irev210

LTE is popping up around the back bay... some areas 3G is completely borked, other areas 4G is blazing. They are definitely messing with stuff today.

I think it comes down to the user saying "yeah, this provides me a better experience vs. having this feature turned off." That's all. I think for a lot of people, less than 1.5mbit would still work great (especially if it is a low latency line) while others that may have 5mbit connection (but with a bunch of teenagers playing games, watching YouTube, downloading stuff) not so much. We could talk about the granular differences, but at the end of the day, if a customer gets an improved customer experience, they will leave wifi on and let it auto-connect when they get home. If not, they'll probably just turn it off and forget all about it. I think customers (myself included) want the best experience possible. If there is no perceived difference between wifi/4g lte but a user still experienced a substantial boost in battery life, I would think that user would love wifi. So, I think everyone should try turning on wifi and see how they like it. I bet the vast majority would see the benefits of using the wifi network that they already have at home and just let it auto-connect (speed and data usage aside). So, to answer the thread's question: I think, as a customer, one should do what provides them with the best user experience. I think in the majority of scenarios, offloading smartphone data onto WiFi will provide a better customer experience. Another discussion should be what Sprint should do with all of the customers that pull down gigs of data running torrents, running wifi hotspots for their home, etc. Dan Hesse just made it a point to mention that at the recent conference he spoke at. It's interesting that Sprint also made it a point of turning away from wifi offloading since Sprint can't control the user experience with unlicensed spectrum and said that they would rather have clearwire fulfill that roll.

I am not trying to get pegged down with a specific threshold where WIFI>LTE. I think it really varies by usage type and by customer. I don't think you can peg down an exact number. I think the majority of customers in urban markets where broadband speeds tend to be the fastest and where congestion tends to be the highest should be a particular focus for Sprint. The benefits of wifi (and the overall customer experience) are substantial. The reality is, far too many customers don't know the benefits of wifi, or even know what their router's wifi password is. I think the most powerful tool to get more users using home wifi is not setting arbitrary thresholds as to when it's better to use wifi offload vs. not. I think it's to make sure every customer knows how to setup wifi and what the benefits are. Let the customer decide if the benefits to them are tangible and something that they want to continue using. While internet forums are a great place to start, Sprint needs to really start this conversation at the store with every associate that signs up a new customer, in the box of every phone it sells, on the customers bill, etc. Get the customer educated. It's an interesting discussion, obviously there are some strong opinions here - so it's good to see at least we can talk about this without turning it into a flaming war.

Very true, but at the same time - what can a customer who only has one cable provider do when said cable provider decides to under-invest in infrastructure, leaving its cable subscribers with speeds of under 1mb/sec during peak hours? A cable company can have all the spectrum in the world but if they don't allow customers to use it, it's as good as having no spectrum. I am fortunate to have a great cable company - others, not so much

I mean, I could make the same argument that my home cable modem connection is also a shared resource. The more bandwidth I am using takes away availability/capacity from others. If I was at my brother's house, I would never use his wifi if I had sprint LTE there. His cable modem speeds are horrible - his cable provider hasn't invested in its network and there is just a lack of capacity. At the end of the day, I am a sprint customer that pays for a service. Part of that service is allowing me to use something that best meets my needs (and following my end of the agreement I signed up for). When we have people who just waste service just to "stick it to sprint" or "because it's unlimited" or say "I'll replace my cable internet with sprint lte against the TOS" - I completely agree it's wasteful of a shared resource. I don't think anyone should do that. But if I want to surf s4gru.com and sprint LTE did that noticeably faster than my cable connection at home, I would use sprint LTE instead of wifi. I am sure this applies to many who have legacy DSL connections that are horrendously slow. If I had a 1mbit DSL connection or 5mbit sprint LTE connection... I would use my sprint LTE. If I was a rural customer who got Verizon LTE, I would transfer the liability of a legacy LTE customer, pay the 30 bucks for unlimited hotspot, and legitimately use that for my home internet. Sprint made it clear that hotspot data is not unlimited, and I completely understand why (limited shared resource). Verizon has allowed grandfathered accounts to keep unlimited hotspot but at the penalty of no upgrade subsidies. I think for the majority of broadband customers who have speeds in excess of 5mbit the lower latency and better battery life you will get from wifi outweigh the benefits of LTE. Every situation is different though. For me, wifi is the way to go - but with the way I use my phone, I don't use all that much data. The bigger issue will be people who replace that 1mbit high-latency DSL line with sprint LTE with a rooted android phone and run torrents 24/7. I am sure we'll see sprint tackle that.

Things are looking bad today. In the back bay right now:

My two cents: When I am at home, I use wifi for two reasons: 1) I get faster speeds (about 100mbit on my EVO over wifi) 2) I get better battery life If there was ever a point where I got faster speeds and better battery life on LTE, I would probably use that instead. I don't tether or use my phone for home internet (nor would I if LTE was faster).

Should be an interesting day for sprint today. I saw a nice line in front of the Sprint store on boylston. Sprint speeds in the area are absolutely horrible. Can't even run a speedtest. I wonder what is going on.

My guess? Apple will pay big bucks to quietly make this go away. Great post. I would love to see this at trial

That sounds like BS - I would try taking it to another sprint store.

No idea. Maybe she has it wrong, she is just the CFO. Listening to Dr. John Saw, the CTO, was much more interesting. bigsnake49 - take a listen to Dr. John Saw at the Clearwire/Sprint event the other month. They talk about mock hosting and some other cool things. http://cc.talkpoint....ntity=1_X5JEDJ6

It was sort of interesting to read clearwire's Hope saying that a 5x5 FD-LTE channel can do 7TB of data a year while a 10x10 FD-LTE channel can do 23TB of data a year. Hope was saying that clearwire's TD-LTE channel can do 29TB. e-bragging aside, the benefits of a 10x10 channel vs. 5x5 + 5x5 seem substantial.

They've already talked about how they can do "mock sites" and do seemless hand-offs between clearwire and any other carrier. It's pretty cool.

Sprint seems to have a pretty good relationship with the FCC. They must have gotten very friendly during ESMR rebanding process.

Maybe it would be helpful to add how not only bars lie but Netmonitor (and others) also lie to your original post. I feel that this is going to become a rather large issue as time goes on and more areas get peppered with Sprint's LTE Shotgun.

Should be a very solid phone for the money. Good battery, excellent SoC, decent featureset, solid radios. Thanks for taking a look at the OET.

It could be - check the debug menu and let us know for sure!

You could think you are connected to that tower but really be connected to A) one that's not showing as completed or B ) be connected to the tower in mattapan. Figuring out what tower you are on can be pretty tricky. Just cause the map shows only one tower having LTE in JP doesn't mean that you are connected to it.

I am loving my limited 4G. Better to have limited 4G vs. noG? It's nice when I go to areas that are covered that I benefit from faster speeds instead of going to an area that is actually 4G but stuck on 3G - just seems silly when everything is ready to go.

Everyone has different needs/priorities - each nationwide carrier is different. No carrier is "best". I think you are presuming that frequency = performance, which it doesn't. When we talk about spectrum, we refer to it in chunks (bands). Sprint's voice network operates in the same band as Sprint's data network. So within that band, Sprint's voice network and data network cover roughly the same area. The reasons why data speeds are poor on sprint is not because of spectrum (or frequency). The reason why you never have any voice problems has to do with the fact that sprint has sufficient voice carriers and backhaul to handle voice traffic. Data is a different ballgame. Sprint doesn't have enough 3G carriers or backhaul to provide the data speeds you would like to see, that's why they are doing network vision. Network vision adds a lot more data capacity, a LOT more.

Verizon doesn't have a backhaul limit, they have a spectrum limit. The way to address the spectrum limit is to add more sites (infill). Backhaul refers to the physical connection at the tower that essentially takes it from wireless to wired.

The radio update made a HUGE improvement for the EVO - it's still not perfect but it's at the point where I feel it's pretty solid. This update seems to make the EVO hold onto 4G LTE until about -110dBm. Not sure about the old radio because I couldn't get it to connect at all, horrible.

Enjoying MASSCANN? lol

What spectrum a carrier is using is only half the story. There is no "best" spectrum, only different. Sprint is deploying LTE on an unused portion of the spectrum they currently run voice and data on (hence my comment, if your Sprint voice/3G coverage is good, so will Sprint's 4G coverage). Since sprint is upgrading every 3G site with new equipment, new antennas, new backhaul, the only constant that will remain is coverage. So, by looking at your current coverage where you live/work/play, this will give you an idea of what coverage will be like on 4G since sprint is overhauling every site. Basically, if Sprint's 3G site spacing (how far sprint spaces each tower) works for you now, so will 4G. The same can not be said about other carriers. Now, onto the issue you seem most concerned about - performance. Right now Sprint has a legacy network running off of old T-1 lines. Each T-1 line offers 1.5mbit up, 1.50mbpit down. Each site has about 2-3 T-1 lines servicing it for a total of 3-4.5mbit of capacity up and down, and it was very hard to add more capacity (horrible, right?). With the complete overhaul of each sprint tower (new base stations, new antennas and new backhaul), backhaul is going to 300mbit with the ability for Sprint to easily ask for more. On top of that, Sprint is installing new 4G "cores" or switches to replace the legacy 3G switches across the country, which improves latency and removes a potential bottleneck. The result? Well in Boston, we are just starting to get 4G and the speeds are amazing. I went from 50kbps on 3G to over 25mbit/10mbit on 4G LTE. I tested indoors around the tower that was upgraded in my area and indoor coverage is excellent. It's a night and day experience between old sprint and new sprint. As for the future - I think sprint is the best positioned to address future data growth. Next year they will add more LTE using Nextel's 800MHz spectrum which will add capacity and greatly improve coverage and they will start using Clearwire's spectrum to offer additional capacity in densely populated urban markets. With Clearwire's ability to add more "LTE bandwidth" than all other carriers combined is compelling. I tried to make this as easy to understand, but if you have specific questions, don't hesitate to ask. We are all here to help.

There is barely signal there. You are connecting to a tower over by quincy market, that's why speed is so slow.