CuriousTim

You're tolerant of diverse opinions? Only when it meets your needs. And your disrespect towards multiple people in this thread is amusing especially when you demand respect for yourself. Just because you're the forum admin lets you be a dick? Glad we get to see your true character when put under the spotlight.

1. If (as you suggest) 1.5Mbps is a good enough connection for cell-phone users to Wifi, then why would anyone want to off-load when they can get 6-8Mbps on Sprint Lte? If me using Sprint data (say 6 Mbps) on Sprint brings everyone else down to 6Mbps then it doesn't hurt any sprint users because 1.5Mbps should be plenty fine -- they should be blessed with 6Mbps.

2. If I use 10 GB of data between 3am-7am when the networks are never burdened my judgement of when the networks are burdened is poor? There you go again calling someone stupid when you're the one making wrong assumptions. Bottom line is - why offload when it has no noticeable impact on the Sprint user if I'm paying to use the service? We're all suppose to off-load to meet your self-centered view?

"you have a poor argument" really burst your bubble -- especially when I gave reasoning to have a healthy discussion. Glad we are all getting to see your true character.

My argument has always been offload on WiFi at home or any WiFi that you feel is secure, IF IT MEETS YOUR NEEDS. Not use which one is best. If you have a 30Mbps WiFi at home, but you are getting 37Mbps from Sprint, you would still use the Sprint LTE because it is better?

 

Robert

You have a poor argument. A person who uses 2 GB of data a month can cause more burden on the Network compared to one who uses 10-20 GB data a month. If 1.5Mbps Wifi meets my needs and Sprint is giving me 8+ Mbps I'll definitely take the 8 Mbps. Their towers can obviously handle the data just fine. If the towers are not burdened then there is no need to offload data to Wifi.

So let me use a buffet as an example, because I have seen this specific example many times.

 

These are some guys who go to a buffet and run up and take 50 crab legs the minute they are brought out from the kitchen. If anyone confronts them, they respond with something like "I paid $10 for all you can eat, and I want to eat crab, not bread." They have no consideration for anyone else and may enjoy other selections on the buffet, but eat the crab on principle, out of spite for the restaurant or because they like to be a jerk, or, I guess, because they like crab... A LOT. This is also the person who screams that there isn't enough crab on the buffet, and blames the restaurant for not "having enough for everyone." They also probably steal office supplies from work and print pirated books on the company printer rather than buying a paperback, and then they act like it is the company's fault that the office supply budget is exhausted 3 months before the next fiscal year. "Well, what kind of company can't properly budget for office supplies?"

 

Then on the other side, you have the community-minded people. These are the people that in the proverbial buffet, would know that if everyone took 5 crab legs, they could all get a taste of the premium selection, and have a good meal from the other selections and still only pay $10. They might even eat a salad (gasp).

 

The first crowd doesn't realize that by "getting their money's worth" out of the buffet, they are squeezing the profit margin of the restaurant owner and ruining the experience for everyone else, forcing the restaurant to adapt and either charge more for the buffet and offer more crab legs, or scrap the buffet model and go to a predetermined portion with ala carte available. The restaurant will not continue to offer something that doesn't work.

Terrible example. That's almost like saying you use 15Mbps connection when the maximum possible is 3Mbps. An all-you-can-eat buffet a person will go up and take 5 crab legs because he can (and plans to eat all of them). Then he will eat them and if he is hungry he will go back for more. This gives ample time for the restaurant to place more food out if necessary.

What myself as a Sprint customer is experiencing is I pay for the all-you-can-eat buffet and I notice an item is out or only 1 left when I can easily eat 3 and want to eat 3. I take the one and let them know they're out of this item so they can refill the buffet. I eat my 1 and maybe eat something else and wait and wait...restaurant still hasn't replaced the empty food items . Okay whatever so I eat something else, get full, and leave. I come back a week later and experience the exact same issue. I go back a month later and experience the same issue <---HUGE PROBLEM. I won't be going back to that place for food.

Sprint knows they need more spectrum/capacity/whatever eventually. They must plan ahead. Sprint "tried" to plan ahead (with wimax) and failed miserably. Instead of working gradually to upgrade their network they waited 4 years and now is trying to do it all at once. Instead of upgrading areas that started to experience sluggish connections they waited and said hell with them until everyone was experiencing it. Backhaul is the biggest issue and maybe I'm wrong but that seems like something they could have been gradually upgrading over the past 4 years. Shouldn't have mattered if Sprint stuck with 3g, went to Wimax, or implemented 4g LtE.

I am telling you how I really feel because many of you in your shortsighted selfishness stand to ruin Network Vision for everyone.

Is it our fault Sprint is continuously advertising unlimited data to attract customers to an already overburdened network? If Sprint customers off-loaded their data to Wifi then they might as well just go with verizon and have a 2 or 4GB plan because most user won't use that much data when mostly connected to Wifi -- and others naturally don't use that much. We're not being irrational by not using Wifi. We're simply using what we pay for. If Sprint doesn't feel the same then they'll raise prices and customers will let their wallet do the talking.

Even after NV is complete, you're not really going to see over 1.5M-2M with any consistency on a 3G connection.

That is very depressing to hear. For the last 2+ years Verizon has had a consistent 1.5-2.8M connection on 3G in my area. I only live in a town of 3,600 and Verizon has 4g LtE here for over a month now. I'm surrounded by towns of 90-14,000 population and the nearest city with over 40k population is a good 45 minutes away.

Now back to the main topic: I pay for unlimited so I will use the data when I feel like it. For a couple months I'd purposely stream youtube videos in HD on an already congested network because I got sick of "hmm I haven't used my phone all day. Now when I want to use it I'm at 1,000ms ping and 0.1Mbps download." I'm sorry, but if Sprint offers service like that I'll purposely burden it when I have no intention of watching the video I'm streaming.

If they're going continue advertising unlimited data to attract more customers to an already burdened network that is their fault, not ours. I have no responsibility in fixing Sprint's shortcomings.

So I noticed when Verizon brought 4g LtE to our area we had at most 1-day of network downtime and then bam: 39mbps down and something stupid of like 26mbps up. How does Verizon do it with 1-day of downtime but Sprint takes weeks/months of service issues?

I've seen 2.7 - 3.0 Mbps plenty of times off the verizon tower near me.

I went back to the store that monday and asked them the same questions but different person. They said they didn't know of any work being done currently but lte should be available by end of 2013. A lady there from last time saw me ask the same questions to diff person and I got an evil glare. It was great. I got some lovely pictures,of what I assume is verizon lte towers. Sprint had the upper equipment but the big drum lookin things had their cables going to a cabinet with no identification for property.

Thanks for the responses. I figured that was the case considering on here it says first LtE sites in October. It was still interesting to see what an actual Sprint store had to say. I'll give the store a call next week and see if they have any updates on their 4g LtE progress

Wow, that's sad that a Sprint store would do that. Why can't they just be honest for a change? I know that they love their commissions for selling phones, but for crying out loud, don't resort to lying like they did for the WiMax rollout just to make a sale.

Mmhmm. Verizon was incredibly honest with me. They have unofficial 4g in Mankato (same as when Sprint users with LtE phones received their LtE signal before Sprint started blocking the towers -- test phase) and the guy said he couldn't give me an official release date or month. I pushed for him to at least give a rough estimate for when it'd officially launch but he wouldn't. If only I could get Sprint pricing and Verizon service, that'd be the day

According to network.sprint.com I should have a data speed upgrade (I assume backhaul enhancement?) by December 6th of this year; been on there since June 6. At this point I'm not sure if that is wishful thinking or something good will be here by the end of this year.

I went to the sprint store in Mankato, MN and was told various towers have already been upgraded with 4g LtE in the twin cities area -- in testing stages atm. I asked the lady where she received her info from and said her manager. The manager was convieniently on vacation.

I took that info with a grain of salt. I asked her when 4g LtE was officially released in the first 5 markets and she said back in may. I told her July 15th but she kept insisting it was officially launched back in May in places like Texas.

Any actual news on the MN market? I couldn't believe what the Sprint employees were telling me. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I thought I read that network vision replaces all the legacy equipment with new NV equipment. If Sprint has these towers upgraded for voice/capacity 1-3 months from now does all that equipment just get replaced when they do Network Vision for those towers? What is actually changed/added when they do "band-aid" fixes and how much of that stuff is carried over to network vision upgrades?

On https://network.sprint.com/ for places like Chicago it still shows upgrades over the next 6 months. According to this site the Chicago area is set to launch in September and to be completed by December. Seems odd that site would still show band-aid fixes right up until completion of the market. Any reasoning or logic behind that?

That is a terrible article.

Verizon markets its LTE networks as having 5-12 Mbps because it knows one day speeds will be congested and actually drop that low. Right now I'd wager the average speeds is much closer to 20-25 Mbps (higher than what they're marketing). I doubt Sprint can say the same once they get a couple users on their network.

Seems that Sprint is being a bit naive.

Sprint PRL 60687 came out recently. Are the changes mostly NV related areas/new towers?

.

 

I don't think its because its night time, I test every night at about 9 pm when I take the dog out. I've only seen 1,500 + a few times, otherwise its consistantly 300-700 kbps.

Try at midnight if you're awake. 9pm is still late evening and networks are still fairly congested. Try at 3am for even better results in order to see the difference.

Great news to hear second round markets are already being worked on!

Richfield, MN https://network.spri...hfield%2C%20MN/ I noticed it on the site for 1-2 months already.

E 66th st / Portland Ave

I found this on the Sprint forums which may give reasoning:

"As of 03/25/2012, we have began Network Vision upgrades to various cell towers that service the Chicago Market. During this transition, customers will experience temporary impairments causing increased Drops and Blocks may occur unfortunately. The current ETR listed for completion is June. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Markie_B"

http://community.sprint.com/baw/message/407197#407197

Frankly I expect throttling above 5-10 GB/month to be their solution if they decide they need to crack down on data use to provide reliability of service; that would put the floor well above T-Mobile's and probably only really affect people that are stealth tethering.

About a month after I joined Sprint I asked about the tethering feature and the salesman at the store said my phone (samsung replenish at the time) was incapable of tethering. Sadly...about 1hr 30mins later after browsing the internet and being very very new to smartphones I managed to get my phone to stealth tether even though I was told the phone was incapable of tethering (even if I paid $30 for the feature). It's great being able to tether for free, especially when I was told the phone was incapable of the feature.

It appears to me that the MN start date is more related to backhaul readiness than anything when I look at these schedules. Most of the equipment is already there. And I think Samsung is prepared to send their subcontractors up there when the backhaul is ready.

Across the road from me Mediacom marked the location for their fiber line. Not sure when they'll start putting it in. Think that line would be part of the backhaul for Sprint or completely unrelated?

I think I'll go ahead and lose hope of Phoenix getting Sprint's LTE this year and if we do it probably will be as good as Clearwire's 4G that we have right now. I wonder if I can still get out of my contract without penatly over the change in discounts, some people claim they did.

 

I personally cancelled one of my three lines without penalty. I don't remember the contract specifics but it was either 30 or 60 days from the effective date of change per your billing cycle you are allowed to cancel without penalty if the discount change affects you. It's possible the 30/60 day period has passed meaning you lost your chance. That's something you have to look into.

I'm in a small town that is likely not going see Sprint 4g LtE until 2014. I'm hoping that when the town ~15miles east of here is upgraded and their towers provide expanded coverage that people who are on the fence about which tower to make a connection actually goes to the upgraded towers taking at least a few users off the congested tower in my small town -- wish it'd be the data heavy users. I also predict Verizon will have 4g here way before Sprint and that will remove some of the congestion.

Any info on network vision being done in Minnesota?