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Definitely not in vain. Sprint never would have had the number of customers and value without it to be sold. It would have been bankruptcy. But after all these years and effort, it kinda feels like it. But for most of us, it sure was fun. T-Mobile network hunting is also fun. Just not quite in the same way. Your post made me nostalgic, though. Making me think back on all the years we have been tower chasing. I have moved from Nevada to New Mexico to South Dakota to Washington State in all this time. Some of us have gotten married, had kids. Some have lost spouses and kids. There have been car accidents out there on the roads chasing towers. But the joy when finding a WiMax signal where there wasn't supposed to be one. Or the first Sprint LTE signal to light up your phone. And you may have driven hundreds to miles to get to it. Or that 1x 800 signal from over 50 miles away that you wondered if it was real. Or seeing activity at your local Sprint site. Or falling asleep at your keyboard updating map pins. Or zooming in and out of layers in Sensorly to see if all your recently laid trails appear. It was a blast! And though I single handedly am responsible from draining oil from one part of the Alaskan wilderness, I am glad to have done it all. Now I am ready to start to get back to it. Part Deux. I traded in my full size Lincoln pickup for a compact Ford Maverick with much better fuel economy and teaching my youngest to drive. I got out my spectrum analyzer, binoculars and started watching towers again. I got to pass this on to the next generation. "Son, come here for a moment. Let me tell you about the magic inside your cellphone..." Robert

And what will this all mean for S4GRU? We are in a wait and see mode before we decide how to adapt. Until then, we will be here every day with you all, plotting our wireless destiny. Robert

Couldn't help myself. Got to work today and went to put my lunch in the fridge. I noticed the microwave, did a double-take, then took this picture: I sent it to my wife with a note, "We must have good reception on the microwave today. 4 bars." I'll show myself out. - Trip

Alright. There may not be a Sprint anymore, but the same rules apply. Just incessant complaining about the old Sprint is getting old. People will start checking out because it just will become a complaint board. Constructive criticism only, please. Robert

We don't allow political discussion at S4GRU for good reason. We're bordering on that now. And that illustrates how what Marcelo did was not smart. The tax bill ended up being highly partisan. So joining the bandwagon looks political and alienates millions of customers. Exactly why we insist on staying out.

I'm definitely going to miss Sprint. It's like a homely introverted ex-girlfriend. She's a cheap date and just likes to stay home (on WiFi). You know there was so much potential, if she could just be what you wanted her to be. Get moving, get out of the house, get a makeover. You weren't in love with her, and made so many excuses for her to all your friends. You've been meaning to break up with her, but you didn't want to end up with one of those 3 other narcissistic chicks out there, who really didn't look much better with their makeup off. Eventually she just finds someone else (T-Mobile). Robert

2XCA upload is live!!!! Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Hot off the Goldman Sachs Investor call with Marcelo Claure... Highlights at 35 mins into the call (11:05 Eastern) -Sprint will add 2000 Macro sites (no time frame given) - Will have EVERY cell site with 800, 1.9 and 2.5 (No time frame given) - Will deploy many thousands of mini macro and such in addition to the Macro sites. -Capex will be $5-7 billion this year and "At least that much next year or more".... Marcelo's thoughts were that now that Sprint is growth positive and cash positive (his words) Sprint can now invest heavily and expand it's footprint.

And this is the truth that many of us are going to learn. T-Mobile is not perfect everywhere. They have some markets where they have some real bad towers here and there. And there are some entire markets that aren't that good. But if the New T-Mobile fully leverages Sprint spectrum and add every Sprint site that expands coverage or provides additional capacity, it will get really good. Probably the best. Sprint failed to leverage Nextel sites to expand coverage and capacity to its full extent. Not even half its extent. Hopefully NTmo will take it to the maximum. But their comments about existing Sprint sites sound kinda lukewarm. No I won't hold my breath. If Tmo really wants to take it to the Duopoly, they need to keep every Sprint site that adds any coverage (and upgrade it, of course). They should also try to add Nextel locations that expand coverage too. And then any Sprint in-footprint sites that are not co-located With Tmo where density improvement or capacity would be helpful. Robert

It really is impressive what T-Mobile has done. When S4GRU started in 2011, T-Mobile was the 4th place network in coverage, reputation and performance. Now, look at how far they come. Now the leader in so many ways. It's something Sprint could have done too. They could have made the decisions differently from the beginning and followed a similar course. And now what ever was good about Sprint has been fully leveraged by Tmo and put to much better use. I miss Sprint. But really I just miss the potential that was always there. Always excited about what could be tomorrow. That potential has been realized. Just in hues of magenta, instead of yellow. Not that it's all been roses since the buyout. But on the whole, much, much better. Robert

I knew this day was coming, and yet it's still a bit heartbreaking now that it's finally here. Sprint had some ups and downs. The most positive thing I can remember against the other three was the old Google voice integration. Largest negative would be the VoLTE rollout. It was a blast going through Wimax, the LTE launch, triband LTE, and then finally 5G NR. Getting to have tower maps through S4GRU was a huge part of the experience. It definitely wouldn't have been the same without this place. A big thanks to everyone at S4GRU over the years, and I hope the transition goes as well as it can for all the current Sprint employees.

I'm live at samsung event! Sprint is 5G partner for GS10 5G!

I can confirm that Sprint is targeting August for rolling out Tmo roaming. Robert

I would do the New T-Mobile initially because I would be excited to watch the progress. And since I am already a Tmo customer, it would just happen by default. However, if they started jacking up pricing and VZW or AT&T were less expensive, I would consider a switch. I do not have any unnatural loyalty to the new Sprint/T-Mobile merged company. They will have to keep at it to keep my business in the long run. Robert

It is more insightful than these tend to be. -$5-6 billion may be on the low side on CapEx going forward. -Large push back towards traditional towers. -Going back to the 25/26/41 on every macro tower where possible plan.

Oh gosh, not this again. I am more against this than I was before. Tmo and Sprint are getting more competitive and gaining market share against the Duopoly. Verizon is on their feet, having to actually compete. The wireless market has never been better for the American consumer. I'm willing to sit back and see what comes of this, as twospirits recommends, but I think the status quo is right where we need to be nationally with wireless. The path forward looks good for Tmo and Sprint. Prices will go up if they are allowed to merge. They are trying to do it now. It is the 4th competitor, the odd duck out, that pressures the market. Three roughly equal sized competitors just won't pressure much. Mark my words!

Visiting Kansas City for a couple of days. First time since SA 5G has become widespread and easier to access since I upgraded to my S23 Ultra. n25 is online widely across at least the Kansas side of town, I expect it should be in Missouri too since the spectrum holdings are the same. T-Mobile has a ton of spectrum on air now. LTE: 5 Mhz B71 5 Mhz B12 15+5 Mhz B66 15 Mhz B2 20+20 Mhz B41 (this may have changed, I haven't actually see a B41 connection in a while). 5G: 100+40 Mhz n41 20 Mhz n25 10 Mhz n71 While on 5G, I see 100 n41 + 40 n41 + 20 n25. Pulled the fastest speed I've seen on T-Mobile yet. In the middle of the afternoon no less.

I absolutely love the new header Mr. Robert!

I just got my Magic Box (ordered it 2 days ago) and I have band 41 in my apt now! I used to pull 5-8 down on band 25 but now I’m averaging 42 down on band 41 i live in an apartment so my neighbors with Sprint will benefit too!

Sprint has passed AT&T in average performance, all in a year they were largely distracted by a merger. Yet, they are awful. Can't be trusted. Some act like it's getting worse and worse. Sprint cannot make some people happy, no matter what. If they aren't number one, they aren't anything. But I swear, when they make it to number one in performance, the haters will complain about coverage. They will have to be number one in everything. And then it will be that they hate old ladies, or something. They are committing more money than ever before. And already spending more money than in the past few years. They already are more active than before in the planning and early work. More bidding, more contract issued. New equipment is already hitting the streets. Small cells popping up all over and more in planning. And now they are talking about a significant macro site development too. This is nothing like the past. And Sprint is still getting better and better. And now that they are deploying B26 in my market, I will probably be coming back to Sprint again soon.

Thank you all for the Birthday wishes. I am slowly trying to get caught back up. Now that COVID is winding down, my life is gradually returning to normal. I am very grateful to this community and all who have continued to carry the torch without me having to be present daily! Otherwise, COVID would have done this place in. Great job! Robert

I find it funny that all the T-Mobile fanboys are pressed over Sprints b41 all of a sudden and wanting to use it. But when it was used on Sprint, it was considered horrible spectrum and that T-Mobile was better positioned with spectrum. If T-Mobile isn’t using it then it’s no good. The same goes with DSS. Right now they’re trashing it but as soon as T-Mobile implements it, it’ll be the best thing since sliced pie. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's also interesting to see through the lens of history that Dan Hesse is seen as a great CEO at Sprint. Dan was the right guy for the right season. It's the Masa season that will likely be judged harshly. And now we are in a new season. All hail the new supreme leader, Mike Sievert. Robert

Sprint's situation is not dire. They still have over 50 million postpaid customers. There is a relatively high churn rate, but people are not fleeing for the exits. Most of that were temporary customers they tried to entice away with promos. In virtually every metric, Sprint is in better shape now. Financially and network performance. And frankly, their current and future capex plans are more realistic and better serving. They are much more in line with what Tmo did to get itself out of its rut back in 2012-2014. Focus on urban markets first, then suburban and secondary markets. And if you play your cards right and growth starts to occur after a few years of doing that, then they can make an exurban/rural move with major highway expansions. But Sprint cannot put the cart before the horse again this time. This is a much smarter plan. We all want Sprint to be the hard charging Number Four carrier that quickly surpasses the others to become #1 or #2. But also, there are ways to be a successful company and stay #4 forever. If Sprint cannot merge, it is still completely viable to run on its own. But it will be a long process to gain more customers or move up the rung. And I think most of us believe the network experience will be the best way to do that. And Sprint needs to start with the highest concentrations of customers first, to get the most bang for its buck. But Sprint is highlighting the darkness in their current status, because it is trying to get a merger approved. And that's going to give a lot of fodder to the unbelievers. Shun the unbelievers! Robert

Official word? How can there be an official announcement that a deal is off when there has been no official announcement that a deal is on? It's all rumor and speculation.

You guys are just falling for the propaganda. They all want us to think the Sprint's failure is imminent, if not even immediate, if the merger is not approved. You guys all mocked Sprint when they first were using hyperbole about their network and prospects when they played that card initially. And now going all ga-ga over the data again as if it was new info and now means even something more or different. This is all OLD NEWS. They want it rehashed and all of you to freak out and over talk about it, so general opinion is that Sprint is going to no longer exist with or without Tmo. But the reality is, as Brad mentioned above, Sprint is in better shape than it was last year, two years ago and five years ago. And also, I don't get the comment that "Softbank is looking for a bailout by any means necessary." Softbank is not looking for a bailout. No request of government giving money to save Sprint financially. That's a bailout. Softbank is looking for a BUYER. It's totally legit to look to sell the company. Why would this be surprising? Masa was discussing selling Sprint within weeks of buying it. That's always been on the table. And frankly, I wouldn't mind for someone to take over than Masa. A tie up with a cable company may be a very good thing for Sprint if the Tmo deal doesn't happen. But I fully expect a legal challenge if not approved. Robert

Let's be careful with the political commentary. Please stay within the rules https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/1197-s4gru-posting-guidelines-aka-the-rulez/ Robert

Excited when you see your neighbor with a MB on their window ?

This tower has to be 4x4 mimo. Its speeds are too consistent. 250-320 mbps at all times. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I'm here to put ice water on the creeping into negativity. No more feelings. Stick to facts, and stop picking a fight with everyone who has a different opinion than you. If people who have a Pro Sprint opinion can't voice them here without being bludgeoned, where can they go? S4GRU will be much more heavily moderating as necessary. We are not here to host all your Sprint complaints. Lots of places for you to go post your Sprint negativity. Effective immediately. Robert

Warning: Long, but worth the read. I just wanted to give a good customer service experience with Shentel. On one sector of the tower closest to my house (Woodstock, VA), B26 had zero data throughput. I am mainly on B41 at my house, but on occasion I would drop to B26. Anything I was doing would get cut off, which was frustrating. Through the Sprint app, I submitted some network data tickets, but nothing ever happened. So after about 6 weeks, I sent a Facebook message to the Shentel FB account one evening before work with details on the problem, including the GCI of the B26 sector and the address of the tower. I work nights, so I didn't wake up until about 2PM the next day and saw I had missed 5 calls from a Shentel Employee. It was the RF Engineering Manager. I called him back and he thanked me for my detailed message and he said when they checked the stats on the tower, they realized they had an issue. They actually shut down that sector on B26 so phones wouldn't connect to the bad band/sector. He told me the RRH went bad and they had already put in an order for a crew to replace it. He all but offered me a job and thanked me for helping them diagnose the issue. He told me I should stop by sometime and talk to him. Long story short, I may go have a chat with him sometime, but I don't know that I would leave what I'm doing now. Anyway, fast forward a few days and I got a call from a field RF engineer who told me they had just fixed the issue and did some other tweaks to the tower to make speeds better. He told me he is responsible for the general area around me and told me to save his number and call him directly if I ever notice anything else. I also got some info from him about future upgrades for this area. He said they are waiting on Sprint to approve them adding a 20x20 B25 carrier, but that should happen soon. He told me there is already a 15x15 B25 carrier active near me that I'm going to try to see if I can connect to it. That tower also has B41 so it may be a bit of a challenge to get my phone to connect to it. One last thing, they are close to adding a third B41 carrier to have 3xCA in this area. He said that should happen soon too. A couple days later I noticed that there are now two 10x10 B25 carriers live on my "home tower." There used to only be one 10x10 and one 5x5. I wish I could have asked him about this, but I didn't know at the time I talked to him. I'm guessing this may be the speed tweaks that he mentioned. This is all good news for this area and hopefully he and I can keep in touch. I asked if he could give me a tour of a tower one day and he said he would check with his boss to see if he could do it. I hope that I can do that someday.

That is why roaming was invented. Compete where it makes sense, and cooperate where it doesn't. - Trip

I've owned two XC90's. And other vehicles too. I totaled an Isuzu Ascender by hitting a deer outside Bismarck, North Dakota chasing Sprint LTE tracks on Sensorly (which turned out not to be actual Sprint signals). I have run into golf ball sized hail while signal tracking. Been chased by a funnel cloud. I have slid off icy roads. I have backed into parking bollards. Numerous paint scratchings from brush and trees while driving up mountaintop access roads. I have blown a transmission. I have had more close calls than I can count with other cars and pedestrians (and sometimes farm animals). I have dropped a brand new phone on asphalt jumping out to view new base station equipment deliveries. I have been chased off by well armed unhappy property owners. And other things that aren't coming to my mind quickly. There have been a lot of casualties. But many fun memories. I think I get the same rush that extreme sport enthusiasts get when I discover a new signal or some sort of unexpected anomaly and begin the chase. Like a less dangerous storm chaser? And less useful. I don't provide useful information to climate scientists and meteorologists. But hey, we do have a meteorologist on staff at S4GRU. And I'm glad for that! Robert

T-Mobile announces Un-merger™. AJ

Got some drone pics of a recently upgraded T-Mobile site: B66/N66 + B25/N25 AHFIG center. AHBOA B71/ N71 right. Nokia Flexi Zone B12 left. Behind AHFIG is network converging box where the hybrid flex splits output and fiber to the RRUs. Gen 2 Nokia M-MIMO (courtesy of lilotimz). More pics: https://www.joshuajhill.com/s4gru/img/PT43XC804/

It's been 4-1/2 years, but I am happy to announce we have a new member joining S4GRU Staff. Please join me in welcoming RAvirani in joining the Staff here at S4GRU. Rey has been a key member helping visitors to S4GRU for years. We are grateful to have him join the ranks. It feels like he has been a part of the team for quite some time. Seems fitting and overdue. Thanks Rey for accepting the invitation. You must be a little crazy to agree! Now @RAvirani will have full moderator powers and responsibilities as well. Welcome aboard!Robert

Agreed. Verizon is over rated and doesn't serve the hype. Sprint is under rated and doesn't deserve all the trash talk. People pick winners and losers and over claim the positives and negatives of each. They have to have someone to cheer and someone to jeer. If you aren't first, you're nobody. I have a Verizon work phone. It rarely wins in total speed throughput compared to my Sprint and T-Mobile phones (and USCC on Google Fi). Verizon doesn't win in coverage in my area. But it's a pretty consistent experience. And that's good for a lot of people. Let them have Verizon. But Sprint has pulled off nearly a miracle the past few years with little capital infusion, in a highly competitive environment and spending billions still in capex. They just have had to be very deliberate and measured where and how they spent it. Every year since 2011 Sprint was nearly going bankrupt in the eyes of the naysayers. Every year, they would claim this was the year they were going to lose it all. Yet they still have over 54 million customers. They are nowhere near bankrupt, and doing better by most measures. And soon it won't even matter. Because Mr. Legere will be in charge of it all. And Sprint will be a forgotten name. But they were not bought out of bankruptcy sale and were not even close to bankruptcy. Robert

NEWSFLASH! Sprint's subscriber numbers are not going to go up while in merger limbo. Very few want to make a commitment of a new carrier if there are going to be major changes coming that are still undefined. How long have we been sitting here in limbo? It will get worse as this drags on. We cannot sit back and pretend like a merger isn't hanging over Sprint's head and then try to claim Sprint's network plan the last 18 months is the problem. Sprint's network is better (in most places) than it was this past summer, in the last year, two years, five years and since NV was first announced. We should be more talking about the decisions Sprint/Masa/Marcelo have made on being hell bent on a merger since 2015, and then the subsequent actual attempted merger being undertaken and those affects. If anything. I gotta tell you, I have done a lot of travelling since June. Sprint data performance is competitive. It had no more bad sites than T-Mobile or AT&T in my travels. And there are complete cities/regions where the competition is worse. Like here in Western Washington. Sprint is actually very good here. The difference between Sprint and the others with everyday data performance is less disparate now than it ever has been since 2010. And soon it won't matter, anyway. I'm with Trip, though. I would like to see a honest to goodness post mortem evaluation. I'd buy that tell all book, but not the one written by Craig Moffett. I still believe that Sprint can find a way to compete if the T-Mobile deal falls through. And part of that would be to focus on, dare I say it, providing 5G wireless ISP services to unconnected last mile customers. Preferably with DISH. And then focusing on suburban/exurban areas with one ISP choice. Offering triple play, wireless/internet/TV. But again, all this will not matter soon. I think the Sprint merger is all but assured. Robert

Typically with a band around their wrist [emoji12][emoji851][emoji56] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

http:// https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-expects-to-deploy-volte-fall The time has finally come!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Planned Upgrade and New Sites Central VA Market Southern WV and KY Markets PA Market

I wish they had sold to a German conglomerate. Then I could say they are the wurst.

Sprint does send reminders that the lease is expiring too. It's not like they are hiding the lease end from the customer. Everyone's a victim these days. If you admit that you're too naive or lazy, then you're admitting responsibility and copability...

You beat me to it. I saw that article and came here to say the same thing. For the non-initiated, my analogy was going to be: "Newest Ferraris have been shown to do up to 200MPH on a racetrack. But average speeds of the latest Honda cars in the real world are only 40MPH! Honda is doomed!" - Trip

The two big reasons for this are site density disparities and the complexity associated with the spectrum transition For example, consider a hypothetical town where Sprint has 5 sites with low RAD centers and T-Mobile has 3 sites with high RAD centers. Let’s assume neither carrier has a coverage problem (due to the difference in site placement/height), and that each T-Mobile site is broadcasting 20x20 MHz and each Sprint site is broadcasting 10x10 MHz. Right now, your total on-air spectrum volume in the town is 3 sites x 3 sectors/site x 40 MHz (T-Mobile) + 5 sites x 3 sectors/site x 20 MHz (Sprint) = 660 MHz-sectors. If you flip all of the spectrum over to T-Mobile today, your total on-air spectrum volume is 3 sites x 3 sectors/site x 60 MHz = 540 MHz-sectors. As you can see, in this example, there’s a significant capacity drop (18.18%) if you don’t offload onto Sprint sites. Plus, this example assumes that all Sprint spectrum can be flipped over to T-Mobile, which isn’t necessarily true. The 5x5 800 MHz carrier won’t be used by T-Mobile, and in areas where T-Mobile hasn’t deployed 2500 equipment, 2500 MHz spectrum can’t be moved over either. Going back to the earlier example, if we assume the Sprint sites are broadcasting 5x5 L1900 and 5x5 L800, only 5x5 MHz of spectrum can be moved over to T-Mobile. So, if all the traffic were pushed over T-Mobile, the on-air spectrum volume would really be 3 sites x 3 sectors/site x 50 MHz = 450 MHz-sectors. That’s a 31.81% decrease in capacity. Even worse.

All it took was money. Network Vision was planned properly initially, but not properly implemented due to finances. I remember hearing early into the Network Vision deployment the CFO says publicly something to the effect of, 'The beauty of the Network Vision deployment plan is that we can ramp up or slow down as necessary depending on finances or need.' It was scary to hear then, and even scarier to think of in retrospect. They were confessing that they were always concerned about how to financially pull it off that the had contingency plans of how to "half-ass" it if necessary. And they did half-ass it, and it likely was necessary. But they did. And then once you get used to losing, you forget how to win. We finally got to the point that no amount of money would fix the problem anyway. Network wise, Tmo merging with Sprint will likely be a very superior position than both going alone. The big tell in time, is what it will do to competition and pricing for the long term. That's the part we don't know. Will it be worth it 5 years from now? Who knows? But at least we will enjoy the network improvements in the interim. But even that is not totally all everyone dreamed it would be in the short term. I guess nothing is perfect, but we always imagine it will be. Robert

I became a Sprint customer on June 4, 2010 with the launch of the HTC EVO 4G. I came over from AT&T. I had just moved to New Mexico earlier that year and had virtually no AT&T Service in my area. Sprint had decent coverage, and I thought I better move to a "4G" device if I was changing providers and getting all new equipment. The rest was history. You know, we are coming up on the 10 Year Anniversary of the HTC EVO 4G launch. 10 YEARS!!! It really is what was the catalyst that caused S4GRU to come about. If I had gone to Verizon, this site and all the past 10 years of 4G hunting never would have happened. It was really a close decision. I think the cost of adding a line for my then 13 year old son is what probably pushed me over the edge. What's funny is I pay about the same now for 5 lines on T-Mobile what I paid for 3 lines on Sprint back in 2010. Robert

Holy crap, go Nokia: Nokia touted a new lab achievement over Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum that boosted 5G capacity by up to four times through a software upgrade. The test included a software upgrade of E-UTRAN New Radio – Dual Connectivity (EN-DC) and Multi-User-MIMO (MU-MIMO) using Sprint’s mid-band 5G spectrum and Nokia’s AirScale solution to deliver 3 Gbps total downlink cell throughput, in what Nokia called a first. It showcased Nokia’s AirScale Dual Mode Massive MIMO for 5G and LTE, using a single radio unit for both LTE and 5G. The test also tapped commercial hotspot devices. Nokia said once its service is commercially available operators will be able to “vastly increase” network capacity through software updates to the base station, without the need to invest in more spectrum or require site visits to swap out hardware or transport. https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/nokia-notches-5g-capacity-boost-via-software-upgrade