cletus

One thing people don't seem to understand is that the $30 T-Mobile plan is NATIVE COVERAGE ONLY. I've had two friends get mad at having ZERO service (as in no voice OR data) when leaving a metro area because of this. I can't say I am shocked as they are both pretty dimwitted but for my own personal use I could never consider how the $30 plan due to how often I leave normal metro areas here in Texas. I tried out T-Mobile here and while the speeds were great I simply can't deal with edge when I am barely on the city limits here.

 

 

I can see how people who don't leave town would love it though.

Will there be any way for us to tell the upcoming bands apart from one another? It would be very interesting to be able to map 800/1900/2600 and have a mapping function with the bands combined and separate.

 

 

 

Also, I cannot seem to get the speedtest function to report to sensorly. I can run speedtests and they complete but my contribution lists 1 Billion measurements and 0 speedtests no matter what I try in terms of uploading the data.

"Samsung Electronics said it has successfully tested the platform using the 28 Gigahertz (GHz) waveband to transmit data at a speed of 1 Gbps, which earlier had been considered as a conundrum by global industry players."

 

Great news everyone! They finally met the 4G specifications for speed which are "Have peak data rates of up to approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access."

How about some taglines:

 

Do you S4GRU?

S4GRU: Penetration vs Bandwidth

S4GRU: How fast can YOU Sprint?

Yep, and I remember we addressed that point then too. There were several people concerned the sky was falling.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

 

On the other hand there have been price increases for all people who get an employer discount on family plans at Sprint as they now apply the employer discount only to the first line. This did raise my monthly rate about 6%.

Oh cool, my stuff finally showed up!

I regularly get 10/1 in the Austin area with some locations dipping down to about 3/1 or 4/1. WiMax is actually fairly fast here.

I've gone on three different trips in the past month to map areas in the north metro, and after each trip nothing would update.

 

I emailed sensorly each time and it seemed to me like I was being brushed off with excuses about how it would update in couple days.

 

It's easily been a month since some of those changes went up.

 

I went as far as wiping my phone to do a clean reinstall of everything.

 

It showed 4G captures, and uploaded those points to the server, but I'm pretty sure data is being lost.

 

I can't see using the app anymore given the last time it worked for me was about 300 miles ago. I can't afford driving around like a fool to map nothing.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

This is my experience as well for the last month or so. I have a WiMax phone so for fun I went around mapping because the map here is really low for actual WiMax coverage. Plus, I figured it may give people an idea of where the future Clearwire LTE bands could reach. Part of my job is driving around meeting suppliers so why not? Unfortunately all that was for naught as the maps still haven't updated my results and I am pretty much done bothering with it.

My wife doesn't use much data so I am considering moving to Ting from Sprint after Sprint changed the way employer discounts are handled (To the discounted employee line ONLY rather than all lines). That change bumped my bill up enough to annoy me. I have a small ETF still but I am leaning heavily to going to Ting when my contract ends in June rather than re-upping with Sprint. Maybe I will reconsider Sprint when triband phones come out and the network here shows improvement.

It isn't just you. Two of my friends in the Austin market said the same thing earlier this week but reported less than 10 down where it used to be much higher. It would be a real shame if after network vision we are left with barely acceptable 3g speeds and slow 4g speeds.

 

I understand the target for Sprint was something like 6-8 down average though which is arguably slower than many Wimax spots here.

Those 1300 towers have Samsung Dual mode WiMax/TD-LTE RRU's broadcasting WiMax for current users. The towers that are converted are most likely only the ones on the same towers that Sprint is co-located on, but could possibly be on towers that they aren't. Once 2015 hits, WiMax will be taken offline just like iDEN will be in 2 months, and all the old equipment will eventually taken down.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

Ah well that is good in my case (low sprint 3g signal at my apartment but decent 4g coverage oddly enough. The sad thing is that WiMax is often faster than Sprint LTE here in Austin and as more people transition off the service my speeds just keep going up. 10 down 1 up in a few places now.

Clearwire stated in their earnings call the other day that they are waiting for the LTE network to be integrated with Sprint's LTE core infrastructure. I'm going to assume that by summertime their should be at least 1 data card and 1 phone announced for a fall release for the complete Network Vision platform.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

Right but they also said they had completed 1300 sites already. Does that mean 1300 of the current WiMax sites (actually this would be great for where I am) or what? Otherwise happens to the WiMax towers under this plan? Kept up until 2015 and then not used at all?

It also remains possible that paypal will accept bitcoin in the near future.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/24/paypal-president-is-fascinated-by-bitcoin-says-company-is-thinking-about-including-the-virtual-currency/

 

 

"I think that for us at PayPal, it’s just a question whether Bitcoin will make its way to PayPal’s funding instrument or not. We’re kinda thinking about it."

How is the LTE performance coming from other Sprint LTE devices?

Last question to anyone in the know: I will be upgrading to an S4 or HTC One. I saw WiWavelength's article on the One and how it was tuned/tweaked for Sprint's network. Does this mean it will be a better performing phone in terms of RF capabilities than the S4? I understand that all phones are different but the EVO LTE problems people have had has made me leery of buying a new phone without a little more research.

 

 

So far I am leaning towards the S4

Are there any RF differences between the HTC One and the S4?

 

For example, according the the S4gru.com article, "if the HTC One is world roaming capable, it will most likely be limited to GSM 900/1800 and band 1 W-CDMA 2100+1900" Any information about the S4 like this?

LTE coverage is getting pretty darn ubiquitous in the Austin area (except for downtown). So if WiMax is not meeting your needs (which it sounds like it might not), then you may want to jump ship to a LTE device now. If you stay in urban areas most of the time, LTE 800 may not be a big deal for you. I don't think LTE 2600 will be in a place like Austin for 1-2 years anyway. And when it does, it will be one site here and one site there for capacity. You will get to upgrade again in 20 months.

 

If you are able to ride out WiMax until late Fall when tribands are anticipated, then go for it. Another option is to upgrade now and get a WiMax hotspot for those times when you are outside of LTE coverage. Triband LTE will be nifty in many ways. But will not be useful for some time for many users, and will not be a hindrance to most users to have a LTE 1900 only device either.

 

Robert

So LTE 800 is better at penetrating buildings correct? Wouldn't that make it more valuable to someone in a more urban area? Maybe I am just overthinking things because you are correct that WiMax is not meeting my needs right now partially due to coverage but also partially due to battery drain inherent in the radio design. I feel like I am off an upgrade cycle with Sprint though as I am on the last WiMax phone and missed the first LTE phone and now I am possibly getting on an LTE 1900 phone while missing the first LTE 800/LTE1900 phones and that irks me a bit.

*snip*

Robert,

Thanks for the reply and that helps clarify a lot of things for me. I had assumed that Sprint was holding off on authorizing devices for these bands rather than having to deal with getting phone manufacturers on board.

 

My followup is similar to JonnygATL: I live in an area with decent wimax coverage (Austin, TX) so should I consider holding off my upgrade? The alternative would be to go to T-Mobile (HSPA+/LTE here) until these devices are released. 3G/4G on Sprint is extremely slow in Austin. Actually it is the slowest network here even behind Cricket wireless!

Here is the deal: I am up for an upgrade now and my contract ends in 2 months. I currently have an EVO3D (wimax) phone. Why is it that Sprint can't seem to offer phones that won't quickly be outdated as future bands roll out?

 

It seems to me that anyone buying a new phone now on contract is going to be only able to access a third of the potential LTE network that Sprint will offer. Can someone explain why this is so difficult for Sprint?

I am unbelievably excited for this. I wish they had a 13" version but I can deal with a 10". I've tried most of the tablets on the market and this has the possibility to finally be a laptop replacement for me. I am pumped.

One thing they are correct on. I don't need or want SUPERFASTULTRA LTE. I want super consistent LTE. If I can stream Netflix/Youtube etc on it that is sufficient for my high bandwidth use.

The thing is that by the time Sprint has a LTE phone that supports LTE 800 and 1900, it will most likely have the Clearwire 2500 band in as well. Sprint plans to deploy 800 MHz LTE starting mid 2013 and Clearwire is suppose to have LTE by mid 2013 so the phones in 2013 must have support for BC 41. Luckily my upgrade isn't until June 2013 so its actually perfect timing to pick up a LTE phone with 800/1900/2500 LTE support.

 

I am in the same boat. I am more than happy to wait a year to see how the LTE rollouts of the various carriers will go. I like Sprint and actually I like Clearwire as it provides some of my more rural family members internet access they would otherwise not get. My only real gripe right now is the lackluster 3g speeds and the slow refresh on the 4g antenna which causes constant toggles between 3g and 4g on the road. I am excited to see what the picture looks like in June 2013 as I would be super happy with an 800/1900/2500 LTE phone.

 

 

snip of very reasonable text for sake of not creating a wall of text

Robert
Thanks for the reply. I agree with your points about the minimum people will give could realistically be higher than the minimum. I didn't think about it that way but it makes sense. I have no idea what this site costs to run but have you considered hosting it elsewhere that has lower costs? Perhaps this could be something to look into? I love the site and may consider donating in the future. I'll try not to hit refresh to many times to keep my bandwidth drain low until then

Even though it may not be likely, I like that our members are thinking outside the box. It seems that most innovation to pricing these days is coming from MVNO's. I could see one of them coming up with something like this.

 

Robert

I think the other side of the coin is that people seem to really hate variable pricing. For the most part people feel more comfortable paying a set amount and this is also why people are so upset about overages. It makes me wonder if metering by the minute and MB is even feasible. Some MVNOs offer unlimited bandwidth and low minutes and vice versa. Personally I am not sure if I would rather pay slightly more for unlimited vs having a limit and pay slightly less. T-Mobile and others get around this by throttling data after you go over your limit to very slow speeds but not charging you extra. I think this may be the most people friendly option after unlimited data. It probably saves more money not dealing with angry customers than it costs data-wise.

Enter Sprint MVNO Ting...

 

https://ting.com/plans

 

AJ

 

Interesting. Pricing it out means I would save about 20 a month vs Sprint for my current usage but it would take about 28 months for their phone prices (2x Galaxy 2s for 970) to break even versus a normal new phone on contract price (2x 199) on Sprint.