3G Shutdown

[RAvirani]

I think we are starting to see Sprint shutdown 3G in favor of a 1x/LTE only network.

Today, I drove south in I-57 from Chicago to St. Louis and a large majority of the towers along my drive were only broadcasting 1x and LTE. I noticed this a few weeks ago in rural Indiana as well. 

Wider channels for VoLTE, I guess, and exciting times for Sprint .

[Paynefanbro]

If Sprint got rid of EVDO today, I probably wouldn't notice it. 99% of the time my phone will go straight from LTE to 1x without dropping down to EVDO in areas with poor signal.

[RAvirani]

7 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

If Sprint got rid of EVDO today, I probably wouldn't notice it. 99% of the time my phone will go straight from LTE to 1x without dropping down to EVDO in areas with poor signal.

I agree. I think the spectrum is much better used for LTE or 1x than EVDO. 

Hopefully they will improve their handoff settings soon, though, because I drop from L1900 to CDMA (skipping L800) far too often for me to feel confident in VoLTE working reliably (at least on iPhones). 

[Paynefanbro]

1 minute ago, RAvirani said:

I agree. I think the spectrum is much better used for LTE or 1x than EVDO. 

Hopefully they will improve their handoff settings soon, though, because I drop from L1900 to CDMA (skipping L800) far too often for me to feel confident in VoLTE working reliably (at least on iPhones). 

That might be an issue with your device or iPhones as a whole because my S9+ will drop down to Band 26 and hold onto a it until it's pretty much unusable.

[bigsnake49]

1 hour ago, RAvirani said:

I think we are starting to see Sprint shutdown 3G in favor of a 1x/LTE only network.

Today, I drove south in I-57 from Chicago to St. Louis and a large majority of the towers along my drive were only broadcasting 1x and LTE. I noticed this a few weeks ago in rural Indiana as well. 

Wider channels for VoLTE, I guess, and exciting times for Sprint .

I have not seen EVDO for at least couple of months.

[jefbal99]

I still see 3G in West Michigan almost daily on my commute between Lansing and Portland.  It varies between EVDO and eHRPD, being they are the same, not sure why both get displayed at different times.

[drhz]

I see 3G every day too in rural SC. The LTE just doesn't seem to travel as far as 3G. In the city it's rare but in the country I see it alot. It works well though so I haven't complained. There aren't many users in rural SC.

Edited June 18, 2018 by drhz

[belusnecropolis]

3G still present here in the city along the coast and rural SC west of Conway. In NC and SC I count one 10MHz band 2/25 channel and about 3 three gee channels.

[kckid]

If you have an iPhone,  you can disable LTE which fill force it to drop down to the next available service.  When I do it with my phone,  it drops to 3G.

[Dkoellerwx]

20 hours ago, RAvirani said:

I think we are starting to see Sprint shutdown 3G in favor of a 1x/LTE only network.

Today, I drove south in I-57 from Chicago to St. Louis and a large majority of the towers along my drive were only broadcasting 1x and LTE. I noticed this a few weeks ago in rural Indiana as well. 

Wider channels for VoLTE, I guess, and exciting times for Sprint .

Question on how you verified this? Did you ever drop LTE? If so, you only saw 1x when not on LTE? Shutting down EVDO completely (many sites running one carrier) doesn't really give that much more room for LTE. 

[RAvirani]

48 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Question on how you verified this? Did you ever drop LTE? If so, you only saw 1x when not on LTE? Shutting down EVDO completely (many sites running one carrier) doesn't really give that much more room for LTE. 

I disabled LTE several times (probably 15+ times) and was unable to pick up EVDO at all—just 1x. 

[bigsnake49]

I was able to hook on eHRPD today, in the blackhole of signal, which is our matrimonial bed ;). Nobody has LTE there. Calls drop, websites take forever. But this is the only place I have seen it.

[RAvirani]

17 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

I was able to hook on eHRPD today, in the blackhole of signal, which is our matrimonial bed ;). Nobody has LTE there. Calls drop, websites take forever. But this is the only place I have seen it.

I don’t think the shutdown is widespread at all, but I’ve noticed it on several more rural sites. 

[Bob Newhart]

Sites are still getting new 800 Mhz 3G voice/data installs, so they are not shutting it down.

They have contracts with commercial customers to keep 3G active for many years.

[RAvirani]

13 hours ago, Bob Newhart said:

Sites are still getting new 800 Mhz 3G voice/data installs, so they are not shutting it down.

They have contracts with commercial customers to keep 3G active for many years.

Sprint does not run EVDO on 800 MHz anywhere, only 1x. And I never said 1x was going anywhere...just that EVDO was disappearing on some rural sites...

[Grabber5.0]

Anecdotal reply: I reactivated my Palm Pre over the weekend and have had no problems with EVDO around the KC metro. I'm going to carry it for a few weeks as my primary. #webosforever

 

 

[burnout8488]

An unannounced 3G shutdown would definitely cause problems for a lot of customers, as outdated as they may be! 

[Sonic13]

Honestly, my iPhone X spends most of its time on 3G, LTE is still pretty hit or miss for me, and just because it’s there doesn’t mean it works.

3G is chronically slow but mostly reliable outside of busy areas. I’d be screwed without it.

[Grabber5.0]

Still rocking the Palm Pre, and still getting a good EVDO signal. Except inside the KC convention center today.. holy cow, you'd think it was made of concrete or something! I was starting to doubt it really supported 800Mhz, but I opened the debug screen and saw it going back and forth between 800 and 1900 trying to latch onto a signal. I kept it in airplane mode most of the day.. newer Sprint phones didn't seem to be having issues, which didn't surprise me at all.

 

 

[nowerlater]

I think we are starting to see Sprint shutdown 3G in favor of a 1x/LTE only network.
Today, I drove south in I-57 from Chicago to St. Louis and a large majority of the towers along my drive were only broadcasting 1x and LTE. I noticed this a few weeks ago in rural Indiana as well. 
Wider channels for VoLTE, I guess, and exciting times for Sprint [emoji4].

Where at in Indiana? Was in Indiana last week and was on ehrpd quite a bit!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[JimBob]

Any update the future of Sprint 3G now that 5G begins going live in May?

[RAvirani]

As 5G will only be initially deployed on 2500 MHz, it should have no effect on CDMA which runs on 800/1900 MHz. 

[Brad The Beast]

Don't take away my 3G! It's the only thing that works decently at my apartment lol

[red_dog007]

I wonder what Sprints timeline is to shut down CDMA completely.  VZW CDMA is dead EOY 2019. ATT looks like they will kill HSPA EOY 2021.  Think Sprint would be in a great spot if they could do it in a few years. Once the market is full of 5G phones.  B26 could go down to 1.4MHz for LTE and add 5MHz for 5G. 

Any of the newer dual-band/tri-band equipment easily upgradable for 5G? At least not requiring a tower climb?

[iansltx]

They wouldn't even need to drop 800's LTE. Remember that post-merger they'll have B12 and B71 available for 5G. Carving out an extra 5 MHz won't buy much, compared to the 20 MHz FD in 600.

I'm going to guess Sprint will cut PCS CDMA 12/31/21, with an extra year for 800. Could be EOY 2021 for everything depending on when the merger happens. The issue right now is that they still haven't launched VoLTE so who knows even how much traffic they can shunt away from CDMA with the phones that are in the field right now.