dmplus

There's a pretty good chance that your note 2 would sell for most, if not all of the nexus 5. Which should be triband. On a side note you should grab an inexpensive no contract vzw/att/tmo lte hotspot from ksl until Sprint finally gets SLC built out, then sell the hotspot for the same or close to what you bought it for. Then no more painful 3G for your s4gru tethering :-)

Technically, (more often than not) all carriers share towers amongst each other. Although carriers with similar frequencies find it more common to share towers (sprint/tmo/cricket). In some cases you'll find 4 or 5 carriers on the same tower. Also, these days most towers are owned by a tower managment company rather than a carrier, so while you may have ran into ATT people it may not have actually been an AT&T owned tower.

Apple did do a mid year frequency support upgrade on their GSM model to support HSPA+ on AWS, but that was not a software update, they rolled new hardware. It had the same model number, but iphone 5's that do not have the new circuitry are not compatible with HSPA+ on AWS, nor will they ever be. It's not just Apple either, Samsung did the same thing wtih their t-mobile galaxy S3. It required a new hardware revision to add LTE support and so early t-mobile S3's do not support LTE but current ones do. So, for this reason, I still maintain that it is foolish to sign a 2 year contract on a non triband iphone 5S.

You should be able to get ~350-400 dollars for it from KSL (depending on condition/storage). That should cover the cost of a nexus 5 and then some (assuming it's priced like the nexus 4 was)

Do not hold your breath on this. I've seen similar things that never materialized.

As my description says I have used most devices on all the carriers. Sprints best devices are the GSIII, GS4, HTC One, moto x, and the iphone. They should be getting the LG G2, and the nexus 5 in the next month or so. As for your expierence. As far as i'm concerned. If I have to use a femtocell at my home, then I have the wrong carrier, even if it's ATT or verizon. End of story. It's one thing to show up at a friends house for the evening and have crappy signal. All carriers have that. But when you struggle in your own home, that's where I have an issue. Other observations: the 3 other carriers already have LTE in south Jordan. I would not touch a non triband Sprint phone. Especially if I were to sign a 2 year contract. The iphone is not triband.

Be careful because often reps will tell you to buy a new phone because they want you to, rather than you actually need one. Generally new phones don't fix reception issues, there are some exceptions though. Where are you located?

Yeah, there are lots of resources for cell tower locations. This one used to be great until most of the towers were moved to crown, but it still has lots of great stuff. Like this for example: http://www.t-mobiletowers.com/TowerDetail.aspx?towerid=SV00312A Make sure you check out the PDF's at the bottom for complete details.

I wouldn't touch a new device that doesn't support all 3. If I were you I would think about grabbing the nexus 5. I also heard that the 5s won't support wireless ac. AND the sprint device is the odd man out with the other 3 carriers all sharing the same model number (although it is still not clear if verizon will activate a phone that was originally activated on tmo or att)

I understood what you were saying :-) Seems like lately you've been running into tmo subs more than Sprint subs :-) Is it the same group of guys you keep running into?

Which site was this? The one at the top of 2nd north? The one by the Smith's in Farmington?

This is great, thank you. I did not know that wimax used microwave as primary backhaul. I know that the other carriers do use microwave, but usually only when local backhaul is not practical. Would it be safe to say that if there is a tower where other carriers have already had centurylink run fiber, that sprint could have CL splice off of that for them? Meaning, are we more likely to see towers with other carriers on it with backhual, light up first?

Did they not have to do panels and cabinets as well? Requiring permits and all the same stuff? I read the link from njjdnt but it didn't address my question. I'm starting to wonder if the pace is significantly based on cost controls.

What I think is that some carriers do it differently than others, but in the case of t-mobile in the SLC market they went from zero to nearly full covered in like 2 months. Not all towers are done but most areas have at least some coverage. It's too bad Sprint couldn't do something similar. Why was t-mobile able to pull that off?

I think it's easier to say it like this: AWS = Advances wireless servcies Run on 1700/2100 Used by: ATT for LTE, Verizon for LTE, T-Mobile for LTE, MetroPCS for LTE, and cricket for LTE (ATT and VZW also use 7XX for LTE) Also used by t-mobile for HSPA, and metro/cricket for 1X/EVDO As far as I know, Sprint is the only of the top four or five providers that doesnt own or deploy AWS. Its peers would be PCS (1900), WCS (2300), CLR (850), SMR (800) and so on As an aside: The most interesting thing about the AWS situation is for phone portability. I know in the sprint/verizon world, even with same frequencies of 1x/EVDO there was no portability by both companies own decision. Since LTE is an extension of GSM and verizon LTE devices having all the common GSM/hspa frequencies now supported, is that verizon phones can come over to ATT somewhat compatibly, and t-mobile substantially compatibly with just a sim swap. A verizon phone with AWS compatibility that has a t-mobile sim card placed in it will come up and function on t-mobile's GSM/umts/LTE right out of the box.

Were they deploying AWS? Where was this at? I understood the SLC market would not see verizon aws lte for a while.

Robert, I agree in regards to vzw's map being conservative, which I why I laughed a little. I've always maintained that Verizon's coverage maps are an "under ideal conditions, you have a shot at getting signal here". There are many, many poor, or unusable areas that are full red on their maps. Sprints maps are a bit.... overzealous, but the main problem is the technology driving the map UI is terrible. I suppose they could have turned on additional LTE towers, but according to the press releases I read a month or so ago, they stated they were done with deployment of their LTE 700 footprint, and now are focusing on AWS in metro areas for capacity.

I didn't have any of my sprint gear with me the last time I stayed in Saint George (about a month ago). You're right about VZW's LTE being nice. And contrary to what VZW's coverage map shows, I didnt really lose LTE much between SG and Nephi (VZW's coverage map being conservative made me laugh a little). ATT did pretty good as well. I had 3-5 meg tests down there. What surprised me is t-mobile. Their coverage map shows 2G but I had 4G there (non roaming) and hit 6+ megs a couple times. Edit: Upon reflection, I did have a device with Sprint service with me, just didn't bother to power it on and test it :-/

And this is what I assumed to be the tower configuration: Nextel T-mobile Sprint However I am not a professional tower panel/antenna reader like some here are so I'm probably wrong. :-)

This is the shelter, it has nextel on the door

Here's a shot of the tower behind the 7-11 in Kaysville.

Yeah, i know that has been fully upgraded for t-mobile (moving hspa to 1900 and then LTE). but I know for sure that the "building" at the base clearly says nextel :-) I assumed the top rack was nextel.

That's the tower by the emission station, not the one at united rentals right? I know the tower behind the 7-11 in kaysville has nextel equipment and I assume sprint signal as well.

I have access to and swap around between devices on all the carriers. I tell everyone that they need to pick a provider that works for them. If Sprint didn't work well in my neighborhood I wouldn't recommend them to neighbors/friends. If you don't like your carrier then switch. Wait 6 months, re-evaluate then come back if you want. The other three carriers have LTE in Layton.

You're right, sorry, my research shows it to be t-mobile on the top and cricket below at heritage site. How does ATT and VZW do in your neighborhood? They do poorly in mine. I just cant stand the idea of air-raves. To me they just mean I picked the wrong carrier. In my neighborhood sprint has very very good signal, even in basements, so my sprint devices do great except that there's no sprint LTE yet, but we do have ATT/VZW/TMO LTE.