weatheremperor

Any news on Broward county? Are there any rejections or is everything good to go?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

Some B41 love in Miramar, wondering how much time is going to take them cover all the holes in South Florida ....

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

How do you get b41 on your phone? Is it from the Spark update on ur N5?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

I got some awesome speeds down in the Davie/Hollywood/Pembroke Pines area on my LG G2. I didn't look at the bands at the time though. I usually average anywhere from 20-25mbps in real time usage, but these peak speeds are awesome!

 

Another note, I've been a Sprint user since the beginning and have had very few calls dropped over that entire time. Data connectivity may not be great, but as a cell phone service I have been absolutely happy. I guess I just have good luck?

 

Wow Sprint Spark is awesome! Those are great speeds. Im waiting to get the Galaxy S5 or the new HTC One. South Florida coverage just keeps getting better and better. Cant wait. Thanks for posting!

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

No. Miami/Metro Dade has not cleared out of the way of Sprint's 800 spectrum yet. The FCC has given them an extension. Probably will not be able to begin until Summer.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Stupid question...but does the miami area at least have 2500/2600 mhz??

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Well guys I made the switch to the LG G Flex phone from the Note 2 and spark is active in Miami. While I was waiting for me phone I did some speed test at the sprint store using their demo and It was getting 37~41mpbs which is good enough now inside my apartment I'm getting 16~19mbps which is good enough for me compare to my note 2 on a single band getting about 2mbps but I'm very happy that sprint is actually improving their network.

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

Wow that is awesome. Where in Miami did you do those speedtests?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

I would totally consider the Note3 Lite (or Neo, whatever) if it is tri band...which im sure it will be.

 

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@TheDave

 

Which phone do you have? Maybe that can explain the difference in lte detection in the same area

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

I know I keep sounding like a broken record, but I ALWAYS have LTE coverage in Jax and even in-building most of the time. Seriously the only times I loose LTE is Town Centre area and Atlantic and hodges. Beyond that, I never drop LTE.

 

I on't get good LTE in St. Auggy and 3G is terrible there, too.

What phone do you have?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

For the first time ever, my phone was connected on Lte the entire day. I started in Kendall and drove on the 836w and i95 north and made it to north miami beach. Stayed on Lte the entire time. I only got 5mb down while in north miami beach but just 1 year ago I would have absolutely no Lte. I know its still not perfect yet but Lte is so much better now compared to a year ago. I guess Broward is a little bit behind miami dade. I always get Lte at miami international airport and it is great in the Miramar/Pembroke Pines area. I think it should just be a matter of time before our area is complete. The march 2014 completion estimate looks very realistic imo

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

I just checked the NV Deployment thread and the Miami/West Palm market is 75% complete...with an expected completion of March 2014. Just think of where we were one year ago today with almost no Lte and now it is sooo much better

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

I have a phone with poor Rf performance at best, however I am getting more and more 4g reception than I ever have. In the Pembroke Pines/Miramar area I get especially strong 4g reception. In the Kendall area where it would be spotty at best, the reception has improved dramatically. I can only imagine how good the reception will be once I upgrade to a phone with better Rf performance. To be fair, I have driven through parts of south florida where coverage is bad but it has improved big time. Its only a matter of time before we get full coverage. Come on Sprint you can do it!

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

We are glad you quoted the entire thing as well.

You are very welcome! The next time I quote such a large post, Ill be sure to quote it especially for you

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

You are kind of late to the party here, this very exact topic has been discussed ad nasuem here over the past several months. Many Sprint users, most of them city dwellers or city workers have noticed significant degradation of LTE speeds over the last few months. The problem is this correlates with the almost complete NV build out and activation of LTE at every Sprint site in Chicago. True there are still a few annoying holes out there that are 3G only, unfortunately for us in some pretty densely populated or traveled places like the Loop, McCormick Place, Mag Mile, etc. When it comes to non LTE sites that remain all any of us can say is eventually they will be upgraded. We have discussed issues surrounding site upgrade delays for a year now, mostly related to delays in backhaul and permitting issues to access towers located on the tops of buildings and structures. It's annoying, but is what it is. So when Sprint Care reps talk about how complete the market is, they are right, in the sense that 950 of the 1000 towers in this DMA are LTE active.

 

The problem is that isn't enough and thats about all a Sprint customer service rep can tell you and look at. One of the major issues hasn't been the coverage of LTE, its been the reliability and speed of the network. You can get LTE in most of this market, although as other users pointed out, for now its only available on the 1900 PCS Band, which has its own signal strength limitations and indoor coverage issues. Unfortunately, LTE speeds are very signal strength dependent, so as another user pointed out deploying LTE800 will really improve LTE connectivity and speeds. Again, for now Sprint's LTE in Chicago is like Jr. LTE in my opinion since its stuck on 1900 Band only.

 

The other issues is the spectrum it's deployed on, its quite a narrow band, being limited by 5x5 deployment in the PCS 1900 G Block. Most of the conversation on this board starting back in Sept/Oct was investigating if this 5x5 block had simply become over saturated already, even though its still a relatively new network. The issue at hand is most people in the city proper were noticed degraded LTE speeds which correlated to weak SNR values (Signal to Noise Ratio). Poor SNR values imply a lot of "noise" in the LTE signal, as a result, even with strong signal strength the data speeds plummet to what you have noted, and a lot of users myself included start noticing LTE speeds in the sub dial up domain during peak times and in dense downtown locations. Needless to say that sucks. After months of discussion on what could be causing such widespread poor SNR; interference from US Cellular, interference from TMobile on the adjacent 1900 PCS Block, interference from a rogue network, interferences from rumored Samsung GS3 poor antenna replacement, we came up with one generally agreed upon truth......that the one 5Mhz block of PCS G LTE is probably at capacity, especially in more dense areas of the city.

 

The truth is in the poor SNR values and the timing of Sprint's deployment. When the market neared completion Sprint marketed the hell out of Chicago during the summer and fall months. More and more users get LTE enabled devices and start taking advantage. The new Iphones come out in September, meaning anyone with an Iphone 4 probably upgraded to an LTE device (they were 3G only). Anyone with a WiMax device probably upgraded to an LTE device under the new #builtforChicago marketing campaign. And when did we start noticing the poor SNR and poor LTE....September/October. Coincidence, probably not.

 

So at the end of the day, that 5Mhz block of PCS isn't enough for this market and its showing. When there are too many devices in the area competing for services from the towers this is called spectrum shortage. Its very similar to too many cars on the highway during rush hour for the number of lanes/capacity....therefore all the cars slow down. Same thing here, and as a result, the LTE signal degrades, slows down, and shows us a low SNR value (which you can check using the Signal Check Lite App). This is also why we see better SNR and speeds when the city empties or during off peak hours. Its the same reason speeds and SNR are generally much better in the suburbs, there are just less people and less devices competing for the same airlink from the tower.

 

 

So other people were correct in saying it's not really going to get any better on its own. There are some upgrades around the corner that in due time, I'm guessing another year at least, will make a significant impact on LTE speed in this market. Some people have discussed the USCC spectrum that Sprint will get for this market post 1/31/14. That will help add capacity to that original 1900 LTE Band. The other big kicker is the deployment of Sprint Spark or simply tri band LTE. This includes the 800Mhz LTE band from Nextel and the 2500Mhz band of LTE from clearwire. As many people have noted 800 LTE has much better building penetration and ability to hold an LTE signal, but the problem is here is timing. Were talking about a whole nother site by site deployment for both 800 and 2500 Mhz LTE. Its going to take some time, remember there are still many sites in Chicago and nationwide that are 3G only, so who knows how long it will be for LTE v2.0. And furthermore, to access these additional bands of LTE the user has to have a tri-band enabled LTE device. And not only that, many users will have to have tri-band devices to offload LTE demand from the 1900 block to the other bands and relax the spectrum crunch on the 1900 band. For that to happen that requires millions of people to spend money, either something like $400-$500 out of pocket for a phone upgrade, or waiting for their contract with Sprint to expire so they can upgrade at an affordable price. So to me, actually getting to a Sr. LTE network, as I believe its a Jr. LTE network now, will really take some time, in my opinion at least another year if not two.

 

So while the network in Chicago is quite LTE "built out" it still has a long way to go in really getting to the consistent high speed wide coverage net that other carriers offer as I believe ATT/VZW have deployed their core LTE in the 700/800 Mhz blocks with 10Mhz wide spectrum. You can view RootMetrics reports to see how the carriers stack up on your own. Don't get me wrong those carriers are also continuing to deploy LTE on additional bands to add capacity, everyone has spectrum and capacity issues. At the end of the day that makes the other carriers more reliable right now in my opinion, but many people still prefer sprint for a variety of reasons; greater technology stack coming soon, lower prices, unlimited data, not being a customer of a giant telecom who supports PIPA and eliminating competition, etc. It up to you to decide what's important to you, how patient you will be with your carrier, what you can afford, etc etc.

Dude, that was one of the most informative posts i have ever read here. U have no idea how much I just learned. I wish I could thumb up your post a thousand times...but I can only do it once :-)

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

The Samsung Galaxy Mega, Galaxy S4 Mini, and HTC One max all received their Spark OTA updates last month, basically right out of the box.

 

AJ

AJ,

 

I dont understand. How come those phones got the Spark update but not the N5? The n5 has the hardware so why the wait?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

If any of you guys haven't picked up the Nexus 5 yet, then I would highly recommend it. The phone is top notch all around. The camera and sounds issues were never really as bad most were leading them on to be, but have since been addressed in the latest update.

 

The performance of this phone in an area with as much LTE, not to mention band 41 LTE, should make you guys pretty happy.

 

 

Have you been able to test the n5 in the miami/ft lauderdale area?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Hello,

 

My upgrade with Sprint is on Feb 2nd. Based upon what you guys are reporting, the RF on the N5 is fantastic and for me this is the most important feature I want on a smartphone. Should I get the N5 when my upgrade comes...or wait for the so called Htc m8 which could launch around March?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

It was stated the update is coming to those phones in a few months to enable Spark usage.

Has a specific date for the update been announced yet?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Has anybody in the Miami area picked up a Nexus5? Just curious to see what the LTE connectivity is like with this phone in Miami

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Uh, that picture indicates a date of May 11 -- almost six months ago. Fake!

 

 

AJ

Your kidding right? In other parts of the world, they put the day first, followed by the month and year. In this case it would be 5 November 2013. You are too used to it being done the American way of month, day and year. Therefore, the date in the pic would be correct :-D

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Ill be in Broward again next month. I still cant get Sensorly to work right...but at the least I intend to do plenty of sampling with Speed tests. I will report back with those results

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

Sorry for posting so late...but I got 4+ mbps down in the Grand Palms area of Pembroke Pines at my parents' house. It looks like every time I come into the Pines area, I get better LTE coverage. Not the fastest speeds I have experienced but it is nice to see the coverage expanding in south florida

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

Until an area is fully converted or close , lte coverage may seem spotty. Especially if someone has the evo lte

 

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

 

 

You know what? You make a really good point about the evo lte. I almost forgot that the evo lte kinda has a primitive lte radio which may explain why it doesnt pick up lte everywhere. A co worker of mine has the htc one and he gets lte signal standing right next to me in the office...but my evo lte stays on 3g. Also, my wife has the s4 and gets slightly better lte signal. I guess most people that complain about poor lte signal reception are people like me...who bought the first gen lte enabled phones a year ago. Once people start upgrading in the next few months or so to phones that have better lte antenas (i hope) then maybe more people will get better lte signal. Would that be correct or is it more of a Sprint network thing?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

Well it's the really slow thing that preceded 3G. On my wife's iPhone it has an O where the 3G or LTE icon normally shows up. I'm running iOS 7 and it shows 1x on mine. The guy at the Sprint store said it meant that it was using EDGE. All I know is that it sucks!!!

I hear ya bro. So many places I go to around south florida and I get speeds slower than dialup. Im sure you know how it quickly frustrates you. In the places I do get LTE it is awesome fast but its spotty at best.

 

The guy at the sprint store told you the phone was running on edge? Dude, that should be the last time you visit that store lol. I heard some stories about how some of these sprint store reps are stupid...but this takes it to another level heheh.

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

 

 

Things got really quiet here recently! I have a question: for over a week my signal in downtown Fort Lauderdale keeps dropping to EDGE. Internet usage and even iMessage transmission has been impossible. I went to the Sprint Store on the corner of Broward and US1 and the representative there said it's the network, not the phone - and that I need to be patient, it's a know issue. Inside the store there was no 3G!! The signal in this area has never been great, but this is the worst it's been since I switched from ATT last September. Is this a sign that they are about to turn on an LTE tower in the area, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

Are you on Sprint? If so, how can you be running on Edge?

 

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE