SpenceSouth

Sprint has been rolling out bandaid fixes to it's 3G network in many markets to help with some of the problems they are facing now. Looking briefly at the fixes in your market they are still rolling some out (https://network.sprint.com/IA/Des-Moines/). Once those are done you will get some relief, but the real 3G improvements won't be in place until largely around the time the market becomes an LTE market. The NV 3G is supposed to provide 20% more coverage and have access to much faster backhaul. In 2013, when Sprint starts widely deploying 1X and LTE on their 800mhz spectrum you will see massive improvements in coverage, but again that will depend on if NV has already taken place in your area. Long story short there is a light at the end of the tunnel and Sprint is really going to see some massive improvements, but the fact of the matter is that Verizon is already a great carrier. If you pay for Verizon you're going to get what you pay for. My girlfriend uses Verizon so I get to compare her service to my Sprint service a lot and the difference in coverage and performance really is shocking (although I hope NV closes that gap a lot). Verizon easily has the largest coverage footprint nationwide and has a huge lead with their LTE deployment. I've been pretty happy with Sprint until very recently so I am going to give NV a chance, but if you're willing to pay Verizon's premium (I think that shared data plan is horrendous) and part with unlimited data then you should do it. Hope that helps some. Good luck!

Yep there was a tower that disappeared on the map (a 1/4mi away from me) right around the time my signal disappeared... So in my experience that tower is indeed gone buddy.

Geez Leerage that's some great detective work right there. Should definitely email this guy to get some insider information before he gets fired for posting that video...

I get my next upgrade in December so if that holds true then I'll be in luck.

When I first switched to Sprint it was like that . I used to hit 2.5mbps in my apartment sometimes.

Ahh it's finally August and I am eager to start seeing these upgrades. Hopefully some of these first few towers will be close enough for me to drive over and test out.

I think this is easily my favorite piece that you have written. Thanks Robert for having the balls to stand up and say what (desperately) needed to be said. I don't think many people would publicly publish a piece like this, but I'm really glad you did. I am going to be a fan of this site for a long time to come.

Good find with the forcing on of LTE and finding that you can still pull that much down. If it is possibly to change the hand off dbm I'm sure someone will find a way to do it soon. However, since you are running CM9 that may explain why you don't already have that option. I know when I ran custom roms on my Samsung Epic I didn't have all of the debug options that I had on the stock rom.

Will you also need to sell your Galaxy Tab 10.1 lol?

Not a bad speedtest at all, and that only looked like 2 out of 4 bars if I'm reading that correctly!

Was hoping to hear that deployment would start in July, but this is still great news. Thanks Robert!

It would definitely be interesting to see that happen... Certainly would be a logistics nightmare, but T-Mobile's PCS spectrum could be of a lot of use to Sprint in a lot of markets. Not sure what would happen to the considerable amount of AWS spectrum that T-Mobile owns.... Perhaps future capacity? Biggest problem would be merging the two networks of course. Since Sprint is deploying mutli-mode tower that certainly would help the transition, as they could support GSM in the for the next few years while people transition to the LTE/voLTE network. This is just something, that if actually happened, would take a lot of time. Not sure if Sprint would want to go through that after Nextel.

Yeah the Busch Gardens/USF area is really quite bad now.

Ah this may be the case. I haven't been following it too closely for the past couple of months. Finally found time lol.

For the record, what channel number could I expect CDMA 800 to be in the ##DEBUG# menu?

I just flashed that custom PRL in the DL Center so I can start searching for those CDMA 800 sites as they go live. I think I am most excited about the kind of coverage that is going to bring.

I haven't had many dropped calls while transitioning from tower to tower, but I have noticed a few towers near me "have gone missing" so to speak. Hope NV is the culprit and that we can start enjoying the benefits soon.

Can't wait to see Tampa start showing up on these schedule maps. Work is still set to begin in July, correct? Also, do you guys have CDMA 800 site into in the Sponsor section? I've been thinking about donating since I enjoy this site so much.

Sorry Robert didn't mean to offend, but I wasn't actually referring to your article. Engadget posted an article that basically says that this is the pre-order page. Re-reading my post I can see how painfully vague I was about that though. Sorry again. P.S. I was going to post the link to the article, but now I see that it has already been corrected. You would've gotten quite the laugh out it.

Why is everyone saying that they took the pre-order site live last night? That's just the sign up to be notified page and it has been up since this phone was announced. Unless there is something that I am missing that is...

Wish my Epic supported ESMR so I could test out these channels as they pop up! By any chance, has someone compared the signal strength of the 800mhz channel to a phone using just 1900mhz in the same location?

They probably just pushed it back a week to screw with everyone who had pegged the correct launch date lol.

Wow.... You would think that someone would refrain from ridiculous statements like that. It certainly can't help their own credibility lol.

Gotta announce some Ericsson cities soon!

Do you have a rough estimate on how many people will be covered by the LTE rollout up until this point?