from my Note II. Its so big.