JohnHovah

This date might be true because before Sprint acquired 100% of clearwire they had an agreement until 2015 but now since sprint owns clearwire and softbank is the sugar daddy to them both I believe they want to and can end WiMAX sooner.

 

I might be wrong but decommissioning WiMAX is not entirely harder than IDEN. Consumers phones will still work just not their 4G and plus working at a sprint store we are instructed to switch customers from their WiMAX phones to LTE phones with their insurance (you must have a legit issue with the device but we no longer carry WiMAX insurance replacements)

Perhaps I should have gone into a store and submitted an insurance claim for my goddaughters sgs2, insurance sent a new one last week because the other was broken.

yes I've seen workers on a few clearwire sites around here. One site it looked like the antennas were unplugged then the next day and brand new RRU was up there. I'm assuming it was dual mode LTE/WiMAX

that might help extend life of wimax devices that are still being sold.... hmm...   i don't see any other way to really use all of that spectrum fully considering most devices cannot use more than a 10mhz channel or maybe a combined 20mhz or 30mhz w/ CA

It was changed but is still there on people's accounts with good standing. I did 2 today, it's just not something Sprint advertises, it's only offered if you ask or come in with a broken phone.

 

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 4

maybe i will pm you to check out my account one of these days. 

Actually, Sprint has their Upgrade Now program. It was launched and available before AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile. It is not a formal program advertised, but it is offered and available to just about everyone starting at 6 months into their contract and not eligible for upgrade.

 

It is by far, much simpler than Jump, Next, or Edge from everything I've read.

 

Their are two different tier structures, one for smartphones and one for feature phones. Essentially it works as an up front ETF payment for become eligible immediately for the upgrade pricing (not exactly, but fundamentally). The further you are into your contract, the less it costs for the program. It requires utilizing Sprint's Buyback program, and that credit goes directly towards your device purchase at the point of sale. You can only take advantage of it in stores, unless you use the new Reserve In Store system to pay online and pick it up in store instead.

 

No initial deposit, no monthly cost, no increase in monthly plan pricing (permanent or temporary) required to take advantage of the "early upgrade" program. Some might argue it's better to split it up across bills, but I can tell you from experience working with many customers already unable to understand phone bills as it is (even when they aren't having a billing issue, on all carriers) adding another line-item every month just adds to the confusion. The fact is the average person can't understand a bill, from any carrier or company. I work for Sprint in retail, I was retail sales/support and now a tech, and I have friends that work in call centers for various companies, it's the same regardless of company. People can't understand a bill, that isn't going to magically change with a complex program. Not to mention the fact Sprint got rid of things like Bill to Account for device purchases was due to fraud, etc. related to things exactly like Jump/Edge/Next (people using their bill as a credit card for the purchase, making payments instead of a lump sum payment on their next bill as required). Sprint is not in the credit business, it has too much overhead to try and collect and Sprint has been trying to reduce the amount of "sub-prime" customers that don't pay their bills on time and in full, something the old management (Forsee et al.) allowed to happen way too much over the years.

Wasn't there big news update about the Upgrade Now program being cancelled back in December 2012?

"Calling Alaska" is one of the many great Jeff Lynne produced songs for ELO, George Harrison, Tom Petty, etc.  Oh, wait, that is "Calling America."  And Alaska is not really America.  Alaska is where people with something to hide go to escape America.

 

 

 

AJ

never trust a russian eskimo?

According to their native coverage map there is "some" coverage in Alaska. Probably need a partner though. 

I remember when calling Alaska on Sprint incurred additional charges

The better with which to get around auto ip blocks, my dear.

hmmmm.. I sense a future wherein the community membership becomes invitation only with moderator/staff approval.

Yeah, here is the direct link to T4GRU.com.

 

AJ

HAHAHAHAHA

I completely agree. I stopped buying phones in the Spring. And now we are so close to triband, it would be crazy to buy a subsidized phone on contract right before Triband LTE devices start selling.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

Same boat here.....   daddy has the itch to replace all the devices

Wow, too many cat videos, huh? I hope Sprint was willing to work with your grandparents on a payment plan or lowering that bill.

 

If cable/DSL/fiber is available in their neighborhood they should be using that for their home ISP for the low latency and lack of caps, but if wireless is their only option then the least bad option is probably Millenicom. Their $70/mo "unlimited" plan has a 50GB soft cap with no overages. The Unlimited and BYOD plans use Sprint's 3G, WiMax, and LTE networks (not sure if they'd let you activate a tri-band LTE hotspot or not), and the 20GB "Hotspot Plan" uses VZW's network.

LOL, maybe there were some cat videos in there since she breeds exotic cats, but mostly japanese comedy shows; Arashi (As she is japanese)

The hotspot was only a temporary fix.  Right now they have been hanging out in my folks' 40ft RV awaiting their new house to be built.  Moving her onto a Smartphone with all of the bells and whistles (wireless keyboard/mouse and hdmi cables) has allowed her to get her youtube fix in the interim, without any surprise expenses or worries of data overages.  Everything will work out for them, but I do want to make sure that everyone knows that the Sprint Hotspot data cap is nothing to joke with if you are tight on finances whatsoever.

Does anyone even pay for Sprint TV content? Sounds like another money pit for Sprint to shut down.

It certainly isn't worth it in its present condition, but I have purchased the services many times in the past

So, Robert, if that is the case then if one cleverly games the tiering system,  ie 3-6-12 for my Trifi on the very

last day of my cycle I switch to 12 GB and commence to consume 12 GB of data and ONLY be charged with

1/30 ($79) for that single day on the tier...hard to believe Sprint would allow this..I've never been brave enough to

at least confirm this pricing stratagem for fear of a massive overage charge..doing the math one can download up

to 21 GB of data for just a bit over $35 if one had need for a lot of data at the end of his cycle..

 

As I stated above on two occasions with two different Sprint CS reps that the hotspot quota can NEVER exceed

12 GB and that it IS cumulative as one changes tiers..I also stated that I do NOT know for sure how this works

never risking an overage to find out..let us know what your charges end up being for your three changes and the

total GB's consumed, please..

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I believe I posted on another thread but my grandparents hit their 12gb hotspot cap in less than 2 weeks of service and were charged about $600 in overage fees because my grandmother wanted to watch videos on youtube.  

For the average user, buyer beware, as there are presently no higher tiers for Sprint's hotspot plans to upgrade over 12GB.

It seems that other services provide you with the option to cut it off when you hit the threshold (my experience with Verizon) and decide whether or not to move to a higher tier or wait until the next billing cycle.

OK, I suppose it is screenshot time.  It seems that the device calculates the date range differently.  Here is a typical month for me on one of my devices.  Clearly I would never want to have this on a Verizon account (unless on a grandfathered plan)

Microwave is capable of delivering any amount of backhaul a site (or multiple sites) needs.

 

 

You have no idea what it takes to run a network. If you did, you wouldn't feel so entitled to having the world served to you on a platter. $300 for 500 - 1000 megs delivered to your house is an excellent price. The usage you are so quick to dispense with is the primary source of the problem.

 

 

If there are plenty of applications, why can't you name any of them? Okay, online backup could use some more upload, but once the initial push is done, the deltas are easily handled. I know a local government that manages a 500 meg connection. They have 1,500 employees, but two other (smaller) governments and three school districts with many thousand of students and hundreds of employees also use the connection. Rare is the occasion that I get less than 100 megs on a speed test.

 

There are uses other than OTA video and mobile wireless. They have a greater need for lower spectrum than either of the above parties.

 

LTE's propagation isn't any different assuming same transmitter power and antenna gain. It does require a higher received signal *AND* a higher signal to noise. That means its less likely to be received as error free as a simpler technology.

 

Why are you worried about LTE in your basement? That's what local WiFi is for. Private WiFi in the home, public WiFi in a public venue.

 

 

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

As far as why he would be worried about LTE in his basement consider this fact:  LTE signal propagation is less effective than present CDMA range.  Whether you live in the boonies or not, having a non-existent or spotty signal while in your home makes a mobile device much less mobile and defeats the purpose of its primary use, as a phone.  

I live in a huge suburban area in a large market and can only get a usable signal in 25% of my home and it is not necessarily on the perimeters of property or building as one would expect (and we do not have basements in SoCal).  So yes, moving to any voLTE type carrier will need to address many issues, which for the most part are alleviated at the lower end of radio frequencies.

In Fresno and Clovis even the local utility boxes have to be underground now. Nothing above ground.

Many areas of California are now like this.  I believe there must be some give in the lines (that are not copper) considering that we are in earthquake territory and armageddon does not fall upon us every time we have a moderate earthquake.

Oh, it certainly is, but what fun is there without a genital waving contest?

 

On the serious side, the main benefit is that you can have more people doing normal traffic. You aren't as likely to notice congestion.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

Let me know when the "genital waving contest" begins. It will bring a whole new meaning to the term viral video.

What would be the maximus speeds for these tests: 100 Mbps cause of the backhaul?

And here is Maximus again???

I have no idea what Sprint plans to do about LTE and feature phones, if anything.  As for Single LTE Band device holders, it's not going to be a big deal.  The LTE 1900 network should improve as the build out continues and spreads out the LTE load, and as triband device holders start getting off the LTE 1900 network.  Should be a decent experience that may even get better.  

 

Sprint has the capacity to add additional LTE 1900 carriers in many markets if necessary too.  SoftBank is not going to allow the network to deteriorate.  I intentionally skipped the S4 and the HTC One because they were released so close to the tribands debut.

 

Robert

given the decline of feature phones and how adamant Masayoshi (and us enthusiasts are) about "in with the new, out with the old"  I could forsee them just issuing low-mid range smartphones to those that want to hold on to legacy phones that may be a 5 years to decade out of EOL, that are holding up the migration of the network as a whole.  

That is what I would do if I were Son, throw $200M at compatible smartphones and issue them to the holdovers and cancel the olds device.

I stand corrected, it appears they went and did that anyway.     QUOTE FROM http://www.lte-tdd.org/second/index.aspx?nodeid=88&page=ContentPage&contentid=781  REFERENCED EARLIER "....Immediately after closing, Sprint modified the terms of its user agreement to let Sprint WiMAX users upgrade early to LTE right away (by giving them a free LTE phone without forcing a contract renewal)"

You must have slept through the big news where Sprint said they are adding TD-LTE to all 38,000+ Sprint sites. On top of the entire Clearwire network. They said they would also expand with additional TD-LTE sites in urban areas in between Sprint NV sites where needed. Huge news. Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

This is huge news indeed! I think we are all for the new Sprint that is coming out of "the new Sprint."  I'm all butterflies, rainbows and unicorn farts myself with anticipation

The speed of your wifi connection to your phone depends on your ISP and router. On my home Asus AC66U router, I get 55-60 mbps down and 25-30 mbps up on my Galaxy Note 2. I have the same internet speeds as yours, except that I have Comcast.

 

For most wifi-n routers and portable hotspots/mifi's, I'd expect speeds a fraction of an AC router.

I'm happy that the WIFI thread has been moved, but yes the AC66U (or "R" variant for those who purchased at a retailer) is certainly a beast especially when your devices can use the higher 5GHZ bandwidth.  I'm saturating my neighborhood with 240MHZ of overamped WIFI on 2 AC66R's myself now.

I am right this very second trying to convince my wife to go back to Denver this weekend.

 

Robert

You really need a place where members can donate "skymiles" and their ilk for such excursions

Yeah I am a hotspot noob.  Never owned a hotspot so I didn't really think about that.

Just be careful on the hotspot usage.  My grandparents just got hit with $600+ in overages (above the 12gb plan limit) because my grandma likes to watch japanese videos on Youtube.  To be fair being as a non-techy she did not understand the T&C but Sprint has made it difficult to enable a cap on their "limited" data plans and she also is in between moving to a new house as the old one has been sold and the new one is still being built.

I ended up going with my grandfather to get her a smartphone (Note 2) so that she could make use of the "unlimited" data feature of the smartphone without having the problems associated with the Hotspot plan.  We also got her some media adapters and cables so that she could watch said videos on her tv (or any other big screen) still

Not being a pest here I hope.. but wondered is your Router 2.4 Ghz ?  My Asus Router is higher end and does both 2.4 and 5Ghz.. My iphone 5 will not do anywhere near the 50 Mb/s down on 2.4 ghz Wi-Fi channels, but once I connect to the 5Ghz Wi-Fi Im getting 50 Mb/s consistently..  I've seen on forums where many never get anywhere near those speeds on other forums and most think its the limitation of the iPhone 5, while I can assure anyone it's not.. This could be the case for your Note 2..

Are you on an Asus AC66 as well?  There is certainly a difference in whether or not the device can support the 5ghz band for wifi and what bandwidth it will support as well.

If limited to the 2.4 GHz ISM band, using only 20 MHz carriers is practically de rigueur.  So few channels are available in the band that using 40 MHz carriers is basically being a bad neighbor.

 

AJ

I like being a bad neighbor.   But we already discussed routers in another thread and how I am eating up 240mhz of local spectrum for my home configuration.

T-Mobile is NSN in Austin (and I believe most/all of TX). I'd have to ask which other markets. In any case, add me to the list of believers in their equipment quality; pings south of 30ms and speeds reasonably close to the in-field max I've seen from 5x5 LTE (probably less due to this being a populated area, rather than any failing on the equipment's part).

 

I wonder if NSN will bring their gear into markets that are currently run by Ericsson and Samsung...I certainly won't complain if they do, as I'm very rarely in ALU territory (unless you count legacy equipment in Denver, heh).

Seeing as we have some rather large ALU rollouts on the west coast (where there are in fact people, and a lot at that)  I would welcome a new player to handle this rollout

Oh, and I thought of some more merger candidates for T-Mobile.  Rent-A-Center, Check into Cash, and TitleMax.  Rent your new phone using a payday loan as a down payment, then get a title loan on the value of the new phone with the phone itself used as collateral.  With the clientele that T-Mobile strategy now seems to be courting, that would fit to a "T."

 

 

AJ

ROFLMFAO!!!! Ask them if they want to lease/buy a bridge while you're at it.

Planogram is a recognized word in the Oxford English dictionary... it's not really going anywhere any time soon.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/planogram

That may be the case, but much like the term "irregardless", I still find it to be a bastardization of the language. 

Yeah, that's standard and the date for the next major Planogram adjustment for the holiday season leading to Christmas.

 

It also does not prevent Sprint from stopping the plan offering or changing it any earlier than that. It's just the expiration date for the advertising period.

Interesting thing is that you can still see the "normal" old plans although the site does its damnedest to minimize exposure to them.  I tried to see what would happen if I altered my plann (while logged in) and also as a new customer.   It seems that unless you are paying close attention you may miss the link for "other plans"

In any event, I still hate that retail/marketing term plan-o-gram!  seriously???! can we not come up with something better in this day an age? 

That's way too much work (or better yet, trouble) than it would ever be worth for a moderator to ever want to go through, especially when doing so on a purely volunteer basis.  The same thing is accomplished anyway with just 'likes' alone, because those who would otherwise be 'disliked' will only ever have little to no 'likes'.  

 

Personally speaking though, I'm actually fine with a forum as well as its posters and their content standing on their own legs and let that be that without any likes or dislikes either one, myself.  I'd value the content this site and many of its posters bring just as much if I couldn't 'like' certain posts or see that others did. Everyone has their own unique opinions and ideas about things, and I know in my own mind if I like someone's input or not without having to have it validated through the 'likes' of others.  Granted, if the system is there, I'll participate in it too, but it doesn't really add anything to my enjoyment of what I read here that would be missed if it suddenly went away.

I'm not saying it's ideal and I understand how hard moderation is, I was more referring to the ability for user moderated abuse fixes or to push a comment into irrelevancy.  Here on S4gru it is much easier than larger sites inasmuch as moderation is concerned and much less tolerance for abuse of the t&c.  

I wouldn't discount an algorithm though that could focus on some sort "user generated" negativity that could essentially embolden non-staff members to push irrelevant, spammy, rude etc. violators out into obscurity.   Kind of like a hybrid weighted trust meter.

Not sure what that one post implies about Sprint being an Internet company and the big 2 are telecommunications companies. I hope Son doesnt push Sprint as a content delivery service.

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

That would certainly hit Ergen in a lowblow, but hopefully even if that is an additional focus it does not detract from the primary telecom aspect.  although I can see telecom referring to the nickel and diming of ATT and VZ with variable data, text, minute packages vs. unlimited on the AFTER-NOW network.  Masayoshi could be alluding more to the fact that the future is much more datacentric and less "telecom status-quo" and he plans to leave them in the dust.

If there were dislike buttons here, I'd be significantly less inclined to stick around.  Every forum I've been involved with that used such 'negative reinforcement' never came out with 'positive' results from it, and usually it was a detriment to the overall atmosphere of the community over the long run.   The only real time such a thing really needs be used in the first place are for people who are obvious cancers to the health of the community to whatever degree, and honestly, that's what having forum moderators is for....to deal with such cancers.

I agree for the most part although I think what would be best in this case would be allowing negatives or positives to cancel each other out.  The extremely high or extremely low ratings could/should then be immediately flagged and available to the moderators to determine the validity in either case.