techwrench

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the delayed response. Wound up getting ill during the conversation. The reason I posted is because it is creating problems constantly. I use Sprint wireless to download files and deal with some networked applications all day long. File downloads in a good spot may average 1.6 mb/sec. but in some areas it will be 12kb/sec. We constantly run data quality tests for certain applications before executing them. These tests measure ping times, jitter, a reasonable 150 kb/sec minimum speed and packet loss to determine the reliability for our networked applications. The connections are rated on a point system from 0 (best) to 500 (worst). A 275 minimum is required to have a reasonable chance of success. As a reference 3G 80% is about a 250 to 260 score. Wimax scores out at 210 - 230 60% or above. To give you a reference to hard wire the local ISPs typically score 80 to 100 with the new comcast business class coming in at 24 (best I have ever seen) and certified gold T-1 coming in at 38. When 4GLTE started here the score was an amazing 98 with 100 percent signal!! I expected some degradation as more people started using the service but I never thought I would see a 398!! To make matters worse the tech support people are now unable to help as most towers are under construction which means when you call with an issue they don't check into it. I run into routers that need resetting and that sort of stuff about once a month which Sprint normally fixes with a phone call. They won't even take a look now!! This includes 3G and Wimax!! I would be happy to live on 3G and Wimax until the construction is finished but the construction is causing issues on these as well. On Friday I heard that in an area meeting (sometime prior) on Network vision Ericsson has agreed to 120 more teams in our to get the problems resolved which gives me great hope. I can't wait for them to get it ironed out. When they do I will definitely let you know!! Quite frankly until recently Sprint was the best carrier for our needs and we hope they work it out soon!! I have even offered to help them several times as our vehicles travel live so we sell all the issues wherever we travel but no takers!!

Thanks for pointing out that my membership had expired. I didn't relaize it!! I'll get that resolved now. As for knowing what is going on. If you check back you will see I did a review on the Tri-band modem almost a year ago. I office right by one of the first towers on that was done on the North side of Houston in the Woodlands. I also cover 750 miles a week using the tri-band and my phones inside of Houston. It was fantastic at first as you will see in my initial reports made on here but it has steadily dropped to where in most areas a speed test with 100% signal will only get about 1.8 down 3.2 up. I can get 5.4 down with Wimax most of the time. The tower by my office has continously had problems and 75% of the phones in Houston had service issues three times in the last month!! I am still a customer but unless something happens fast it won't be for long. I just did a speed test test for you in Bellaire, Texas which is in downtown Houston. 2.54MB down 5.4MB up with 100% signal (-71dBm)and if you look at the test trace you can see speeds all over the map from 0.2mb to 14mb. I am praying it gets better soon!

Here in Houston, Texas the wait has not been worth it. We still don't have any consistent high speeds because the sytem is being oversold faster than they can build it and it crashes constantly. In addition we are now having constant voice issues as they scramble to deal with the data issues. I spend over 40% of my time on Wimax as it is faster than the the 4GLTE in most areas. I think network vision needs a seeing eye dog!! For the first time in 14 years I am having to move my business phones from Sprint to be able to do business!!

Sprint has started allowing reviews but they have to be approved before posting. Minw made it through with no issues!

Robert, I have a suggestion for Sprint that would help them resolve issues a lot faster than their current method. In the automotive industry, which is very similar to the wireless industry in implementation, a lot of engineering is done "on the fly" so that sales help fund development. A lot of time the engineers are not given enough testing time to find these issues before hand or the issues just don't show up until used in the "real" world. The leaders in automotive technology realize this is an issue and have figured out a way to combat this at a minimal cost. They identify entities that have the ability to get them lots of feedback quickly....people and businesses that are going to use this equipment more intensively than the average consumer!! These people get equipment early on with lots of perks to entice them to perform the additional tasks necessary to provide the feedback that the manufacturers need. These perks are equipment at no or low costs, updates free or before everyone else and direct access to advanced support levels allowing the engineers to work directly with the field. I think that Sprint (and most wireless carriers) could benefit from this type of relationship. What I am seeing right now is that they need a quick way to find issues so they can be resolved quickly without hurting their reputation in the consumers eyes. Which is going to be better for them - having a working agreement with someone who uses a phone 5,000 + minutes a month or listening and trying to decipher 400 support calls from people who use the phone 200 minutes a month. Which way makes the Company look bad in the consumers eyes? Which one is more likely to generate negative comments? A good example would be my Tri-band modem. I have given them several tips and work arounds to help with some of the issues. I have the 5th unit sold to consumers and first cradle ever sold. I use the unit nonstop 10 hours a day in the worst environment for electronics in the nation. High temps and high humidity!! Just having acces to my GPS and signal strengths would allow them to find issues in half the time since I drive as much as 1,000 miles a week mainly in the LTE areas ni the Houston area. When i call support and lose time on an issue the first things i hear out of the support personnel's mouth are solutions or workarounds that I provided them in prior phone conversations with little or no new solutions. I bet right now they could find 10 people just like me in every area that are willing to work with Sprint to improve equipment and services. I think network vision could be greatly improved with a little Support Vision!!

I have a little bit different take on the situation here in Houston as I use the coverage over most of Houston with the Tri-band modem. The service is almost everywhere I go. I was on LTE yesterday afternoon in Cut and Shoot, Texas!! First I don't think that they have all the elements adjusted correctly on the towers. I am seeing gaps between the antennas on the same towers. Second Erricson seems to scrambling madly with issues which I suspect is due to the unusually heavy rain we have had for the last week plus tweaking the towers coverage footprint. I have caught them yanking LTE in and out of service on several towers. I suspect they are trying to get the elements aligned right to fix the coverage gaps.

North Houston is now live with 4G LTE. They were having problems caused by the flooding from the last week of rain according to my sources. My home tower is at 57 ms ping with 31mb down and 18mb up on testing in the best signal area. .

While the insurance is only $8.00 they are charging all the the taxes and so forth on the total bill. Removing insurance from 1 phone reduced the monthlybill by around $9.50 if I remember correctly.If you have multiple lines that are insured it may make more sense to self insure. I put around $57.00 a month in my pocket now cutting the insurance off 6 phone lines which means I have the money to buy outright a phone about every 6 months ($100.00 deductible plus $342 in savings). The added advantage to that is you get your phone immediately. Just wait to the time you break your phone in the middle of nowhere and they want you to FAX an affidavit before they will even start the replacement on the phone, They don't accept e-mail!!!! Then they always seem to lose the affidavit so you have to do it again!! After waiting 2 weeks for a phone I decided they aren't worth it. I put the deductible in the bank with the insurance savings and just buy a phone when I need or want a different one. This also has the added benefit of allowing you service with no contract!!! If you buy a phone outright you can go month to month which will alow you to change your services at will with no buyout!!

I can tell you from using data all around the Houston area that the service is already starting to improve. I can see in former problem areas where both speeds and stability have increased. I would wait a bit longer to see if the improvements fix your issues. One of the areas where I work a lot the 4G WiMax has come up this week from 2MB down to 6.5 MB down from the upgrades with a more even flow of data. And I can see the guys still on the tower working!!

As close as I can figure the cradle boosts the signal strength in marginal areas about 7 to 10 percent. I tried it in an area that shows a 10% signal and with the cradle it shows 20%. It really helps the transmit because without at 10% it misses data occasionally but with the cradle it is a good usable signal. The cradle was $54.00.

Sorry my good camera was in the van with the broke transmission. I am a automotive diagnostic consultant that helps repair shops with diagnostic issues and reprogramming vehicle computers. All of the reprogramming for cars is internet based.

I thought it was out of whack when I was testing as well but I was able to do two speed tests that were very close. It is possible that I was so close to the tower that it was inaccurate. I was sitting on a hill in the middle of the highest strength LTE I could find. It was line of sight with no obstructions and my rangefinder showed 482 feet to the element. I was amazed by the ping times as well on this test test as all other areas I tested were 55ms or higher. This test had a ping of 37 ms. The other test showed a 20.7 upload speed. All other tests I performed in other areas with 100% were in the 12 - 19 mb range on upload.

Stay tuned for my review which should be in Roberts hand by the end of day. He should have it up shortly. It will answer your questions in detail I hope. I'l also continue sending updates as I learn more about it. It is getting put through the wringer here so the results should be interesting.

Being one of the first Tri-Band Modem users in the Area, I attempted to post a review on Sprint's Website. There is 1 review up already so I figured it should be possible. When I attempt to write a review it says I am not logged in even though I am. The funny thing is I can post a review for any of my 5 other devices with no problem. I know that with the original Hotspot Sprint was making sure the rating was good even though the device had tons of issues. Is Sprint trying to do the same thing again?

THis tower was being blocked yesterday at3:00 PM when I went through the area. I have not found a single active 4GLTE signal in North Houston recently.

All 3 towers that were up came down yesterday afternoon. Bah Humbug!!!!

You know I had wondered that as well when I was talking to sales. Of course a salesman's job is to sell you so I kind of expect that. I have a lot of respect for the salesman that can sell you and do it honestly. On the other hand technical support should not try and push you into something just because they can't make a plan work with the equipment it is advertised to work with. I think this happened because Sprint does not field test the equipment to iron out the bugs. Part of my job is field testing equipment to find the bugs in both the equipment and support. This helps build the support database and find the problems that need to be ironed out or modified before release. It is a lot easier for companies to start with a small tester group and work out the problems with people that are trying to work with them than springing it on the public with a "engineering on the fly" mentality. On looking back at the entire event, now that my brain is starting to recover, I realize that the from the way my call was being handled that this plan I listed (not the equipment) is being handled by a new division because even sales transferred me to talk to the people handling this plan. It seems to me it may be running on a separate (or different) computer system than the regular sprint plans.

My apologies. I should learn not to type before my first cup of coffee. The last two posts have had numerous words and sentences left out. Also thanks for the clarification on frequencies. I am still a newbie at this as my electronics experience lies in another field. In my field the bands are typically an entire 100Mhz spectrum. For example the 100Mhz band includes everything from 100 to 199 Mhz when we talk about it. I like this forum because there is a lot of information and people here who help me get up to speed!!!

Not true. The device specifications list that it will work on 800 MHz. I think at this time the software doesn't support it. Transmit PCS: 1850 to 1910 MHz Cellular: 824 to 849 MHz LTE: 1910 to 1915 MHz WiMAX: 2495 to 2690 MHz Receive PCS: 1930 to 1990 MHz Cellular: 869 to 894 MHz LTE: 1990 to 1995 MHz WiMAX: 2495 to 2690 MHz GPS: 1575.42 MHz

Sorry I wasn't clear about the plan. This is the one I was talking about below. Get mobile broadband with no long-term contracts Overview Pricing Get it on tablets Get it on laptops, data cards & Wi-Fi hotspots 3G/4G without the commitment Pay for service only when you need it, without any annual commitment. And since your service automatically ends when your time or data limit is reached, you won't have to worry about any surprising overage charges. It's currently available on select devices, but others will be compatible in the future. To get started, or to check out your data pass and pricing options,click the appropriate tab and we'll walk you through. Try it for free Just enter the promo code of Free Day, when you get to the appropriate step, and you'll get a free day of service.* *Free Day: Promo code is valid for 1 time use per device. Limited time offer, ends 12/31/2012 or while supplies last. Day, Week or Month Data Pass: Once either your on network, off network or time allowance has been reached your session will end. Customer required to purchase additional service at the end of the period or when data is reached. **Other Terms: Coverage not available everywhere. Sprint 4G network reaches over 70 markets and counting, on select devices. Sprint 3G network reaches over 274 million people. Add'l terms and restrictions apply. Offers not available in all markets/retail locations or for all phones/networks. Pricing, offer terms, fees & features may vary for existing customers not eligible for upgrade. Other restrictions apply. The HTC logo, and HTC EVO are the trademarks of HTC Corporation. Other marks are the property of their respective owners. Now, let's talk about your data pass and pricing options: Tablets Type* Price** Month $19.99 Allowance3G/4G On Network 1GB Allowance3G Off Network Roaming 100MB Laptops, data cards & Wi-Fi hotspots Type* Price** Day $14.99 Week $29.99 Month $49.99 Allowance3G/4G On Network 150MB 500MB 1.5GB Allowance3G Off Network Roaming 50MB 100MB 150MB *Day, Week or Month Data Pass: Once either your on network, off network or time allowance has been reached your session will end. Customer required to purchase additional service at the end of the period or when data is reached. **Charges exclude taxes and fees. ***Other Terms: Coverage not available everywhere. Sprint 4G network reaches over 70 markets and counting, on select devices. Sprint 3G network reaches over 274 million people. Add'l terms and restrictions apply. Offers not available in all markets/retail locations or for all phones/networks. Pricing, offer terms, fees & features may vary for existing customers not eligible for upgrade. Other restrictions apply. The HTC logo, and HTC EVO are the trademarks of HTC Corporation. Other marks are the property of their respective owners. Now available on select tablets Get it on these devices (will be available on others in the future): HTC EVO View 4G™ ZTE Optik™ How to get it Ready to try it out? As long as your tablet hasn't been activated with a monthly plan, you can follow the steps below to start surfing on your terms: Turn on your tablet. When it tries to activate, via the Hands Free Activation screen, press the Activate button that appears. This will launch Sprint Zone, Once there, look under the Activate My Device section and press the Click here to activate link. Select the New Customer radio button under Activate My Device. Select the No commitment radio button under Activate My Device. For a day pass on us, select the Enter promo code radio button, instead, and then enter Free Day in the field you see. On the next screen, select the pass type you want, enter your payment info and agree to the purchasing Terms & Conditions. Please note: If you cancel this process at any time on the initial setup of your device, no worries. Simply launch your Sprint Zone app and start back at step 2 above. If you made a previous day/week/month purchase, that's fine too. Just launch your browser and start back at step 3 above to make another purchase. Don't have a compatible tablet (yet)? Just call us at 1-800-SPRINT1 (1-800-777-4681) to get one, at the regular price and without a plan, and then follow the same steps. Now available on select laptops, data cards & Wi-Fi hotspots Get it on these devices (will be available on others in the future): Merlin CC208 3G/4G 2-in-1 Card by Novatel Wireless Sprint 3G/4G Plug-in-Connect USB Lenovo IdeaPad™ S205s Sierra Wireless 4G LTE Tri-Fi Hotspot How to get it Ready to try it out? As long as your device hasn't been activated with a monthly plan, you can follow the steps below to start surfing on your terms: Plug in or connect your device to your computer, and launch Sprint SmartView to connect to the Sprint network. Once on the welcome screen, select the New Customer checkbox and then the No Commitment radio button. For a day pass on us, select the Enter promo code radio button, instead, and then enter Free Day in the field you see. On the next screen, select the pass type you want, enter your payment info and agree to the purchasing Terms & Conditions. Please note: If you cancel this process at any time on the initial setup of your device, no worries. Simply launch your Sprint SmartView and start back at step 2 above. If you made a previous day/week/month purchase, that's fine too. Just launch Sprint SmartView again and start back at step 2 above to make another purchase. Don't have a compatible device (yet)? Just call us at 1-800-SPRINT1 (1-800-777-4681) to get one, at the regular price and without a plan, and then follow the same steps.

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I just received the new Tri-Band Hotpsot and have been dying to try it out and see if the 4G LTE service is up and running in my area yet. I thought it would be a good time to try the new "No Contract" data card plan plan that is available on 4 devices including the Tri-Band Hotpsot to see if it was a viable option for my business which intermittently needs a second data modem. If had to describe the experience with one word it would be "FRUSTRATING!!!!!". I thought that it would be good to describe my experience for other potential users of this service to try and help them avoid some of the pitfalls I encountered. I also leaned a few interesting things about Sprint's data plans that I will pass along as well. Hopefully this will keep someone from losing the 4 1/2 hours I lost trying to get the plan to work on the Tri-Band Hotpsot. 1. No one at Sprint support seems to know know or understand this plan as it relates to the Tri-Band Hotpsot. I don't think this would be an issue with the other 3 devices on the plan as they are data modems. I would describe this service as not ready for prime time as it relates to the tri-Band Hotspot. The biggest issue is that the "No Contract" service is designed to work through Sprint Smart View which is not used with Hotspots. Hotspots load a set of drivers to interface with the computer where the data modems rely on the Sprint Smat View to provide this interface. I don't know how many times I was told by multiple different support personnel to open my Hotspot through Sprint Smart view. I had to show them it wouldn't work before they would even attempt troubleshooting. How can you support a device when you don't even understand how it works? 2. The store service center can't help with this issue. This is a ploy used by support to get you off their backs when they can't solve an issue. This was the answer I was given most by the support personnel in every department. The service center won't even look at a device for this issue. It has to be handled on the phone with Sprint. 3. The rates and data allowances for this service are not that good. Sprint would really rather have you on a contract or with a competitor than on this service. The standard monthly 3GB data plan gives you twice the data for roughly two thirds the cost of the "No Contract" monthly service. The competition offers the same data allowances on both plans with about a 15% price difference. 4. If you own a device (no contract or bought outright with no discount) you don't have to sign a two year contact to use it. That is a sales tactic to lock you into a monthly plan. You can get service on a "month to month" basis at the regular rates without having to sign a contract. I found this out in the cancellation department, of all places, because I got transferred there when they decided to get rid of me in support. They are very good at finding a resolution to keep you from leaving Sprint in cancellation. The lady I talked to was amazed that NO ONE offered to put me on the no contract month to month plan as it is a documented plan to serve people who own their own equipment. I hope you find this helpful!

Back from lunch and I found three towers currently up in the Spring/Woodlands area. As close as I can figure from the coverage i found the towers are H023XC275, H033XC479 and H003XC425.

I wonder if netmonitor has a PC app? The 4G LTE just came back up so I"m sticking the hotspot in my pocket to check signals while I go to lunch with the family. I'll keep you posted!!

Wimax is typically about 2.5 down and 1.2 up. A good day Wimax might get 6 down and 2.3 up. I would love to post pictures but 10 minutes after I reported this they took the area down plus left us with no Wimax either. I wish I had done it last night but in a rental van in bad weather...too dangerous.