greenbastard

I have yet to see any camouflage towers or cells for Sprint. Out in Katy, Sprint is still using the same infrastructure it had when Cinco Ranch and all those subdivisions where cow pastures in the early 2000s. Only place that I've seen Sprint go out of its way to camouflage their towers in this part of the state is in the City of College Station just northwest of Houston. I think I counted 2 flag poles last time I was in the area. Aggies love their patriotic cellular flag poles. Small Cells could start up soon, but considering that other markets are higher priority and Houston has rootmetrics to hang it's hat on, I'm just not seeing anything for Houston this year. I know they are working on readjusting tower tilt for coverage on B41, but thats about it. I could be wrong, but I'm just not seeing it. There are still a lot of Clear-only towers that have yet to be touched. Some of them could benefit from having B25/B26 added to them, but I think I read somewhere around here that any work done to them would open a Pandora's box of site contract negotiations. With Sprint's low network spending this year, I don't think that's something they plan on touching this year.

No permits are showing up on the city's webpage. One of the very last things done in Houston was the replacement/installation of natural gas generators for emergencies. Small cells are probably not coming anytime soon seeing as how Sprint was (highly questionable) tied for 1st place by rootmetrics in the Houston Metro area. Other metros are probably high priority But with Houston's lack of zoning laws, I'm sure they'll be able to roll out quicker than most other cities when they finally get started. A lot of utility poles around inner Houston that can be used. The suburbs will be a different story though. Residential suburbs will put a good fight to prevent any small cell that sticks out. Sprint will probably have to spend extra money to camouflage those hideous poles that will be visible via right of way.

Yeah, I haven't seen it either. I was around the southwest side near Old Pearsall Rd. and only picked up Clearwire B41. Its amazing how loosely spaced the towers are on the south side. B41 will never work with the current spacing. I know that part of town isn't as populated as the north side, but the speeds are too slow on B25/B26 as it stands today. B25 second carrier turned out to only be a bandaid. There are a few Sprint B41 areas east past Palo Alto college, but no 3rd carrier from what I saw.

If you can tell the difference 150 ping and 200 ping, then you got one hell of an ability. 99.9% of people won't be able to tell the difference between 100 ms and 200 ms unless they are playing games online or comparing VoIP delay side to side. Many of the webpages you browse probably go over the 100ms mark. You don't know where they originate from or how many servers they jump to get to your location. Just because your speed test app shows good ping time doesn't mean that every website will return that same ping. Ping times are important for a lot of things. But for web browsing and video, they really don't do much to the experience unless they are unusually high. I would definitely recommend Cricket to anyone curious about their service, especially with the quality of network they offer. For the prices they offer, 8 Mbps max download with respectable ping times and bigger coverage than T-Mobile or Sprint is something you can't beat. It's probably the best value in the market out there for people looking at unlimited data plans.

The only time pings should really matter are when you're playing multiplayer games online. Also, Cricket pings average around 170-180 ms in my area. Not bad at all.

And every carrier would face the same variables, so there really isn't anything to worry about. A properly balanced and dense network will probably show better indoor coverage than a network that has spacing issues. You're right. But the same can be said for outdoor areas. Just because a park in your neighborhood provides great Cell coverage doesn't mean the park on the other side of town will as well. Some parts of towns may have dense wooded hilly areas while another part will have a a flat and small shrubbery landscape. Only way to have fair testing is to remove all users from the cell you're testing and to have a direct line of sight. But that's not going to happen. There are variables for both indoor and outdoor testing. So if you want to discredit indoor testing, then also discredit outdoor testing. They don't make guarantees, which is why it would be helpful for consumers to have independent research to see who has the best indoor performance. There's a reason why At&t at one point advertised themselves as the Nation's Strongest LTE network. It matters to consumers. That's why Sprint spent millions freeing up the SMR band and why T-Mobile is trying to buy up as many 700A band licenses in major cities as possible.

Not many farmers in downtown Los Angeles or Boston is there? I also don't think Sprint has any plans to expand their network into rural areas any time soon. The Sprint network doesn't really cater to them. Point taken. But it's also important to differentiate indoor performance from outdoor performance when handing out awards. Your argument would make sense if the indoor testing locations were different for Verizon than they were for At&t or Sprint. If all providers are tested inside the same buildings at the same time, then the information is reliable. And it is my understanding that RootMetrics did just that.

Noticed that too. 3G was down as well. Did you get bill credit? Sprint reps (the ones located in the US and not India) are fast to offer bill credit for the inconvenience when they admit it's their fault.

I was looking at 2014. My mistake. But it still doesn't take away from the fact that the reports don't tell us exactly how many tests where done indoors. Did they walk into a city hall, conduct one test and leave? Or did they do multiple. Also, how many residential areas were tested? If your phone works indoors, chances are that it will definitely work outdoors. You want to really test a network, then test it indoors in. That includes subways, general stores, shopping areas, and even residential areas if possible. While I will agree that wifi is available in many places, it is still not widespread. Even if it is available, its not the most reliable either. I'm not asking for a map with detailed testing areas. But it would be a lot more helpful for consumers if they separated their indoor tests from their outdoor tests and presented both separately. There's nothing wrong with that.

They ran 5.7 million tests and drove 288k miles. What is the percentage of total indoor tests to outdoor tests? They claim 6.6k locations, but don't really release how many tests where done indoors in each market or how many tests where done outdoors. And out of those indoor locations, how many where actual homes, apartments, stores, etc and not stadiums/arenas? If RootMetrics really wants to stand out, they would release separate reports for indoor performance (and I'm not talking stadiums) for every carrier. It should be fair now that all carriers have lower band spectrum in most markets. Let's face it, doing outdoor tests doesn't really show us anything as most people spend most of their times inside, especially in the summer (in the south) and winter months (mostly in the Yankee states). Why they even do outdoor tests to begin with is beyond me.

You're right. Rootmetrics is, in theory, the best method for testing. Unfortunately they only test outdoors, which in no way reflects real world usage either.

I can attest to this. (Nexus likes to hold on to weaker B41 at times for some odd reason). The following is from a Clear-only tower that is visible and only 2000 feet away from me, but fades quickly once inside. Internet won't work at this signal level (as you can see by the exclamation point). And even if it does, the download is slower than a weak 3G that comes from a tower that is further away from me. Sprint would really benefit from a full conversion in this area, but sadly they're in no rush to do so. (Tower also used to have Nextel as its main tenant, but now only has Clearwire equipment).

That's surprising since San Antonio has a lot of Clearwire B41. What part of town was it?

I'm on B41 maybe 5-10% of the time. The places I frequent have B41, but I fail to get any of it indoors. Hopefully Sprint will work with manufacturers to get Band 41 High Power UE handsets. It'll be interesting to see how Band 41 works at that point.

Not likely. I actually got worse B41 reception when I switched from the Galaxy S5 to the Nexus 5x.

Functional? That's Debatable. But definitely not "perfectly". The equipment is the reason why Band 41 doesn't go indoors once you get past a 1000 feet from the tower in many places. Clear wire equipment makes Band 41 into a glorified Wifi Hotspot. They need to be replaced.

Removing Clearwire equipment will go a long way to helping B41 coverage and speeds.

Does that really include even swapping between devices you already own?

MMS may be broken when you bring your Nexus 5x back to Sprint after using it with another carrier (as it has when I used my Nexus 5x with an international sim). But the good news is that this can be solved rather quickly under the *#*#3282#*#* menu by resetting APN once you insert your Sprint SIM card back. Of course, you will also have to activate the Nexus 5x via online, store, or chat when you bring back the Nexus to your Sprint line. Not being able to switch via SIM swap is extremely annoying and Sprint should find a way to move away from their dumb activation process.

I usually try to steer clear of this Sprint vs T-Mobile fanboys war, but... You folks are too obsessed with what people think about Sprint. Y'all need to realize (and T-Mobile fans as well) that we are customers and not cheerleaders. Who cares what people think or say about a service or product you use. In fact, the more people criticize Sprint, the better it is for Sprint users. Sprint needs skepticism in order to keep pushing them to fix their image and network (and so does T-Mobile now that their LTE network is slower than their 3G in many places). If y'all are seriously celebrating the closure of the comments section just because the people there said mean things about Sprint, then you've had it too easy in life. Whether those comment sections contained truthful or inaccurate information, it is not your obligation to defend Sprint. That's Sprint's PR team's job. This constant referencing to T-Mobile fans and writers who write unfavorable articles about Sprint is annoying and you're playing right into their trap by bringing the fight over here. /RantOver.

While I don't think prices would go up substantially, I do think there certainly won't be any promotions to attract customers.

I'll add to HTCs build quality. Its a great builder and designer of phones. Their Sense interface is hands down the best. Their only downside is that they always seem to bring up the rear in the rf department, and for me that's the deal breaker. If HTC can get it together and build a streak of strong rf performing phones, then I would buy another HTC.

Its not likely to happen. At&t is too busy investing abroad. The last thing they're thinking about is probably buying T-Mobile, especially after failing once already. They are going full speed ahead in deploying LTE in the former Iusacell Network and will probably be busy shutting down Nextel's iDen and repurposing spectrum for LTE in the next couple of years. I imagine once they finish, their next goal will be to expand their network down there. A Iusacell and Nextel network combined is still the smallest network in Mexico.

I believe outside of Clearwire LTE, all Sprint B41 equipment is capable of 3x CA on B41. It's just a matter of installing a new a new carrier card (which should be fast and painless) and some software modifications. The real question is when will Sprint start replacing Clearwire equipment? Lots of major markets need to be striped of Clear equipment in order to move forward with 3x CA deployment. New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, and other cities have a good chunk of B41 originating from Clearwire equipment. Sprint could definitely fire up 3x CA on a 'need' basis, but doubt that happens since their network is suffering from terrible congestion on B26/B25 in so many places that have Clearwire B41.

Some serious e-peen measuring contest going on by both sides. It's borderline creepy how some people can live vicariously through a wireless carrier, .