cletus

Also, it could be a B41 site but your phone might connect to B26 over it depending on signal strength. Oddly, after the latest Android update (5.0.1?) I seem to hit more B26 than B41 which is okay but I would rather be on B41 as much as possible.

So the RootMetrics report for Austin should be out soon. I predict that T-Mobile may be in the top 2 with Verizon (due to how fast T-Mobile is here) and AT&T fighting Sprint for 3rd and 4th. Maybe Sprint can prove me wrong and snake a 2nd place here though.

Do you have any other information on this? I have a friend looking to move to Sprint.

It feels like you are looking for everyone here to explain why you should stay with Sprint but the truth is most of us would say go with what matches your needs the best. If pulling big speeds at your house to act as home internet is what your needs are then T-Mobile is probably a good fit. I personally think Sprint has better overall coverage in town but I have friends who are happy on T-Mobile.

I'd just do a T-Mobile test drive. If you are looking for a home ISP replacement then maybe T-Mobile has an upgraded tower near you but my experience with trying out T-Mobile is the coverage and speeds in the core urban are great but the high speed towers really get sparse as you head toward the edge (get it?) of town.

Actually it does not when you are talking about corporate lines.

Yup. My Nexus 5 SIM actually had Sprint branding on some of the packaging in a little box from Ting.

Nah, I wasn't using it much anyways and hangouts works better to begin with.

So for people with battery issues, I seem to have resolved my horrible standby time by 1) uninstalling Facebook messenger 2) disabling location services for a few days. I have location services on the battery saving setting now mainly because secure locations is useless if you set it to device only because it keeps having to turn GPS on, check, then allow it (which makes it effectively worthless). My problems appear to have been solved and I get the normal 3:30 - 4:15 SOT depending on usage. On a light usage day I will lose about 1-2% battery life per hour on standby. Off charger 3 hours ago and I am at 20 mins on screen with 95% remaining. Nice.

Secure locations is awesome. It is great not having to fiddle with a lockscreen at work or at home.

Neat! I just went back through that and it appears you are correct. I thought it was ETF only until now.

This is the 500 mins/mo calling to mexico for free until 12/31/2015 and then $5 after promotion. Most of the current promotions with family share etc end on 12/31/2015.

I dunno, Sprint had $25/ 1 GB plans under Framily and they seemed okay with that price point. With T-Mobile they wouldn't be paying the ETF fees actually since there is no ETF, only phone payments. Edit: so even at $23 the new customer would be paying like $23+27 for a phone or $23 + $650 upfront. Edit#2: is the quote code breaking for anyone else? I keep seeing t-quote name "blah" etc when I view threads here over the last 2 hours or so.

Well, they do have the $200 fee if you don't return your phone (a Brightstar/Marcelo idea for sure) to make it less attractive to people signing up for a bit at AT&T and then dumping the contract by taking Sprint's ETF and selling the phones. It is sure open for abuse but most of these ETF payout plans are exploitable in some way or another. I like the waived fees with full device purchase. Puts them ahead of the game after the ETF payout, smart. Also, this does NOT include additional employer discounts if I read the FAQ correctly: Will the discount include my NVP? The Cut Your Bill in Half Event is calculated off of your net total competitor talk, text and data charges which will include your NVP discount. Additional NVP discounts through Sprint will not be awarded. The Sprint Half Price plans are only eligible for Consumer accounts Anyways, I think this is pretty clever myself and provided people can't stack employer discounts it should mostly amount to reasonable rates in comparison to what current new customers like myself can get. I pay $77 before taxes for 20GB +2GB per line for 2 lines under Sprint Family Shared so if someone comes in and pays $60-70 then why would I care? They have to buy brand new phones so their bill would be more than mine anyways. FWIW in regard to credit scores etc.. Sprint will be going after higher credit score customers with this promotion. AT&T and Verizon have the best overall customer portfolios in the industry and this also makes sense why T-Mobile was NOT included!

Want to see network vision in action? San Antonio 2014 1st half Overall Performance 80.4: http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/san-antonio-tx/2014/1H San Antonio 2014 2nd half Overall Performance 95.5 http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/san-antonio-tx/2014/2H Chicago 2014 1st half 4th place http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/chicago-il/2014/1H Chicago 2014 2nd half 2nd place http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/chicago-il/2014/2H

What I do for speedtest screenshots is upload to imgur and then select "large thumbnail" and use that picture. It cuts the size down and looks pretty normal even on a phone screen.

Does anyone know if this applies to individual plans or the iPhone plans?

I just don't know how to put this half price plan stuff on a spreadsheet for people shopping plans tbh. I guess I can put a notice on the page to check the half price website linked above?

Well.. I am South of those areas. I guess another 18 months until the actual signups are even an option. Ah well...

So, surprised this thread has popped up again so suddenly. Using my Nexus 5 on B26 and B41 has been awesome so far! If I get stuck on a completely upgraded tower then, yeah, speeds suck. So far the norm has been 10-15Mbps for B26, 2-10 for B25 (biggest variance) and very regularly 30+ for B41. I travel pretty much all around town once or twice a month for work. So since I have had service this has been roughly my speedtest history. A few I deleted because I took them while carpooling and it didn't finish before going to another tower which caused SUPER low speeds. My nexus 5 seems to want to camp on B41 as much as possible which has resulted in a really great experience in Austin. South Austin is stronger for B41 than North Austin but B26 in North Austin feels like it has better coverage. Problem areas? Austin airport is horrendous and inexcusably slow. Only b25 still there I believe. I noticed timeouts in way S. Austin on the way to Kyle. Burleson rd/290 has a few really bad towers.One B26 tower there doesn't appears to have 56k modem for backhaul. It'll be the tower you connect to near Mckinney Falls. A few speedtests/screenshots. You can see the multiple speedtests for a few places by the time they were done (1 minute after the other). B26 Near Seton on 38th (fastest b26 spot I've seen in Austin) B41 Near Torchy's on William Cannon (fastest B41 i've seen in Austin) Overloaded B25 tower on my way to work (see the higher upload?) Speedtest list page 1(now with Lollipop!) Speedtest list page 2 Speedtest list page 3 Speedtest list page 4 /edit: Account usage has been 15-18 GB per month over the last 2 months Oh and the easy rule of thumb for B41 sites in Austin that I have seen is higher than 100 ping = clear site. Dunno if it is because they chain a bunch of microwave stuff for backhaul or what but Clear sites (like the super fast one posted above) seem to have high pings.

I'm on Family share (technically a "new" customer) so it wouldn't help me necessarily. I'll probably be getting her an iphone 6 for Christmas at any rate but there are tons of Sprint customers on older phones that complain about coverage and speed.

I'm actually super happy with Sprint in Austin. I just need to get my wife a triband phone so she can be as happy as I am. Her iphone 5 really can't give her the full experience as she is stuck on the slower sprint 1900 mhz LTE. I really wish Sprint would give current customers with non-triband devices a $50 or $100 credit or something to switch to a new triband phone. I think it would go a long way in terms of retention and also overall network performance.

http://www.streetinsider.com/Management+Comments/Sprint+Corp.+CEO+Claure%3A+Q414+Will+be+Better+than+Q413/10005157.html (fixed the link for you) Yay more spreadsheet tweaks for me maybe?

So what is the play with FreedomPop? Is it attractive because they charge higher than retail rates for older phones and Marcelo sees a business opportunity there or what?

I'm fine with that but if he pulls a T-Mobile and drops employer discounts I would leave instantly.