irev210

Yeah, the GSM nexus uses the Infineon/Intel X-Gold 626 chip which is pretty darn good. I can't tell you how much I hate the CDMA chip on the galaxy nexus. Only good part about it, is the nice upload performance I seem to get. Poor reception and a loss of connectivity. Speeds are fine, call quality is fine.

I contribute it to the garbage CDMA chip (VIA) that the galaxy nexus uses (I have LTE turned off). I seem to be the only one on s4gru that is plagued with major data connectivity issues with the galaxy nexus. The EVO 4G LTE has been pretty darn flawless in comparison.

Frankly, it's amazing that you have the time to answer as many site-specific questions that you do. I always have a bunch of silly questions that I would love to bombard you with, but I try to be respectful of your time.

Well, Sprint is well positioned as the flagship. New LTE network, newest devices, on-contract pricing, etc etc. Virgin = less customer care, no roaming, data throttling, etc Seems that they don't want to subsidized prepaid (which makes more sense).

Sort of surprised that they went with the 550/650 price point. Not sure how many prepaid iPhones they will sell. At any rate, sprint stated that it's not expected to have any material impact on 2012 earnings. At least it's prepaid.

lol, of course Robert knows. He has the deployment schedules. It's actually pretty mind blowing how much info is on this site. Dropped calls are not ok and pretty annoying, but after they finish... it will be better than any other network in Chicago.... and we are taking a few months (maybe less depending on where you live) - not a year.

Well, I am going to guess the 399/499 price point (to match leap). So we could say that there is a explicit subsidy (like postpaid selling for less than what Sprint buys from apple) or an implicit subsidy (sprint is giving up profit that they would make selling, say, a HTC phone to sell an iPhone). I am guessing that Sprint is looking at this as an implicit subsidy. Sprint is selling the iPhone for right around cost and taking a hit on the sale of the device in hopes of having a customer that is more loyal, less likely to churn, requires less support/customer service, and uses less data. There are other devices that they are probably profitable selling but the customer lifetime value is lower and you can't attract new customers because you offer the same devices as your competitor. So, in a sense, I think it's similar to the postpaid story. It hurts them up front but in the long run it helps lower churn, increases customer lifetime value, etc etc etc. I personally think we are going to see windows phone start to really shine. I bet it is going to come near the oh-so-important customer satisfaction metrics that iphone is known for but at half the price. When that happens, carriers are going to be oh-so-quick to get behind that.

Well, they sell too many and it costs them a lot of money up front. I am guessing they are pretty comfortable with a ~30-40% mix of iPhone subs on their network. If they had a 80% sell-through on iPhones, it would create some financial headaches for the bean counters. The whole thing is very interesting.

It's actually pretty misunderstood. Sprint only needs about 20-25% of total handsets sold (including prepaid) to be an iphone. Not including prepaid, we are looking at just over 35% of handsets sold to be the iPhone. Sprint is going to hit between 30-40% of prepaid handsets sold being iPhone in 2012. Either way, unless apple really screws up the 2014 iPhone launch, Sprint will likely sell more iPhones than contractually required. Don't forget that the trickle-down effect with iPhone products. I am wondering how low the iPhone 4 will go (free on-contract, 199 prepaid?) once the iPhone 5 comes out.

This is about as confrontational as it can get:

Yes, your profile pic is much better than mine. Stupid Sprint needs to get their S@#$ together so I can have a nice profile pic that can compete with yours. Verizon has thunderbolts AT&T has flames. T-Mobile has a rice rocket. Sprint has a yellow font (as see in my profile pic)

So I am too lazy to read through this thread. Can someone just tell me when I haz LTE? heh I'll take a beer too, please.

There is always something better around the corner. Just remember, every month you go without using your upgrade is another month you need to wait for that next great device

OMGz, I get charged moniez for servicesz and so slow! WTF? omg! sprint sux, I hate sprint, I didn't payz billz and they callz and say no service and I am likez no pay for serviez I know get! RIGHTR!?>!?!/ OMGD! Iz sayz to allz my frinedz thatz sprintz bad service too much no more for me. OMG 10 fee for "premium data" wtf with 500 slow data speedz. I go to tmob with greatz 4ghz speedz and much faster better more everyhting great I win sprint loose. I always win sprint loose loose loose. Their bad peepz and iz ha8rz them so more much then thay can think possible. sprint go out of businnuz cuz i left them.

There is no real advantage (which is a shame). Usually, it makes more sense to stay under contract, take the savings, and if you want to port out, pay the pro-rated ETF. It's not that straight forward, but doing the math typically points in that direction. Other options include buying used off eBay after a phone has been out for a month or so, the price falls a lot from the non-contract price. Bottom line, every month you are not under contract you are essentially not getting a subsidy. I am always under contract, I'll take those subsidy payments any day of the week. For example, on a 650 dollar iPhone, you pay 200, which equals a 450 dollar subsidy from sprint spread across 22 months. Every month you are not under contract, you are losing 20 bucks with the iPhone. On the EVO, it's a little less. Assume you pay 150 from amazon wireless, that's only a 400 dollar subsidy... only 18 bucks a month. Still, any time you are not under contract, you are giving up between 15-20 bucks a month for that privilege.

viva la AVV! Soooo, what sort of general specs did Sprint layout for AVV? Is there a minimum latency/jitter/packet loss spec from the base station to Sprint's 4G cores? What's the general amount of bandwidth available on an average site? You mentioned that each legacy sprint site averages about 2-3 T-1's... will new sites have, say 100mbit of bandwidth, 500? gigabit? Drooling to know how much horsepower is there.

With FIOS speeds now hitting 300mbit... Sprint should just run cell towers off residential FIOS connections Probably save them a ton of cash, heh

I think everyone is, heh

T-Mobile does this. http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/Packages/ValuePackages.aspx?pkgcatid=simonly&line=1 sim-only, BYOD plans The 500-minute + 2GB data plan for 44.99 is actually a pretty decent deal. If you live in a wimax area, own an iPhone 4/4s unlocked - you can take the freedompop wimax jacket + the 500 minute no-data t-mobile plan for $35/month.

yeah, the only thing that I think you would say is more subjective is the display. SAMOLED and "Infinity" display are just two different animals. I think moving forward the GS3 vs. the LTEVO will come down to personal preference on the display and the need/desire for removable battery. I really dislike the galaxy nexus. It is absolutely frustrating all of the data issues I've had. I've never had a phone that has just been so full of bugs. That's my biggest grip followed by battery life.

I think we look at this in a very narrow scope (network performance). If you look at Sprint's voluntary churn (more practically total churn) - you will see that overall, people are pretty satisfied with Sprint. Do they have churn metrics like Verizon? No - but it is an improving story. The number one cause of voluntary churn, or people leaving Sprint voluntary, was, according to Dan Hesse, no iPhone. Once they got the iPhone Sprint actually had more people port in from other carriers than port out - even with the sub-par data speeds. So the way I look at it is - if the majority of Sprint customers are ok with the network speeds now, wait until network vision is done and I think we will see churn continue to go down (increased satisfaction). If you look at what sprint has done (improve customer service, improve handset selection, now improve the network), it's trending in the right direction. I think one of the last things they need to work on is improve their Information Technology department. Their antiquated customer service tools (billing for example) really need to be updated.

Yes, they are just normal people trying to get their commission. This seems to happen with every new phone launch. Only thing they care about is getting "5" scores and getting new lines/upgrades. There is really little training involved on how to remove the back cover. It's on the job - good thing you were there to help. Sprint should really let employees play with the phone a little prior to launch, but that's not how it goes. They have to complete those online training things online, but the level of detail and the amount of information retained is probably very low. They recently put this up at my local sprint corporate store - it SCREAMS professional. and yes, this really is a sprint corporate store.

I have both. I HIGHLY recommend picking the EVO 4G LTE over the Galaxy Nexus. Better battery life, better display, better camera, better reception/antenna performance. I personally can't stand the radio performance on the Galaxy Nexus (and I've swapped phones at the sprint store and everything).

gotcha... you figure they would hit a spot where tower spacing was less than ideal.

If I remember correctly, digiblur has stated that the tower spacing in New Orleans is not really ideal for 1900MHz PCS band. Maybe they are picking New Orleans since the spacing is more of a worst case scenario for an urban market? I would suspect based on ALU and Ericsson's experience deploying LTE for Verizon that they should share similar performance characteristics? Maybe that's why ALU is sitting it out? Couldn't justify the cost?