vryan44

So I appreciate everyone's feedback and now I will give everyone my long story of what has happened the past 3 weeks.

 

I was with Sprint for 18 months.. Very long 18 months. I chose to sign up with them when the iPhone 4S came to Sprint and because they offered unlimited data. The first month with them was great. After the first month, everything went down hill from there. I stayed with Sprint because of this site. I never had any problems with voice coverage but when it came to data, the speeds were terribly slow. There were times when i really needed my data and it was useless.

 

After 18 long months, I decided to give Tmobile a try. I paid the ETF which only turned to be $100 since Sprint deducts $10 from the ETF for every month you're with them. I joined tmobile, gave the downpayment for the iPhone 5 and i only lasted with Tmobile for 8 days. Did not have coverage at work and in certain places where I had full bars and '4G', the data would not connect. LTE was wicked fast in certain places but I hated the fact that I didn't have coverage in my job! And it rural areas, coverage sucked. So after 8 days, I returned the phone to Tmobile, got a full refund and joined AT&T. I must admit, I am extremely satisfied with their service. Great coverage and great LTE speeds. I have no complaints so far about AT&T. Only downside is I only get 3GB of data a month. With Sprint the most I ever used was 2.86GB. I don't use much data. At work I am connected to wi-fi and at home as well so I don't worry about going over my limit. I still use my data the same way I used it with Sprint, I was never a heavy data user. I stream pandora, surf the web all with wicked fast LTE speeds. I was trying to hang on with Sprint for as long as I could but I just could not take their data speeds anymore. My contract with AT&T ends 2015 and I hope by then Sprint's service is great and will definitely switch back to them if I see improvements in their data service otherwise I wouldn't mind staying with AT&T.

 

I still check this site every single day and read up on comments and check the maps because I am a huge fan of this site and really wish Sprint the best. I am excited for their future and hopefully in 2 years, I'll be right back with them.

I dropped sprint and signed up with AT&T almost two years ago, and the difference between the two networks is tremendous....for now anyway.

Other than a few dropped calls, which knock on wood only occurred during the first two months or so after signin up for their service I have been more than happy.

There was a 2-3 day power outage last year in my town and att was the only carrier that had service. Even verizon was out. Att was the only carrier that even bothered bringing generators to the two or three sites that were out.

I do plan on switching back to sprint once network vision is completed, although I'm rather disappointed in the fact that I live in the IBEZ and that sprint isn't even deploying equipment that supports the 800 service in my area. I really hope they come back after and add 800 capable panels to the sites because I want to be able to brag to everyone I know with verizon when my future sprint phone has a stronger more usable signal than them. But really from what I've heard of how great it is it just really bums me out. Oh well I better stop complaining. Lol

But it is stated that before the merger they had 51,000 sites. That's almost as much as att with a much smaller footprint.

I'm not sure I believe t-mobile having 51,000 towers....

In the past year I have seen almost a dozen at&t sites go up in about a 20 mile radius of my house, some rural and some urban. It has helped make at&t coverage almost perfect everywhere I go. 

If they are doing the same in other areas, they may not be bluffing about that 10,000 macrocell number. I guess we will see. 

Verizon's voice quality always seems to be more tinny than sprints, in my experiences.

A ton of sites should be coming online soon in east michigan. I know of at least a dozen towers in macomb county that have the nv panels up but are not yet accepted.

Map it out!

It will be interesting to see which sites sprint will choose to have TDD-LTE deployed on.

I would think that once network vision is complete this problem wouldn't be an issue anymore, with all the sites having the same hardware

Make sure you have roaming enabled

I haven't heard anything but I did see an odd AT&T site the other day. In between two rural towns AT&T had installed a large cabinet and an small array of antennas on the telephone pole on the side of the highway. Looked like a install you would see in a dense urban city, not out in a rural area. Seemed so out of place but I guess it was cheaper to do this instead of a full site.

I have seen some sites like this in northern michigan along some rural highways, with two panels facing in each direction of the highway. Probably att as well.

Hmmm I always thought an airave had to be using an unused portion of Sprints licensed spectrum. Thank you for clarifying.

Does anybody know what kind of plan Sprint has in deploying small cells?

In this article, I am assuming at&t has already started deploying small cells around Wrigleyville. Based on how the author describes the mobile sites. They are being "placed on existing structures", and can be as small as a laptop." To me it sounds likes a small cell rather than a macrocell. I could be wrong though.

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130401/wrigleyville/att-adds-more-internet-service-wrigleyville

I've always wondered, while in an area with all the possible carriers deployed on the macro network, is it even possible to use an airave? And if so, how will it work without creating a bunch of interference?

Hope you had a great birthday and Easter Robert. With all the hard work you put into this website, you really do deserve it.

See the /s at the end?

 

It denotes sarcasm.

Oh wow I didn't even notice, I apologize.

 

 

Much thanks to Motorola for designing excellent cellular equipment back in the early to mid 2k's for the Chicago and surrounding areas. Thank god it's highly compatible with new modular equipment that Samsung is deploying and doesn't drop calls when transferring from an old tower to an upgraded tower. Those drop calls is Sprints damn fault! Psht, Verizon and ATT can do it without disruption and so can T-mobile. Sprint sucks, I'm leaving!

 

/s

Verizon and att aren't ripping out and replacing their whole network, like sprint is. All they are doing is slapping an lte panel on the towers. They aren't even touching their 3G network which is the reason they aren't dropping calls.

It really bothers me that people always whine about how sprint isn't doing a good enough job with their network rollouts and then compare it to verizon or att. Please do you homework before you continue your ignorant statements.

Adding to that, even sprints lte 1900 will penetrate better than tmobiles lte on aws I would guess. Then again, tmobile has the greatest site density at least in metropolitan Detroit, compared to any other carrier by far. So that may make up for it. As for rural areas though, completely different story. Tmobile is an urban carrier and that's what they seem to be focused on. Att and verizon are really the only options for rural customers, tmobile isnt planning on overlaying their current edge network, but even if they do, there is no sub ghz spectrum for adequate coverage. One day sprint may be a 3rd option for rural customers with smr. But more towers will be needed to fill In the gaps.

I'd also like to mention every time I see a sprint ad on facebook, the comment boxes are always filled with completely negative thoughts.

One person wrote "im with sprint worst mistake ever i hope this company dies in a fire"

Sprint needs to explain to the country what they are doing to their network a lot better than how they are now. And thats one thing they have failed terribly at.

On facebook I just saw a sprint advertisement with some pretty angry customers commenting on it. Thought i'd share it with you guys.....

So will LTE on SMR have a better chance of being deployed in areas with coverage issues due to terrain? Example: the hills of Tennessee(rural coverage is a nightmare at the moment)

LTE on SMR will travel farther than LTE on PCS.

LTE AT 22 and Romeo I can't mark it due to iPhone.

how strong was the signal?

I'm thinking the signal at hall rd and Gratiot is coming from the tower in New Baltimore, that is the closest accepted tower near it. And if that is where it's coming from the signal isnt going to be reliable because that's a far distance for 1900, and even 800 MHz to travel with all the buildings and trees in the way.

Does anybody know how many Samsung rrus are needed on one sector for 4g/3G and 800?

I haven't made it to Swartout, but I connected to 4G at Shea Rd and Palms and it stayed connected all the way to Morrow Rd, then I turned around and headed north on Starville up to Shortcut Rd. I stopped here to do a speedtest. I will keep roving a bit to see how far north I can make it.

 

Can't help but smile!

You should map the area on sensorly!