Has anyone else had service issues that make your service mostly unusable?

[briankwest]

I've traveled to Chicago IL, Ann Arbor MI, Detroit MI, Tulsa OK.  The service has ranged from almost working to unusable (Data and Voice).  I know if I hold out this will all be better in the long run.  I actually have no choice for anyone else as I refuse to be an AT&T customer ever again.

 

Dropped calls left and right all last week while I was in Michigan.

 

Anyone else have this experience?

 

/b

 

 

 

[njjdnt]

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4513-4g-lte-surrounding-sites-but-voice-has-degraded/

[SpenceSouth]

I live in a very popular and crowded area of Jacksonville that is way to congested for the current network to handle. Seems like my phone becomes a paperweight whenever I leave the coverage of my Airave.

 

I'm okay with this right now and am actually happy because of this. It will give me great perspective for a before and after once this tower is upgraded. I'll really be able to see the differences the upgrades can make.

[The Dave]

It used to be like that in St Augustine, too, near the southern part where there are a lot of residential clusters. They have two towers there that are 3G/4G accepted and now when I am near there for work I have a strong signal ~-79-89 dBm. Speed tests usually turn out 0.79-1.3 mbps there on 3G. I used to be stuck around zero bars and timeout with data and sms there. Still have a legacy tower serving the downtown ancient historical district, fittingly enough. It is still all but useless trying to send a text or check email there. Just gives you perspective on the NV upgrades.

[SpenceSouth]

I had come out of Tampa that had a good network before, so the only perspective I got from NV was that my upload speeds were higher with LTE than WiMax.  Hopefully, this will give me the full scope.

[lynyrd65]

I've traveled to Chicago IL, Ann Arbor MI, Detroit MI, Tulsa OK. The service has ranged from almost working to unusable (Data and Voice). I know if I hold out this will all be better in the long run. I actually have no choice for anyone else as I refuse to be an AT&T customer ever again.

 

Dropped calls left and right all last week while I was in Michigan.

 

Anyone else have this experience?

 

/b

I'm surprised you said service was unusable in Tulsa and Chicago. In Tulsa you will see LTE most of the time (albeit a lower signal strength in my part of town (south tulsa)) and Chicago is a mature market which should have LTE and 1x800 almost everywhere.

[Mobilesolutions]

I've traveled to Chicago IL, Ann Arbor MI, Detroit MI, Tulsa OK.  The service has ranged from almost working to unusable (Data and Voice).  I know if I hold out this will all be better in the long run.  I actually have no choice for anyone else as I refuse to be an AT&T customer ever again.

 

Dropped calls left and right all last week while I was in Michigan.

 

Anyone else have this experience?

 

/b

In Tulsa I have intermittent issues, most likely this is because the city is under heavy progress right now & we are reaching a critical mass situation, It will take completion of the fill in sites to relieve the stress placed on the current upgraded sites.  

 

In Norman i cannot make calls or texts inside of the campus buildings, it will take 800MHz to relieve that issue.  On the Turner back and forth to Tulsa I cannot maintain a call in any duration above 5 minutes, site spacing seems to be 1 mile too wide to maintain ubiquitous coverage needed for voice calls. I always drop then have to redial which is frustrating when driving. We have folks on our plan who use their lines strictly for business, I am not sure we will be renewing with Sprint on October 1st; which to me is disheartening. 

I'm surprised you said service was unusable in Tulsa and Chicago. In Tulsa you will see LTE most of the time (albeit a lower signal strength in my part of town (south tulsa)) and Chicago is a mature market which should have LTE and 1x800 almost everywhere.

I have issues in T-town right now, I did find it particularly refreshing at 91 Yale yesterday when i pulled 35mbps off that site.  

[lynyrd65]

I did find it particularly refreshing at 91 Yale yesterday when i pulled 35mbps off that site.  

 

So it is live then, thats disappointing. My sister still drops down to 3G regularly at our house and LTE maxes out at 4mbps. I was hoping the site still wasn't live yet.

[Mobilesolutions]

So it is live then, thats disappointing. My sister still drops down to 3G regularly at our house and LTE maxes out at 4mbps. I was hoping the site still wasn't live yet.

Its live at my Mom's house, LTE is not usable maybe down tilt related? And its live at my GFs house, LTE maxes at 7mbps but will fail the upload portion every sigle time. Signal strength is about -108dbm

[delta772er]

I've traveled to Chicago IL, Ann Arbor MI, Detroit MI, Tulsa OK.  The service has ranged from almost working to unusable (Data and Voice).  I know if I hold out this will all be better in the long run.  I actually have no choice for anyone else as I refuse to be an AT&T customer ever again.

 

Dropped calls left and right all last week while I was in Michigan.

 

Anyone else have this experience?

 

/b

 

My service was doing the same all last week, and LTE was unusable as well. But I also noticed that all of the sites in my county and the neighboring county that didn't already have LTE service now have 3G upgrades as well, as do the LTE towers.

[jamesinclair]

I travel pretty frequently as well.

 

Central Jersey - Excellent wimax, good 3g, excellent voice

Boston - Excellent wimax, good 3g excellent voice

Manhattan- Decent wimax, terrible to good 3g (varies by block really), voice fine

Fresno (LCV) - No wimax, bad to unusable 3g, bad to unusable voice

 

The Fresno market was fine 6 months ago - data was never great (getting over 500kbps was like the holy grail), but right now youre lucky to get over 100, calls drop left and right, and even texts werent sending right. Got better service in the middle of the sierra national forest roaming with verizon (which I mapped on sensorly) than anywhere in the city.

 

Its the calls dropping that was the most frustrating - thats why we bailed from AT&T. To have 4/5 calls drop last week in Fresno was a real shock.

[simplesam]

It feels like sprint is having larger issues than many of us know. I have traveled across the country in the last 10 days and my service was the worst I have ever had in multiple areas. I am talking major cities & their airports. Things are not good in sprint land right now.

[S4GRU]

Most of the voice issues are related to 800MHz coming online suddenly. Sprint has a lot of fine tuning to do. Currently, if you run out of 800MHz service, it will not handoff to 1900. You get dropped.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

 

[gnoj]

Most of the voice issues are related to 800MHz coming online suddenly. Sprint has a lot of fine tuning to do. Currently, if you run out of 800MHz service, it will not handoff to 1900. You get dropped.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

That's interesting, I've never noticed a problem with 800 to 1900 handoffs. However, 800 coverage is so good where it's been deployed that it is quite possible I've never had to deal with that. That may also be why my phone will on occasion put itself back on to PCS (at idle) when I know both bands are available- it could be the network's way of trying to reduce the likelihood of dropped calls while also balancing load between the two bands. FWIW, the handoff from 1900 to 800 has always worked flawlessly for me. When I've been in areas that are NV mature, I haven't experienced a single dropped call.

[S4GRU]

That's interesting, I've never noticed a problem with 800 to 1900 handoffs. However, 800 coverage is so good where it's been deployed that it is quite possible I've never had to deal with that. That may also be why my phone will on occasion put itself back on to PCS (at idle) when I know both bands are available- it could be the network's way of trying to reduce the likelihood of dropped calls while also balancing load between the two bands. FWIW, the handoff from 1900 to 800 has always worked flawlessly for me. When I've been in areas that are NV mature, I haven't experienced a single dropped call.

Are you certain that you have been handing off mid call from 800 to 1900? If so, you're the first person who has reported that. Every report where someone has monitored their handoff from 800 to 1900 has said they have been dropped.

 

I'm going to Colorado later this week and going to try this in Pueblo on Samsung equipment. They have a 800 seam to a strong 1900 signal on the south side of the city.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

 

[briankwest]

The only place i've traveled that had reported 800mhz was Chicago, the other places don't list anything 800mhz related.  Still worst service I've ever had are in NV areas.  I get a sense they are rushing too fast and not properly testing everything due to time constraints.

[gnoj]

Are you certain that you have been handing off mid call from 800 to 1900? If so, you're the first person who has reported that. Every report where someone has monitored their handoff from 800 to 1900 has said they have been dropped.

 

I'm going to Colorado later this week and going to try this in Pueblo on Samsung equipment. They have a 800 seam to a strong 1900 signal on the south side of the city.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

 

No, I'm afraid I'm not certain. I was saying that so far wherever I've found an 800 signal, the coverage has been so ubiquitous that it is very possible I never happened to come across such a seam while on a call. Like you I will have to deliberately try to seek one out and test it. However, everything I've heard suggests that Samsung has had the fewest issues with deploying 800.

 

So between the very good 800 coverage around Chicago and 1900 --> 800 handoffs that work just fine, I've been lucky enough to never had a dropped call. Voice coverage is not something I've had to worry about much there, which I understand a lot of other Sprint customers can't say, particularly those still traumatized by all the issues with the legacy Motorola equipment last year.

 

Do you have any theories as to why a device would successfully handoff in one direction but not the other? Is the problem only with returning to legacy equipment rather than a NV 1900 signal?

[S4GRU]

Do you have any theories as to why a device would successfully handoff in one direction but not the other? Is the problem only with returning to legacy equipment rather than a NV 1900 signal?

 

It's actually both ways.  In order for 1900 and 800 voice to handoff to each other, it must occur by the network at the MSC.  So far, we have not been able to see where an active phone call has handed off from 800 to 1900, or vice versa.  It's possible that Sprint is still working on their MSC's to allow this function.  We believe they intend to.

 

There were a few times I thought I had passed from 1900 to 800 (or vice versa), but it turned out that the device was changing bands when I hit CALL, and not during the phone call.

 

This will become almost a complete non issue once CDMA 800 coverage is ubiquitous.  But Sprint should make it so that calls can hand off between bands for voice traffic management.  And if they do it soon, they can even better improve the voice experience as to not have disconnects at band seams.

 

Robert

[gnoj]

There were a few times I thought I had passed from 1900 to 800 (or vice versa), but it turned out that the device was changing bands when I hit CALL, and not during the phone call.

 

Hmmm, I suppose it is possible that is what has happened. If so, they had me fooled. It has happened more than once where I've noticed being on 800 right after finishing a call I could have sworn started while on PCS. I know of a good 1900 voice dead zone (but fine 800) not too far from me. Next time my phone randomly puts itself back on to PCS I will start a call and drive down there and report what happens.

 

I agree that Sprint should still work on making handoffs successful. Not only for voice traffic management, but also for people who travel in and out of the IBEZ, where they probably won't see 800 for a few more years.

[bigzeto]

Most of the voice issues are related to 800MHz coming online suddenly. Sprint has a lot of fine tuning to do. Currently, if you run out of 800MHz service, it will not handoff to 1900. You get dropped.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

Yep, I've experienced this in Baton Rouge and just recently in Houston.  I dropped 4 calls driving through Houston while trying to talk to my wife.  And when looking at my signal on 1x 800, I was in the mid 70's.  

[EXLINE]

I have dropped more calls in the past 6 months in the Indianapolis market than the 11 yrs I have been with them. Also, LTE is becoming quite loaded. I had a -80dbm and only getting 5-7 down

[S4GRU]

I have dropped more calls in the past 6 months in the Indianapolis market than the 11 yrs I have been with them. Also, LTE is becoming quite loaded. I had a -80dbm and only getting 5-7 down

 

That's not loaded.  That's what Sprint advertises as normal.  That's what a carrier/sector running between 50%-100% will run like.  When it start to get to 100% of capacity, it will drop below 4Mbps consistently.  In Sprint docs at the beginning of deployment, they stated that higher capacity sites would start hitting 75-100% capacity within 15 months of LTE devices being on sale in markets where Sprint has more than 20% market share.  We're there now in many areas.

 

Higher speeds than advertised will not really be possible in higher capacity sectors now until Triband LTE is deployed, increasing capacity and spreading out the loads.  Fortunately Indy is getting LTE 800 earlier than most markets, so it will effectively double capacity instantly at each site when it is deployed.  And each LTE 2600 carrier will effectively triple capacity over each LTE 1900 carrier.

 

Robert

[RCM]

Just ran into an issue yesterday where I was in a NV upgraded area and my call would not handoff to a legacy site. The call started to breakup then eventually dropped. The road is decently covered by Sprint in general but now transitions in and out of NV and legacy.

[chamb]

Yep, I've experienced this in Baton Rouge and just recently in Houston.  I dropped 4 calls driving through Houston while trying to talk to my wife.  And when looking at my signal on 1x 800, I was in the mid 70's.  

My Wife's Galaxy S-3 was dropping calls several times a day on 800 while having great levels. My S-3 worked fine all day.

I pulled her battery out and restarted the phone.  Trouble is gone.

[mrjeff]

I have dropped more calls in the past 6 months in the Indianapolis market than the 11 yrs I have been with them. Also, LTE is becoming quite loaded. I had a -80dbm and only getting 5-7 down

 

I've noticed the same voice degradtion in my area too since NV...even when surrounded by all completed towers.  Started sometime last year I think and never got better.  I'm hoping 800 will fix bring the service back to whatever it used to be once it is turned on.

 

LTE service is rock solid tho.