radem

You do have to actually get nearly the full 64kb/s speed for what I said to be true. Google Maps works at that speed as long as you do not go to satellite view. If you are only getting 10kbps or slower either up or down then almost nothing will work. I experienced this lack of data several times when I roamed on Verizon CDMA. I expect slow GSM has the same problem. This is why LTE roaming is so important. It is much more likely that you will get the full roaming speed or close to it when roaming on LTE.

I am sure they chose 64kb/s (8,000 bytes per second) for a reason. It can do almost everything on your telephone other than stream video but it will send and receive data much slower than normal. That speed is more than fast enough to stream audio, send and receive text messages, send and receive email without attachments, and even do VoLTE if the correct compression codec is used. It is fast enough to run just about anything you want in the background on your phone such as email refreshes or streaming your favorite compressed music. 64kb/s just operates very slowly if you upload or download even moderately sized pictures or other files and is nearly worthless for any type of video uploads or downloads. Much of the internet is designed for connections slower than 64kb/s. An example is that a single 5MB picture could take more than 10 minutes to upload or download. However as long as you get the full 64kb/s and your connection does not break, it should work if you wait long enough. On connections of this speed you can expect the following: Sending or receiving MMS messages will likely not work or will very slowly and may timeout before it completes Email with attachments will be terribly slow and could take an unbearably long time to finish sending or receiving a single email in the background with an attachment Downloading anything including app updates will be terribly slow Facetime, Skype or other video chat will not work Any type of streaming video including video embedded in web pages, Facebook, etc. may timeout Most streaming audio should work as long as it is set at a lower quality but it may take a while to start as it may have to buffer for a while before it starts. VoLTE if enabled should work fine. AT&T VoLTE uses the AMR-WB codec, which consumes variable data rate of up to 23.85kbps upload or download data while that side of the conversation is sending over the voice channel depending on the range of the sounds it is sending. Generally only one person is talking at a time so either your upload or download is in use on a VoLTE call unless you are talking over each other and then both are in use. Mapping and direction applications should work fine unless you are downloading satellite view which will be very slow All of your other games and apps should work but may work slower than normal

When you have phones from different providers that is when the mobile hot spot feature really shines. Just have your Verizon phone use the WiFi connection from your T-Mobile phone. Then you can use both phones. I do this whenever either my Sprint phone or my wife's AT&T phone does not get a signal in some location. We just turn on the mobile hot spot for whichever phone does work and let the non-working phone use data through the working phone.

I believe that my mobile devices should just work in as many places as possible without me having to do anything special or charging me a huge cost. This ability to use my mobile device where ever I am is something that I expect to be included in every plan with no need to buy something special or go online and add a global roaming feature. I need voice calling, SMS messaging and at least a slow data connection to be able to send and receive iMessages, MMS, send and receive email, and navigate me through unfamiliar places in other countries. These are things that I think are important for my personal safety and to get me to where I need to be when traveling. I really do not want to be in a situation where I am getting no service where I am traveling but there is mobile service available that Sprint has not made a roaming agreement with. I can wait while some of my apps refresh their data slowly or if it takes a while to download my email or send a new email. If I need any type of streaming or other higher bandwidth functionality, I can use WiFi or pay additional for 1GB of higher speed. I would like Sprint to make paying for that higher data speed easy so that I can do that when necessary. It should default back to low speed automatically when the additional amount of high speed data that I paid for has been used up or expires.

Disney started upgrading their WiFi throughout the California Disney Land Parks a couple years ago in preparation for the introduction of the same Magic Band equipment that is in use in the Florida Disney World parks. The Magic Band project is significantly behind its original schedule since much of the work can only be performed on it at night when the parks are closed. From what I have heard, some (maybe most) of the funding for expanding the Magic Band project has been redirected to security improvements and to the new Star Wars park changes. The Magic band readers that get installed at the beginning of every ride are configured to work over WiFi if a wired network can not be easily run to that location. The Magic Band project is very expensive and requires a large amount of equipment to be installed, tested, and proven to be reliable under all conditions. Customers will not tolerate putting their Magic Band up to a reader and having that reader not working due to a WiFi overload or outage. Once the WiFi part of that project is completed, Most Disney Land park guests will be on a usable WiFi network. That frees up the macro cellular network capacity in the entire area.

Those round antennas in the convention center most likely are part of http://visitanaheim.org/press-releases/2015/01/14/anaheim-convention-center-installs-first-its-kind-high-density-wifi This is a high quality WiFi system. I do not know if they installed a DAS at the the same time but they may well have. It could also be some type of Sprint automatic WiFi hand-off like Sprint has in some airports. 700 WiFi access points and 10gbs of free public WiFi bandwidth is significant for a venue that holds up to 50,000 people if every room is used at the same time. Certainly that WiFi keeps many people off the macro cell systems in the area. Sprint used to be inoperable there during large events.

My company is a very large business customer for Sprint. We have full WiFi coverage in our buildings and most everyone is using WiFi calling so we really have no issues. Some of the buildings have a lot of brick on them so signal strength when not on WiFi can be a challenge deep inside some of them.

My company got a letter from Sprint Business today in the mail about a Sprint LTE Plus Booster. The letter was sent via postal mail to my business billing address about what appears to be a Sprint LTE Plus outdoor to indoor repeater. It will be interesting to see if this is being offered all over the country to Sprint business customers or if this is a limited roll-out and if businesses are eligible for more than one of these. If anyone has more information about what this device is and how it works, please post here. All highlights below are as listed in the letter received by my company. Dear Sprint Customer, We know how important it is to be connected, all the time, virtually everywhere. To your work, your business and your people, which is why Sprint is laser-focused on keeping our status that no one beats Sprint in Chicago. As you may have heard, Sprint has an incredible network in Chicago. In fact, we recently tied for first place in network reliability, call performance and text performance according to independent third-party testing. Our Chicago network gets better every day as we work to deliver the consistent reliability, capacity and speed that your business requires. As a thanks for being a valued customer, we would like to provide you with a Sprint-owned data booster that is free to use to further strengthen your Sprint LTE signal. Placement of the LTE Plus Booster in your building(s) will deliver next level service and does NOT require any IT infrastructure or capital. It's the size of a small shoebox. We'll simply place it in or by a window that provides the best signal strength, plug it in and you can enjoy your improved Sprint data experience. It's easy. Visit sprint.com/booster and fill out the form to request a data booster. If eligible, we will contact you to schedule a time for a Sprint team member to deliver the box and place it in an ideal location to provide you with the best signal strength. Thank you for making Sprint a part of your business. We are honored to provide your business with solutions to help you and your people collaborate, mobilize and accelerate. Sincerely, Jim Mills President of the Illinois and Wisconsin Region G. Jason Schnellbacher Director of Strategic Programs.

That is only $2,160 per month for unlimited data if you pay $3 per hour. Now granted, you may not need unlimited data more than about 8 hours a day so you might be able to chop that down to $720 per month.

It doubles the bandwidth on the microwave link for each site. There is a cost to that although that cost may be less than having to send someone back and slap the additional card in.

A quick expansion of B26 800Mhz 5x5 LTE data and BC10 800Mhz 1x voice using microwave chained back-haul to locations where high bandwidth wired back-haul can be provided quickly and for less cost would be ideal in areas where there is no native LTE or partner LTE coverage. Sprint should put a site every 20 miles or however far apart they can get the 800Mhz signal to travel with no LTE drop-offs between sites. This expansion should occur along every road/highway that has 2 or more lanes in each direction where there is currently no LTE coverage for Sprint customers. This would eventually pay for itself with additional customers and elimination of roaming fees in these areas. When the expansion covers every road/highway that has 2 lanes in each direction and more money for expansion is available, Sprint should then move on to every smaller village and town starting with the largest population sizes where they they do not provide coverage along with the roads that link these smaller villages and towns. Any 800Mhz only site that is regularly overloaded should get additional back-haul and B25 1900Mhz 5x5 or 10x10 LTE data and BC1 1900Mhz 3G voice added to it. In any area where it is still overloaded after having both B26 and B25, should start to get filled in with B41 on the existing sites and then additional mini-sites in between. This includes any area where the population can suddenly increase such as airports, stadiums, beaches, convention centers, fair-grounds, etc. It seems today that Sprint is focusing primarily on the B41 in-fill rather than the bigger picture. Unfortunately they are now being portrayed in advertising by their competitors as having the smallest network which is hurting them in their attempt to gain additional customers. I think there is room to have some focus on rural expansion while the majority of their work continues on urban/suburban in-fill.

I would very much like to see an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) fix. It is a required step on the way to VOLTE for Sprint phones. iPhones have had a SMS problem since Sprint WiFi calling came out where they cannot send or receive SMS messages while on a WiFi network without macro network coverage. They can send/receive iMessages while on WiFi and will try to switch to the macro network to send/receive SMS/MMS messages. This means the problem does not impact many users while on WiFi calling but it is a deal breaker for VOLTE and may be the primary reason why Sprint is the only one of the top 4 that does not offer VOLTE. This does not appear to impact most Android phones but possibly this new Note 7 is impacted by it. You can see the IMS problem on iPhones in Settings - General - About. Click the Carrier line a few times until you get to get to IMS status and you will see that only voice is enabled on the Sprint network. IMS must be enabled for voice and SMS to properly use VOLTE in the future.

If both 5x5 bandwidth slices are beside each other, Sprint combines them and makes them into a 10x10 which improves top end speed, edge of cell reception, etc. If the 5x5's are not beside each other, they will stay as 2 separate 5x5's as Sprints equipment is not configured at this time to be able to perform CA on B25. 2 5x5's means that you get double the total shared bandwidth but not double the top end speed. In as many cases as they can, Sprint is trading some of their bandwidth with other carriers so that both end up with more contiguous bandwidth. Both carriers can then change to 10x10, 15x15, or 20x20.

Most people in the Disney World parks are are on capped data plans so they are using the free, no sign-in required, Disney WiFi which seems to run well enough to use it in most places in the parks. It is more than fast enough to use the Disney app and whatever else you want to do on your mobile device. That leaves all the mobile providers working quite well in the area since most everyone at the parks is off loaded to WiFi.

You may want to update the section on Pulse to make it clear that Pulse is a monthly subscription "use it or lose it" to those data buckets. Additional data can be purchased at $15 per 1GB if you run out of data in the pulse buckets.

Yes, no one could have seen that coming. I still do not understand why they did not just make slow unlimited data an extra cost add-on option to their new Pulse plans for use when the high-speed Pulse data has been used up. Many people want their data to continue even at slow speed after they hit their cap. That is just a way to make data caps not suck quite as much. Pulse is their new monthly plans where the user purchases 5GB/$40, 10GB/$75, 20GB/$140 and it renews each month. if you do not use all your high speed data, you are refunded the amount you did not use.

You Sir are correct. I should have used 20+20 rather than 20x20. Force of habit. I still believe that I am correct that every 20+20 CA band 41 sector can easily provide the bandwidth for a heavily used mini-macro relay and can provide the bandwidth for several lightly used mini-macro relays. This means that we should be able to see at least 9 mini-macro relays per macro site if there are 3 sectors on that site and that site has 6 band 41 carriers per sector.

If I understand this LTE Relay mini-macro concept properly, it seems as though a single macro sector with 20x20 CA could easily support a Band 25, Band 26 and a band 41 LTE carrier with a couple voice carriers and not even be dedicated bandwidth. All the end users on the mini-macro would see would be a limitation in upload speed. If there were 2 chains of 20x20x20 CA on the macro site for each sector it should easily be able to support 3 LTE relay mini-macros that were being moderately used and even more relays per sector if they were lightly used or if the macro bandwidth was dedicated. That is 9 mini-macro LTE relays per macro tower with the macro tower still able to do its normal work. That is a lot of extra coverage.

Cost savings could be about getting rid of some of the macro sites that only exist for capacity and switching entire areas to small cells on light poles. If there are dense small cells blanketing much of the area the macro site covers, they may not need the macro site for capacity over the top any longer and can remove it while providing the macro overlay by tuning nearby sites.

I do not have one of these but let's think about the business model of NeverStop a little: Unlimited internet at 5mb/s 5 mb/s symmetrical is more than fast enough for most current home use other than multiple simultaneous video streams but it should work well for 1 HD stream. Easy to defeat limit of 3 devices in the logon process by putting a WiFi extender in front of it and then logging in through that to provide access to all the devices in a home or business. Works anywhere the Sprint network reaches including places where there is no land line internet. You do want LTE on Sprint to get the fastest speeds but it even works at a slower speed on Sprint 3G. Better ping time and more cost effective than Satellite internet. Faster upload speed and similar download speed to AT&T's fastest DSL speeds of 6mb/s down and 1 mb/s up - http://www.att.net/speedtiers Price point equal to about 10GB of their data which means they do not make the money they planned on if their average usage is above 10GB of data per month. In my honest opinion, they should have made NeverStop a $20 per month add on to their refuel data packages that runs at 512kb/s whenever your refuel data runs out. There still would be some abuse but I cannot see NeverStop being profitable for them any other way.

For the past 25 years or so, internet providers have been able to make money by providing access to the internet without these gimmicks. The ones that could not were forced out of business by their owners and creditors. There always has been a lot of wireless and wired internet providers. There isn't some magic number of 2 or 3 who can make money in this industry. I am not sure where you get that idea. Where I live in the Chicago Suburbs with a quick search i found that there are 2 wired internet providers to my house, 4 fixed wireless providers (WISPs) that provide service to my house, 14 business internet providers that provide services to businesses and offices near my house, several satellite providers, 4 large mobile telephone providers, 10 or so alternate carriers that ride on one of the big 4 mobile telephone networks, and numerous other smaller internet providers. Mobile telephone companies are now basically mobile wireless internet provider companies (WISPs) with some complex legacy equipment for voice and text messaging. They operate on limited shared wireless bandwidth and large numbers of cell "towers". ISPs are perfectly capable of making money the way they always have. They can sell companies and customers a connection to the internet for a fair price that they can make money at and customers are willing to pay. If they cannot survive in this model, they can go out of business and have their assets sold off to some other company who can run that business properly. This is how capitalism works when operating in a regulated field. You cannot just make up new ways of making money that violate government regulations.

You do realize that customers pay for their bandwidth and the content providers pay for their bandwidth right? That is already both sides paying. I am not sure how you are arguing for content providers getting in bed with ISP's to limit customer choice while increasing ISP profit is good for the customer. If the pricing that is already being charged to the content providers and the customers is not sufficient to cover the costs of operating their network, they can raise the price or cut their operating costs. Violating the spirit and in some cases the letter of the law of Net Neutrality as passed by the FCC while screwing the customer certainly does not help the customer.

Keep in mind that IOS devices use the iMessage protocol over the data network by default so apple to apple messaging generally works fine with data over Wi-Fi, LTE, 3G, or 1X. You only need the cell network for SMS or MMS messages to or from non-apple sources as then your IOS device will default back to standard SMS/MMS protocols.

http://www.neowin.net/news/psa-turn-off-this-ios-9-setting-if-you-dont-have-an-unlimited-data-plan My daughter came to me yesterday asking why she was using a huge amount of LTE data since her phone was upgraded to IOS 9.0.1. She is on a capped data plan and was concerned that she burned through 10% of her data plan in 2 days. I checked around her phone and found a new setting under Settings - Cellular that is hidden all the way at the bottom called Wi-Fi Assist. This setting is new in IOS 9.0.1 and defaults to on. The description of Wi-Fi Assist is that it automatically switches you from Wi-Fi to cellular when your Wi-Fi connectivity is poor. How this appears to work is if your Wi-Fi strength indicator gets low, it automatically switches to the cellular radio for your data. This means that in places where you used to use Wi-Fi, your phone will now be using your cellular data. This is certainly not something she wanted as she would have run out of her monthly data plan in 20 days. My suggestion is to turn that setting off as soon as you can.