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

[kg4icg]

Well looks like overall Sprint isnt as bad as the current climate make it seem...

 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/sprints-lte-plus-network-achieves-best-ever-performance-in-cities-across-the-country.htm

You can look forward to John blowing his top on twitter and going full ballistic. Can look forward to the root metrics denouncement on twitter soon.

 

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[samwelltarley]

You can look forward to John blowing his top on twitter and going full ballistic. Can look forward to the root metrics denouncement on twitter soon.

 

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Lol. Sprint is still touting CALLS and TEXT reliability and completely silent of DATA and SPEED. They're still living in 2011. God help them.

 

 

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[Paynefanbro]

Lol. Sprint is still touting CALLS and TEXT reliability and completely silent of DATA and SPEED. They're still living in 2011. God help them.

 

 

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But if your calls dropped frequently and your texts failed to go through, I'm willing to bet you'd be pretty mad. Overall they're in third place because they scored well in call, text, and reliability.  RootMetrics said "If Sprint can expand its LTE footprint beyond metropolitan areas across the US, Sprint could close the gap with the other networks in multiple categories in our national testing."

[Paynefanbro]

They also seem to cosign what some of us in the NYC market have been saying with regard to small cells. Hopefully it can translate well into other markets.

 

Sprint has several new technological initiatives planned for 2017 that could help the carrier’s improved metro results translate into further success at the state and national levels:

 

• High Performance User Equipment (HPUE), which will increase Sprint devices’ ability to take advantage of its fast (but less propagated in terms of coverage) 2.5GHz band
• 256QAM LTE-Advanced
• Three-carrier aggregation (using the fast 2.5GHz band); Sprint announced it started to deploy 3CA in the second half of 2016, and the carrier has a few devices that support this technology
• Small cell deployments (which produced very strong results in New York City based on our tests)

 

There's some more pretty interesting info.

 

 

Sprint recorded at least 90% of its tests on LTE in 109 markets for the second consecutive test period.

[Terrell352]

They also seem to cosign what some of us in the NYC market have been saying with regard to small cells. Hopefully it can translate well into other markets.

 

 

There's some more pretty interesting info.

I trust this report way more than Open Signal thats for sure. All Sprint needs to do is increase its data speeds, capacity and coverage and they will be golden. Easier said than done though.

[Johnner1999]

But if your calls dropped frequently and your texts failed to go through, I'm willing to bet you'd be pretty mad. Overall they're in third place because they scored well in call, text, and reliability. RootMetrics said "If Sprint can expand its LTE footprint beyond metropolitan areas across the US, Sprint could close the gap with the other networks in multiple categories in our national testing."

 

Correct. But a national carrier in 2017 should have reliable voice and text. AND data.

 

 

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[Terrell352]

But if your calls dropped frequently and your texts failed to go through, I'm willing to bet you'd be pretty mad. Overall they're in third place because they scored well in call, text, and reliability. RootMetrics said "If Sprint can expand its LTE footprint beyond metropolitan areas across the US, Sprint could close the gap with the other networks in multiple categories in our national testing."

Call and text are important but data can do everything traditional 1x can do and better. Clearer calls over LTE and RCS is basically instant messaging which is better than traditional text. Data is the most important metric and thats something that Sprint has do get right in alot of places at a fast pace.

 

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[Paynefanbro]

Call and text are important but data can do everything traditional 1x can do and better. Clearer calls over LTE and RCS is basically instant messaging which is better than traditional text. Data is the most important metric and thats something that Sprint has do get right in alot of places at a fast pace.

 

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I'm not arguing about LTE offering clearer calls and being more spectrally efficient since everyone agrees on that. However Sprint's voice and text reliability are damn near second to none as it is, so they really shouldn't rush into it unless they can offer equal or better service via LTE.

 

I'd also argue that RCS is a non factor untill all 4 of the nationwide carriers hop on Google/GSMA's global platform. Right now it's only one carrier that has it active.

 

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[Terrell352]

I'm not arguing about LTE offering clearer calls and being more spectrally efficient since everyone agrees on that. However Sprint's voice and text reliability are damn near second to none as it is, so they really shouldn't rush into it unless they can offer equal or better service via LTE.

 

I'd also argue that RCS is a non factor untill all 4 of the nationwide carriers hop on Google/GSMA's global platform. Right now it's only one carrier that has it active.

 

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Sprint was smart to wait but Verizon is showing us that VoLTE can be reliable with enough density and small cells. We dont even have small cells in my city and they still have great call coverage.

 

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[RedSpark]

My short but to the point example is that Verizon and AT&T have a tower that they share right next to the local big box that rhymes with Palblart. T-Mobile has a tower here but it is across town a bit next to the town park. Verizon and AT&T work in that Palblart (lol) and T-Mobile has real issues with hanging onto LTE signal. It doesn't help that T-Mobile has no 700 MHz here but most customers aren't going to care about that.

In the minds of most customers that would sting. In reality, the smaller carriers have always had issues with Big Box. While I hate said Big Box, shopping there is unavoidable here. Small cells within the Big Boxes would help but that is going to need to happen on a massive scale.

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Sprint could make it happen in these stores by deploying a CommScope S1000 Unit (or larger unit if necessary) on the ceiling. These big box stores tend to have open space design and since they already have backhaul running to the store, Sprint could either utilize that or pick up the tab for the lowest cost Business Class Internet Sevice or Ethernet Backhaul.

 

Sprint should be buying and placing these units by the thousands in Big Box, Pharmacies and Grocery Stores.

[RedSpark]

Lol. Sprint is still touting CALLS and TEXT reliability and completely silent of DATA and SPEED. They're still living in 2011. God help them.

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John wasn't silent on Data or Speed:

 

"We’re particularly pleased with this call performance ranking because we know it’s one of the most important drivers of customer satisfaction. While differences in speed (for example, 10 Mbps vs 20 Mbps) is not noticeable to most customers, a dropped or blocked call certainly is."

[RedSpark]

Well looks like overall Sprint isnt as bad as the current climate make it seem...

 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/sprints-lte-plus-network-achieves-best-ever-performance-in-cities-across-the-country.htm

Great blog post!

[kg4icg]

And now let the fireworks begin,

Check out @marceloclaure's Tweet: https://twitter.com/marceloclaure/status/834749819306536961?s=09

 

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[RedSpark]

They also seem to cosign what some of us in the NYC market have been saying with regard to small cells. Hopefully it can translate well into other markets.

 

 

 

There's some more pretty interesting info.

"Prior to the second half of 2016, Sprint’s LTE coverage had improved across multiple test periods. In the second-half testing, however, Sprint’s rate of tests on LTE remained identical to what we found in the first half of 2016. Specifically, Sprint recorded at least 90% of its tests on LTE in 109 markets for the second consecutive test period."

 

That "at least 90% of its tests on LTE in 109 markets" figure staying the same since the last test period sounds like it could be improved with more CapEx.

[kineticman]

Sprint granted waiver for 800MHz LTE in Phoenix area

 

 

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0215/DA-17-169A1.pdf

[Terrell352]

I don't know why Samsung doesn't ditch qualcomm and just make there own chips for all of there flagships. 5xCA support. My Note 5 runs so much better than my wifes Galaxy S7. Even 7.0 nougat didn't make that much of a difference. Snapdragon is trash. http://www.androidcentral.com/samsungs-10nm-exynos-8895-chipset-now-official

 

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[samwelltarley]

I trust this report way more than Open Signal thats for sure. All Sprint needs to do is increase its data speeds, capacity and coverage and they will be golden. Easier said than done though.

Me too. I trust the raw data from RootMetrics more than most other reports. But about statistics: lies, damn lies and then statistics.

In the original report, they rank carriers in 5 categories: reliability, calls, text, data and speed. Sprint ranks dreadfully in DATA and SPEED (we all know that) categories but sprint always represents its wins in the other categories, especially calls and text. Sure it's just marketing, but I hope Sprint doesn't think it's okay that it ranks a distant LAST in data and speed when they promised to rank FIRST 2 years ago (and they should with the sea of spectrum that they constantly boast about)

 

But it's much much more costly to improve data and speed than on calls and text so they delayed the capex. I just hope they don't end up delaying that for too long. Sometimes it's easy to be fooled by your own marketing bullshit.

[Terrell352]

Good news for Puerto Ricohttps://twitter.com/sprintnews/status/834765663881273344

 

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[Hmight]

https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2017/02/sprint-cto-says-gigabit-field-trials-coming-spring-or-summer-2017

 

 

On the network side, Saw said that following the roll out of 3CA, a tweak to the network configuration will be next, as Sprint’s TDD setup allows it flexibility to allocate more spectrum resources for the downlink. But overall, he observed, the shift is already in progress.

Though other carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile have also announced plans to roll out Gigabit LTE in 2017, Saw argued Sprint’s nationwide spectrum depth would be a differentiating factor.

“You need to ask them, one, are you using your actual licensed spectrum or are you also adding in unlicensed spectrum as well. Some of them would have to use License Assisted Access, which is using unlicensed spectrum as well. There’s nothing wrong with that except you have less control with the use of unlicensed spectrum,” Saw said.

“The other thing you need to be asking is the ubiquity of what they’re trying to do. Can you demonstrate gigabit class devices only in the lab … or are you able to demonstrate gigabit class devices only in certain markets in Arizona and not nationwide?” he continued. “For Sprint we have always been clear that we have a lot of 2.5 (GHz spectrum) nationwide and we have the right technology that is optimized for data, which is TDD. So when we say we’re going to roll out gigabit class devices, I mean all our phones once they can support 4x4 MIMO and 256-QAM will be usable nationwide.”

 

 

NICE!

[Terrell352]

"On the network side, Saw said that following the roll out of 3CA, a tweak to the network configuration will be next, as Sprint’s TDD setup allows it flexibility to allocate more spectrum resources for the downlink. But overall, he observed, the shift is already in progress."

 

So does this mean that they are going to make uplink even slower to make downlink faster? Will 2xCA uplink bascially make this problem mute?

 

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[Fraydog]

Sprint granted waiver for 800MHz LTE in Phoenix area

 

 

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0215/DA-17-169A1.pdf

This happens quickly after Sheriff Joe gets beat. Go figure.

 

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[Fraydog]

Also most of the non tech people notice dropped calls before they notice dropped data. Traditionally, the carrier Sprint competes with most directly is Verizon, not AT&T and T-Mobile. So while AT&T can lose customers to Magenta and be okay with it as long as it isn't big business, Verizon competes more fiercely in the space and has a VoLTE network that hits all possible metrics. Verizon hitting all network metrics makes it a difficult competition. That said, Sprint has a platform to get faster if they just spend the cap ex. The base of reliability and good phone/text is there. What Sprint should do in 2017 is expand geographic coverage and small cells. No reason Sprint can't be competitive on speed, but there is, in my mind, an element of "great artists ship" at play. Get the averages up this year, guys.

 

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[Fraydog]

As far as Sprint geographic expansion goes, hit the areas where the Magentans have their hands tied like around STL and in North Carolina/Knoxville TN. Areas with no low band on their end.

 

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[jamesinclair]

If we're thinking about the same spreadsheet then it clearly shows that Unlimited Freedom is cheaper than ED1500.

 

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Read the comments. The spreadsheet is not correct.

 

I have an ED plan. I have done the math myself an used the online optimizer. If I switch within Sprint my price goes up. If I were to switch to Tmobile, my price would go down.

[Arysyn]

Well looks like overall Sprint isnt as bad as the current climate make it seem...

 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/sprints-lte-plus-network-achieves-best-ever-performance-in-cities-across-the-country.htm

Its like RootMetrics and OpenSignal are the exact opposite of each other on everything, except for Verizon. So it seems the only thing that can truly be counted on by these reports is that either Verizon really is the best carrier of them all, or Verizon is really good at paying off these report publishers.