Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

[RedSpark]

Great conversation with Dave Tovar, VP of corporate communications at Sprint:

 

 

At 3:40: "We hope Paul with Sprint becomes just as synonymous as Paul with Verizon."

 

At 3:50: He says that Sprint came up with the idea, executed it, and launched it in a couple of weeks

 

Marcelo's made all the difference he says.

 

Lots more of good stuff in there about how they got Paul onboard...

[WiWavelength]

Here is an interesting inter operator comparison -- with results the opposite of what you might expect.

 

In a masonry constructed church basement, I consistently have excellent -90 dBm RSRP Sprint signal.  And that even is just band 25, not band 26, probably because there is an oDAS small cell mounted on a utility pole about 1000 ft away.

 

With a T-Mobile SIM in the same Nexus 5X, the result I had one night was less reliable but still usable.  Signal drops to no service going down the stairs deep into the basement.  Once inside the room, though, it ultimately settles on T-Mobile LTE, around -115 dBm RSRP.  Now, T-Mobile, as well as Sprint, is collocated on a macro site about 3000 ft away.  However, T-Mobile is the low man on the totem pole on that site.  SignalCheck Pro identifies the T-Mobile LTE as band 4, but I doubt it, as we know that T-Mobile GCIs do not follow the predictable band patterns of those of the other operators.  T-Mobile is licensed the band 12 Lower 700 MHz A block here.  So, I think the Nexus 5X or the network just takes 60 seconds or so to shift to band 12.  Unfortunately, until I break out my spectrum analyzer, I have no way to prove band 12.

 

Finally, with an AT&T SIM in my 2015 Moto X, I had no service in the basement room one evening.  As I recall, none whatsoever.  Not even GSM 850.  AT&T is collocated atop that same site 3000 ft away.  And for low band spectrum, AT&T is licensed both the Cellular 850 MHz B block and band 17 Lower 700 MHz B and C blocks here.  Still, nada signal.  Now, that could be a function of the handset.  So, my next experiment when in that basement will be to try my AT&T SIM in the Nexus 5X.

 

This is just one underground location, but Sprint > T-Mobile > AT&T.  Interesting.  I do not have means to test VZW, no VZW SIM, though if I understand correctly, I could pick up a non activated VZW SIM, and it still would work with SignalCheck Pro for around 90 days.

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

The PC Mag speed tests are out. Lots of good news for Sprint.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[WiWavelength]

The PC Mag speed tests are out. Lots of good news for Sprint.

 

Poor Sascha.  He must be disappointed.

 

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

Poor Sascha. He must be disappointed.

 

 

AJ

Naw, he seemed happy for Sprint. I had to reread that part to make sure, but it's pretty clear he sees Sprint differently than he did two years ago.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article/345123/fastest-mobile-networks-2016

 

The improvement in New York, San Francisco, and Seattle in particular is notable.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[derrph]

Naw, he seemed happy for Sprint. I had to reread that part to make sure, but it's pretty clear he sees Sprint differently than he did two years ago.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article/345123/fastest-mobile-networks-2016

 

The improvement in New York, San Francisco, and Seattle in particular is notable.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

I did a quick skim at the results but boy just wait until Sprint is more dense. That report gave me more faith. But j still say all these reports are subjective in some aspects. For my area of Columbus,OH root had Sprint at #3 but pcmag crowded them king of Columbus. Maybe things had changed since when root tested. But either way no matter the test. It's clear that Sprints upload speeds hold it back from more wins.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fraydog]

I did a quick skim at the results but boy just wait until Sprint is more dense. That report gave me more faith. But j still say all these reports are subjective in some aspects. For my area of Columbus,OH root had Sprint at #3 but pcmag crowded them king of Columbus. Maybe things had changed since when root tested. But either way no matter the test. It's clear that Sprints upload speeds hold it back from more wins.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can see logic to some of the results based on local observations. For example, the St. Louis tests showed slow downs for T-Mobile in the city of St. Louis. I tested a T-Mobile SIM in a lot of the same areas like near Ikea, in the South Side on Manchester and in the Grove, and only started to hit faster results in West County. The fastest T-Mobile results I got were in Monroe County IL on fully modernized exurban sites. Meanwhile the Sprint users on here have seen great progress, see the Busch Stadium tests. That is the most congested area for everyone, usually.

 

Verizon is still really good most places. But what I fail to understand is why so many people in St. Louis are still on AT&T. I suspect a lot of the slowdowns on T-Mobile are due to their success in peeling customers off AT&T. Maybe Sprint should target AT&T. They seems to be the most ripe for it IMO.

 

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[nexgencpu]

As we in the NY thread have been praising Sprint in NYC, proof is in the pudding.

 

 

2nd only to Verizon's average download speeds by a tiny margin (1%...anyone?)

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article/345123/fastest-mobile-networks-2016/23

 

 

Still annoyed that Root feels the need to includes suburban parts on NJ with NYC.

[NYC126]

Massive improvements for Sprint with the exceptions of Tucson, San Diego and Oklahoma. Obviously the upload speeds are included in the results otherwise Sprint would had won a handful of cities. Happy they beat Tmobile in their hometown of Seattle, but Sasha made the excuse of nobody being in the Sprint network, so if we will make that excuse that probably apply to Kansas city where Sprint is extremely popular.

 

Can't wait for the next time around with 3x carrier aggregation, and a more dense network everywhere. The others carriers are at their peak already while Sprint hasn't even reached it yet.

[kg4icg]

There was no way I was going to let this slip by today on twitter.

https://twitter.com/MetroPCS/status/740681150008434688

 

 

 

Sent from my 2PQ93 using Tapatalk

[clbowens]

As we in the NY thread have been praising Sprint in NYC, proof is in the pudding.

 

 

2nd only to Verizon's download speeds by a tiny margin (1%...anyone?)

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article/345123/fastest-mobile-networks-2016/23

 

 

Still annoyed that Root feels the need to includes suburban parts on NJ with NYC.

How do you get 121Mbps download speed on VZW?

[nexgencpu]

How do you get 121Mbps download speed on VZW?

20x20 AWS

[RedSpark]

John Saw laid it out here:

Sprint Plots Come-From-Behind Victory With Unusual 5G Approach
 

“We have an advantage because we have the spectrum and we have the experience,” he said at the demo. “Our learning curve won’t be as steep as others who haven’t done this before.”

And....
 

More connections will require more signals, and that will require more coverage, Saw said.

“The guy with the most poles is going to win, and that’s even more true as I’m looking 10 years down the road,” Saw said.

[JonnygATL]

Note, this is a promotion.  The SIM costs $9.99 with currently a -$9.99 credit.  That is not likely to last forever.

Don't you love poor grammar?

 

And I fail to see how MVNO users are "going to loot" this deal.  The credit card size holder for all recent Sprint SIMs has carried the MVNO logos, too.  Any MVNO on the Sprint network is using Sprint SIMs.

 

Lastly, when I ordered, I was not logged into my account.  I tried that route, but I could not get all the way through to the point of sale.  Sprint could cross reference my supplied phone number to see that I am a current sub.  However, I do not think that Sprint cares.  Handing out free SIMs even to non subscribers may be a way to entice them to BYOD and port over to Sprint or at least try out Sprint.

 

AJ

[Paynefanbro]

What's sad is that the only reason Sprint lost in many cities is because of low upload speeds which account for 20% of the total score. If Sprint's upload speeds resembled the competition they would have pulled in several cities easily.

 

It's fine though since the upload speeds are generally great for any task. It's all for bragging rights.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[anthony.spina97]

Wow! I'm very impressed with Sprint's showing in Charlotte! Granted, I tend to travel in their less covered areas of the market, so I tend to see the worst of the network here. But man! That's nice to see!

 

-Anthony

[caspar347]

Wow! I'm very impressed with Sprint's showing in Charlotte! Granted, I tend to travel in their less covered areas of the market, so I tend to see the worst of the network here. But man! That's nice to see!

 

-Anthony

Yeah, all of the test locations happened to be in areas with great service for all four carriers (i.e. very close to towers) with one exception. I'm actually kind of surprised they had Sprint LTE at the Myers Park location. The locations kinda make me think they specifically looked for towers to test under since the testing is for speed only, but they didn't verify that all four were on all tested towers.

 

But regardless, this shows how ahead of the curve Sprint is on spectrum and equipment to utilize that spectrum. Awesome stuff!

[WiWavelength]

Ordered.  A Sprint postpaid 3-in-1 SIM will go nicely with my T-Mobile prepaid 3-in-1 SIM.  The microSIM Nexus 5 can reenter my rotation with the nanoSIM 2015 Moto X and Nexus 5X.

 

Plus, this suggests that Sprint has consolidated down to one CSIM UICC that will work in all current and future CSIM and USIM handsets.

 

 

My Sprint 3-in-1 SIM is out for delivery on the UPS truck.  I should have it within the next 3-4 hours.  Then, I will make the UICC switch online, and that brand new nanoSIM running CSIM from last fall already will get retired.

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

What's sad is that the only reason Sprint lost in many cities is because of low upload speeds which account for 20% of the total score. If Sprint's upload speeds resembled the competition they would have pulled in several cities easily.

 

It's fine though since the upload speeds are generally great for any task. It's all for bragging rights.

 

In any data speeds rating algorithm, the downlink coefficient should be 0.67-0.75, the uplink coefficient only 0.25-0.33.  To put it more simply, in the calculations, downlink speeds should be weighted 2-3 times that of uplink speeds.

 

Yes, people do upload large photos and videos.  Some "content creators" use more uplink data than they do downlink data.  But the vast majority of data traffic overall is on the downlink.  The proportion is not even close.

 

The data speeds ratings should reflect that fact.

 

AJ

[laqn1283]

Questions:  why did Sprint embark and rip and replace NV1 in the first place?  Was it because the equipment that was in place is not compatible for LTE?  As Sprint migrate to 5G, do they have to do rip and replace again or is it more like an add on to what already in place for LTE?

[anthony.spina97]

Yes, people do upload large photos and videos.  Some "content creators" use more uplink data than they do downlink data.  But the vast majority of data traffic overall is on the downlink.  The proportion is not even close.

 

AJ

Yeah the majority of people I can think of who heavily use upload are people who livestream on websites like Twitch and those who regularly upload videos to Youtube. But I highly doubt any of them are using cellular data to do so, so like you said, download should be weighted way more than upload.

 

-Anthony

[RedSpark]

Questions:  why did Sprint embark and rip and replace NV1 in the first place?  Was it because the equipment that was in place is not compatible for LTE?  As Sprint migrate to 5G, do they have to do rip and replace again or is it more like an add on to what already in place for LTE?

 

Here's a good background article on Network Vision: Network Vision: Sprint’s path to domination

 

See this Blog Post by John Saw, Sprint CTO: Paving the Road to 5G

 

Today we’re keenly focused on building a strong foundation for 5G by densifying our existing network with more cell sites and antennas. We know that future networks will need to be massively dense in order to meet the demand for higher data rates per person across a given geographic location.

 

Others may explain this better than I can, but 5G comes from deploying 8T8R antennas and additional equipment to sites, adding 2.5 GHz (Band 41) to sites, enabling Carrier Aggregation 2x, 3x, and beyond. Finally, it includes densifying with small cell cites (and new macro sites) so that devices wind up spending as much time as possible on 2.5 GHz and the tremendous speed/capacity it provides.

 

2.5 GHz is prime low-band spectrum for 5G, and Sprint has plenty of experience running higher frequencies as well for LTE Relay/Microwave, etc. Good days ahead!

[Flompholph]

For the PCmag tests I don't have any real issue with the download to upload ratio it is 40 to 20.(20+20 and 10+10) Also ping and reliability are each 20. Some carriers were scoring 100 and then other markets had higher scores but were ~95 I don't understand that. Probably a wieghted number that changes instead of a constant number to shoot for across the nation.

 

When averaging Downloads>5Mbps, Uploads>2Mbps and Reliability. I was surprised how highly Pittsburgh ranked out of the 30 cities listed ATT (2nd), Sprint(7th), TMobile(16th),and Verizon (4th).

 

I was surprised by their Miami scores with connecting to B41 enough that it should be most places but I am not showing any B41² in my SCP logs from a year ago. 

[Paynefanbro]

One thing worth noting that Sascha Segan said was that T-Mobile actually performed worse this year around than it did last year and he attributed it to their success at gaining customers.

 

In my opinion the problem is that T-Mobile has been really invested in expanding coverage as much as possible so they've been implementing too many stopgaps instead of actually fixing it the amounting congestion problems by doing things like capping streaming quality with BingeOn and aggregating Band 12 and Band 4 (which really isn't helping the congestion on Band 12 anyway).

 

Meanwhile Verizon has been hard at work spending millions on densifying their network with small cells and deploying large swaths of more spectrum in PCS and eventually Cellular frequencies. Sprint too seems to be on the ball, deploying a third Band 41 carrier in many places and densifying with small cells.

 

From my observations, T-Mobile threw all their eggs in early on which gave them a really fast network early on but both RootMerics and now PCMag's test are now showing them to be slowing down and now they're scrambling to spend millions if not billions on more spectrum in an attempt to keep their high speed reputation.

 

 

EDIT: But VZW is coming to the end of their spectrum soon enough so they might end up in the same predicament as T-Mobile soon.

[RedSpark]

One thing worth noting that Sascha Segan said was that T-Mobile actually performed worse this year around than it did last year and he attributed it to their success at gaining customers.

 

In my opinion the problem is that T-Mobile has been really invested in expanding coverage as much as possible so they've been implementing too many stopgaps instead of actually fixing it the amounting congestion problems by doing things like capping streaming quality with BingeOn and aggregating Band 12 and Band 4 (which really isn't helping the congestion on Band 12 anyway).

 

Meanwhile Verizon has been hard at work spending millions on densifying their network with small cells and deploying large swaths of more spectrum in PCS and eventually Cellular frequencies. Sprint too seems to be on the ball, deploying a third Band 41 carrier in many places and densifying with small cells.

 

From my observations, T-Mobile threw all their eggs in early on which gave them a really fast network early on but both RootMerics and now PCMag's test are now showing them to be slowing down and now they're scrambling to spend millions if not billions on more spectrum in an attempt to keep their high speed reputation.

 

Even if T-Mobile gets some 600 MHz spectrum in the auction, that won't do much to address its speed issues will it?