S4GRU

Sprint Network Vision deployment is not done city by city. It's done site by site over the whole market. As you can see in the map above, when the market is 40% complete, they have sites all over the market live. Not just in certain cities. It's more of a shotgun approach. Robert

Soon, most of us will be saying you are lucky too. The Western exurbs were really bad at one point, but most of their problems have been worked through. It is a painful process, but it will be worked out over the next weeks/months and you will then be on of the most state of the art networks ever. You will have 18 months of a great network in Chicago before they even start my market. Robert

It's on my weekend to do list. Robert

On the GS3, the Debug dialer code is: ##DEBUG# And the Lock code is 777468. Robert

Go to the NV Sites Complete thread: http://s4gru.com/ind...sites-complete/ Here are the maps. These reported sites come directly from Sprint. Not one site is "reported" live with 3G upgrades yet in the Atlanta area. The sites get marked complete on the map when Sprint has accepted service as fully complete from the OEM/NV Contractors. Sprint has yet to accept one site's 3G upgrades yet around Atlanta. It is possible you have found a site that the NV OEM has hooked up new backhaul to 3G, and Sprint will be accepting the site soon. I'm just saying that in general, NV 3G service has not really started coming live in Ericsson markets. However, I understand, this is just about to change. And I think your observation may be evidence of that. Robert

Cricket service is highly variable. Here in Northern New Mexico, Sprint has 1Mbps+ EVDO speeds in most places. Cricket is a dog with 200k - 300k speeds. Fortunately, Cricket has a smaller footprint than Sprint here and I only roam on Cricket when the Sprint network goes down or force roam on a standard PRL. Robert

Network Vision 3G upgrades have not started to be reported live yet in Atlanta. Only LTE so far. This is true of everywhere Ericsson is deploying (except Waco, Texas). Ericsson NV 3G upgrades should start coming online soon though. Robert

Pirate Booty

I just usually make reference to the fact that AJ lives in Kansas. Typically that is retort enough when he injects deprecating geographical humor. Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

The article is about the Sprint Kansas market, which includes Kansas City. Robert

My experience for smartphone usage, video conference needs sub 200ms pings and about 1.5Mbps speeds minimum. On a tablet/laptop, more like 3Mbps speeds. Bad pings (latency) kill video conference performance. Robert

I acknowledge your point. I just don't necessarily agree that Apple will draw the same conclusions. Robert

There is not a lot of coverage in the Manhattan, IL area. One of the problems right now in that area is the site closest to town has Network Vision upgrades complete. The other sites that she may pick up are not NV sites. So transferring from the NV site to the non NV sites will cause problems. We wrote about the issue in this article: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-166-sprint-battling-network-vision-deployment-woes-in-the-windy-city/ These problems will be temporary. Once the other towers in the area also get upgraded, she will no longer have dropped calls and slow data. Coverage should also be a little better too once all the sites in the area are upgraded. However, if she is experiencing significant coverage problems now, it will probably not be a lot better for her until Sprint starts to deploy 800MHz service. 800 Voice services should be available in Manhattan this year (unless she has an iPhone). 800 LTE will arrive in this area in another year or two. Robert

Grand Tetons! Heheheh, he said Boobs. *said like Butthead*

No. He has been happy with the ROM that came installed with it...so far. Robert

by Robert Herron Sprint 4G Rollout Updates Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 9:58 AM MDT Yesterday, dozens of S4GRU members in the Kansas market started rejoicing as they saw 4G icons start appearing on their Sprint LTE devices. Several threads were posted in our forums, and my e-mail box started filling and text chimes on my phone started ringing. LTE was coming live in the Kansas City area. Now I have received confirmation from sources within Sprint, that they have indeed stopped blocking LTE connections in the Kansas market. LTE is now discoverable for Sprint LTE devices. Every complete and signed off LTE site in the market is now live. Even in places outside Kansas City, like St. Joseph, Missouri and Manhattan, Kansas. And more are expected to go live every week until the market is 100% complete. We should hear more about other Sprint LTE markets soon. Stay tuned. Let us know if you are getting any 4G LTE service in other communities in the market. Like Wichita, Hutchinson, Topeka, etc. Live LTE sites as of the last S4GRU update. There are more sites live at this time than what we are reporting. Solid coverage is isolated around Olathe and Independence. But more coverage will be added weekly.

I don't give advice. Everyone has to make individual decisions for themselves and their needs. The New York market is an active Network Vision deployment area. Issues will likely be intermittent, but will happen at locations all over the market until it is completed. Once it is done, the Sprint experience in NYC will be very much improved. For more information about the NY deployment, you can read this article: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-279-new-york-city-network-visionlte-deployment-schedule-update/ Robert

And now even our core members are often saying it for me. Sometimes I have to be an Automaton. Robert

It sounds reasonable at a glance. But the problem with tiered pricing that way, is that carriers have to try to deliver a very consistent experience to do that, which in a RF world and a mobile society gets very difficult...if not impossible. If I pay for a plan that's 8-10Mbps and I am getting 3-5Mbps, because I am in a basement or at the edge of service, I am going to be an unhappy customer. And within a cell at any given moment, there are dozens of users that will be in less than ideal conditions...even in a very well run network. Magnify that by 38,000 sites and you have a million customers that are not getting their quoted speeds that they pay for. I think it could be very problematic and next to impossible to implement consistently. Robert

You send text messages to more than 100 people at once? Wow. Our Pastor is the only guy I know that sends large group text messages. Robert

I didn't take it that way. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has the same background info in their head when I communicate a point. To me, my point was obvious in context with what I said. Once I read your response, I realized I need to add a lot more information to the explanation. I'm not a thin skinned guy. I eat too much fried chicken. Robert

Sequestered Jury (something I hope you don't become)

Very reliable. There are naysayers who complain that Sprint should have an all fiber LTE network. But that is not realistic. Microwave technologies have improved tremendously in the past 5 years as well. It is less reliable than fiber, of course. But if you ever get a fiber line cut, the repair time is much longer than if you lose a microwave link. Robert You know, there is so much variability, that I should not have even bothered to quote anything. There are two issues going on. Backhaul was behind, even before acceleration. And now it is compounded even further because of market acceleration. Sites where NV is being installed on time, backhaul is running approximately 2-5 weeks behind what was scheduled. And some of these, the backhaul just plain did not show up as scheduled (which is probably the case with your site). In other instances where the site deployment is ahead of schedule, the backhaul will still not show up until its originally scheduled date, and probably 2-5 weeks later than that. So an accelerated site may not get backhaul for several months after NV upgrades. It's just really all over the place. The only thing we can say for certain is backhaul continues to be deployed at a good steady clip and will eventually arrive at all sites. It does seem like backhaul deployment has picked up pace around Chicago. Robert

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