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

[RAvirani]

meaning when roaming on USC and AT&T it would count against your data allotment while it won't on others carriers?

Exactly. On the coverage map, coverage listed as "Extended LTE" will count towards your on-network data allotment. Coverage listed as "LTE Roaming" comes out of your roaming allotment. The point I was trying to make is that *I believe* that all of Sprint's LTE partners are Extended (and thus usage on their networks comes out of your regular data allotment) except for US Cellular and maybe AT&T.

[Dkoellerwx]

meaning when roaming on USC and AT&T it would count against your data allotment while it won't on others carriers?

 

Correct. When roaming on certain carriers (NexTech in Kansas, Pioneer in Kansas and Oklahoma, C-Spire in Mississippi, Bluegrass Wireless in Kentucky, James Valley Wireless in South Dakota, and a couple more out west in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington) data and voice is counted as native use even though you are not on Sprint. Your data and voice usage will count against your normal data bucket (if you have one) and voice will be considered native as well. These areas are listed at "Extended" on Sprint's maps, rather than Roaming. 

[jonathanm1978]

Would this explain why I'm seeing at&t b2 and at&t b17 on my note (but so far it doesn't seem usable)... it sees those lte bands but data isn't avail on them that i have seen

[Dkoellerwx]

Would this explain why I'm seeing at&t b2 and at&t b17 on my note (but so far it doesn't seem usable)... it sees those lte bands but data isn't avail on them that i have seen

 

I don't think we have an explanation on the supposed AT&T connections yet. SCP has been mis-identifying some bands as AT&T in some spots, and in other it appears to be a true AT&T signal. Not sure what that means.

[RAvirani]

Would this explain why I'm seeing at&t b2 and at&t b17 on my note (but so far it doesn't seem usable)... it sees those lte bands but data isn't avail on them that i have seen

There is a lot of confusion as to what is happening between Sprint and AT&T right now. If you could post engineering screenshots and the location where you hit AT&T roaming that would be great.

[jonathanm1978]

I am in central Alabama, and all I gotta do is unplug my Airvana, and my note 5 jumps on band 17 immediately. I am using my galaxy tab A right now and dunno how to get to engage screens, but I'll post screens tomorrow from my note 5.

[danlodish345]

I don't think we have an explanation on the supposed AT&T connections yet. SCP has been mis-identifying some bands as AT&T in some spots, and in other it appears to be a true AT&T signal. Not sure what that means.

sprint and AT&T maybe working out a roaming agreement ?

[bakedc4]

Go with the Business Share plan and you can use your entire bucket on roaming. It doesn't even mention roaming in the usage breakdown.

 

 

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[jonathanm1978]

Here are the eng screens for 35150 area...

 

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[jonathanm1978]

I see that scp says band 17 but eng screen says band 12...

 

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[mmark27]

he was saying that it's easy to blow through 300MB. my point is most people have or switched to the new unlimited plans which have 100MB of data roaming instead of 300MB on the older plans.

 

Do you have the fine print on this? I just switched to the Unlimited Freedom plan from a very old plan and the agent I spoke with said explicitly it was 300 MB limit on roaming data still. I had her double check on her end and confirm it to me as I didn't see that posted online.  We roam when we drive west of Madison, WI so having a decent limit will get us through a camping trip, etc. 

[RedSpark]

Do you have the fine print on this? I just switched to the Unlimited Freedom plan from a very old plan and the agent I spoke with said explicitly it was 300 MB limit on roaming data still. I had her double check on her end and confirm it to me as I didn't see that posted online.  We roam when we drive west of Madison, WI so having a decent limit will get us through a camping trip, etc.

 

https://www.sprint.com/landings/unlimited-cell-phone-plans/index.html?INTNAV=TopNav:Shop:UnlimitedPlans

 

"Usage Limitations: To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied or reduced on the network. Sprint may terminate service if off-network roaming usage in a month exceeds: (1) 800 min. or a majority of min.; or (2) 100MB or a majority of KB. Prohibited use rules apply — see sprint.com/termsandconditions."

[mmark27]

https://www.sprint.com/landings/unlimited-cell-phone-plans/index.html?INTNAV=TopNav:Shop:UnlimitedPlans

 

"Usage Limitations: To improve data experience for the majority of users, throughput may be limited, varied or reduced on the network. Sprint may terminate service if off-network roaming usage in a month exceeds: (1) 800 min. or a majority of min.; or (2) 100MB or a majority of KB. Prohibited use rules apply — see sprint.com/termsandconditions."

 

Well, crap. thanks though. I love when reps lie to me.

[RedSpark]

Well, crap. thanks though. I love when reps lie to me.

Sorry friend... I don't know why reps are so misinformed on this stuff. It's on the damn website! Marcelo needs to give some one-pagers with this plan information to every rep. Then again, if they purposefully lied, they should be written up by management.

[red_dog007]

Dang.  Im on 2 for 100 unlimited no deprioritization.

 

Wonder if I should get on the new unlimited.  10GB of data worth the deprioritization?

[RedSpark]

Dang. Im on 2 for 100 unlimited no deprioritization.

 

Wonder if I should get on the new unlimited. 10GB of data worth the deprioritization?

You can get deprioritization even by staying on an older Unlimited Plan.

 

Sprint's Network Management policy: https://www.sprint.com/legal/open_internet_information.html?ECID=vanity:networkmanagement

 

Quality of Service (QoS): To help protect against the possibility that unlimited data plan customers that use high volumes of data may occupy an unreasonable share of network resources, Sprint employs network prioritization or QoS on the Sprint network. Customers who choose unlimited data handset plans launched on or after October 16, 2015, or customers who choose to upgrade their handsets or activate new lines of service on or after October 16 and are on unlimited data plans, that use more than 23GB (to be adjusted periodically) of data during a single billing cycle will be de-prioritized for the remainder of that billing cycle as compared to other customers at times and places where the availability of network resources is constrained. Affected unlimited data customers will continue to be able to enjoy unlimited amounts of data without the worry of overage charges or hard, full time bandwidth reductions. Customers subject to prioritization may experience reduced throughput and increased latency compared to other customers on the constrained site and as compared to their normal experience on the Sprint network. Unlimited customers may also notice temporary changes in the performance of data intensive applications such as streaming video or online gaming when subject to prioritization. These temporary reductions in performance will only occur at times and places where capacity is constrained. Performance will return to normal as soon as the resource constraints have been relieved or the customer has relocated to a non-constrained location. Unlimited data customers potentially subject to lower QoS will be notified when their individual data usage reaches approximately 75% of 23 GB so that they may modify their usage to avoid network management practices that may result in slower data speeds. We will also notify customers when they have reached the 23 GB threshold and are now subject to de-prioritization.

 

___________

 

The key sentence:

 

"Customers who choose unlimited data handset plans launched on or after October 16, 2015, or customers who choose to upgrade their handsets or activate new lines of service on or after October 16 and are on unlimited data plans, that use more than 23GB (to be adjusted periodically) of data during a single billing cycle will be de-prioritized for the remainder of that billing cycle as compared to other customers at times and places where the availability of network resources is constrained."

 

So you can be deprioritized even if you stay on an older plan and upgrade devices. However, I don't believe deprioritization takes effect on a plan if you do BYOD... at least based on how this is written.

 

Having 10 GB of Hotspot per line on Unlimited Freedom is great!

[RedSpark]

Sprint finally got International Roaming done right. I'll bet SoftBank, with its clout, helped negotiate this.

 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprints-industry-leading-international-service-just-got-even-better-for-connecting-while-traveling-abroad.htm

 

 

Very competitive offering in my opinion. Well done, Sprint. Well done.

[swintec]

Sprint finally got International Roaming done right.

 

 

yet they just cant find someone to proofread.   anyone notice how fast T-Mobiles data high speed limits are?  256 Mbps!

[ericdabbs]

Sprint finally got International Roaming done right. I'll bet SoftBank, with its clout, helped negotiate this.

 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprints-industry-leading-international-service-just-got-even-better-for-connecting-while-traveling-abroad.htm

 

 

Very competitive offering in my opinion. Well done, Sprint. Well done.

 

ROFL...Sprint messed up for Tmobile category for Data-High speed.  It says "Doubles slow-speed to max of 256 Mbps".  I think they meant to say "Doubles slow-speed to max of 256 Kbps".  I would love the Tmobile free 256 Mbps international data which is way faster than current LTE speeds in the US      .

[red_dog007]

You can get deprioritization even by staying on an older Unlimited Plan.

 

Sprint's Network Management policy: https://www.sprint.com/legal/open_internet_information.html?ECID=vanity:networkmanagement

 

 

___________

 

The key sentence:

 

"Customers who choose unlimited data handset plans launched on or after October 16, 2015, or customers who choose to upgrade their handsets or activate new lines of service on or after October 16 and are on unlimited data plans, that use more than 23GB (to be adjusted periodically) of data during a single billing cycle will be de-prioritized for the remainder of that billing cycle as compared to other customers at times and places where the availability of network resources is constrained."

 

So you can be deprioritized even if you stay on an older plan and upgrade devices. However, I don't believe deprioritization takes effect on a plan if you do BYOD... at least based on how this is written.

 

Having 10 GB of Hotspot per line on Unlimited Freedom is great!

 

And that is exactly why I have no deprioritization.  Last new line added was 7/30/15.  All new phones after that have been BYOD.  Though it has been over a year since I have gone over 23GB... Hmm...

[utiz4321]

And that is exactly why I have no deprioritization. Last new line added was 7/30/15. All new phones after that have been BYOD. Though it has been over a year since I have gone over 23GB... Hmm...

It really isn't that big of a deal. I get Deprioritized every month and I don't really notice any difference in my services. It only applies to busy towers when traffic is heavy or when your service would be slow anyway.

 

 

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[RedSpark]

And that is exactly why I have no deprioritization.  Last new line added was 7/30/15.  All new phones after that have been BYOD.  Though it has been over a year since I have gone over 23GB... Hmm...

The thing about deprioritization is that it's set up in such a way that you may never even be affected by it or notice it if you are.

 

Dr. Saw (Sprint CTO) explained how it worked here: http://newsroom.sprint.com/blogs/sprint-perspectives/protecting-the-97.htm

 

"This QoS practice is intended to protect against a small minority of unlimited customers who use high volumes of data and unreasonably take-up network resources during times when the network is constrained. It’s important to note that this QoS technique operates in real-time and only applies if a cell site is constrained. Prioritization is applied or removed every 20 milliseconds. And performance for the affected customer returns to normal as soon as traffic on the cell site also returns to normal, or the customer moves to a non-constrained site."

 

You might not even notice this happening at all, given the 20ms cycle... or be able to distinguish it from normal congestion.

[red_dog007]

Is the 10GB tether full available speeds?  I notice for two lines on TMobile it is $100 as well but says tether is at "up to 3G speeds". 

 

Do existing customers not get the discount to $90?  I am online and glad to see I can change my plan to it, and before getting too deep into the process it says my cost is $110 but will minus $10/mo once I sign up for auto-pay.

[jamesinclair]

I didnt realize Verizon was including Mexico and Canada too these days.

 

Thanks Tmobile!

[Paynefanbro]

Is the 10GB tether full available speeds?  I notice for two lines on TMobile it is $100 as well but says tether is at "up to 3G speeds". 

 

Do existing customers not get the discount to $90?  I am online and glad to see I can change my plan to it, and before getting too deep into the process it says my cost is $110 but will minus $10/mo once I sign up for auto-pay.

 

Tether is full speed on Sprint.