JonnygATL

Well, it's now noon and I've already logged in 4 times. No kidding. So, thank you guys (Robert, AJ, et all) for my now 3 year addiction. : o )

I heartily second this. *raises paw in the air, waves it about*

And that's precisely the problem. "The usual suspects."#basic

It was probably Fabian.

Yeah, I read that as well. He/she/it is usually batsh@t crazy but, I do have to admit (with great disdain) that he/she/it has had some pretty valid points lately, both for and against Sprint. My stance? Both companies have done absolutely remarkable things network-wise in the past few years. I certainly am man enough to give credit where credit is due. T-mobile, however, is riding atop a phenomenal marketing campaign. Their brand has gone from tarnished and tired to consumer centric and quite desired. An awesome business case study, to be sure. Sprint can do the same if their marketing team can correctly and memorably relay the message of how far the Sprint network has truly come and where it's going. When I stumbled across this site in early 2012 I was fuming mad at Sprint. I was living near Emory University here in Atlanta and was shocked to not be able to even get a usable 3G signal on the campus of one of the South's leading educational institutions nestled in the geographic middle of the nation's 9th largest metropolitan area. It was truly shocking. This site allowed me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, however and the distance Sprint has come is truly mind-boggling. The biggest take away, at least for me, isn't the ubiquitous 4G LTE I find essentially everywhere I go, it's not the quantum leap in download speeds from sub-dial up to now consistently over 15 mbps...it's not even the rapidly growing of band 41 coverage with its speeds of over 40 mbps. No, what really stands out to me is that I HAVEN'T ROAMED IN OVER 18 MONTHS, EVEN UNDERGROUND IN PARKING GARAGES AND DEEP IN THE BOWELS OF LARGE BUILDINGS. 800 SMR has completely changed the nature of the core sprint network. Being able to make and receive calls and texts in virtually any situation I've come across and not having to roam has been the biggest positive change to Sprint's network since upgrading from 2G to 3G. Most readers of fiercewireless, Fabian included, would never express that, largely because T mobile has only recently acquired any low band spectrum at all...and it certianly isn't nationwide. That's my dos centavos for the day. ...as you were.

Kristen Wiig is my favorite SNL performer in recent memory. Hands down...though hers are decidedly up in this photo.

That's what I was thinking. Just seems they would both update the maps to reflect new market coverage and officially launch those same new markets concurrently.

It's interesting that the last two times they've added spark coverage portrayal on these maps, they've not made any "official" launch announcements.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about!

I saw this, too and was kinda bummed. Also with DC and other recent releases as well. But the common positive thread in all of these rootmetrics tests seem to be that Sprint performs very, very well in terms of overall reliability (no doubt due to 1x800), as well as call and text quality. And usually there is a footnote or two mentioning how Sprint has greatly improved their rate of dropped and/or blocked calls (in some cases down to 0.0%). Yes, Sprint still lags behind the other three in absolute max data speeds, but having a reliable signal more often than 2 of the other 3 is a big deal. Let's not lose sight of the positives.

Oh. I just took it at face value but I see what you mean. My bad.

Interesting indeed. I don't really mind their current logo but I'll be interested to see the final result.

Being such a transient city, I think the girls in Atlanta have more for would-be partners to worry about inside their vaginas besides razor sharp teeth. Eek.

That's refreshing. I need to update my online dating profile from up to 15 miles to up to 25 light years. Clearly, I've been limiting myself to too few planets.

All this talk has me wondering how far - in a mostly ideal situation - a 1x800 CDMA signal can travel!

I had a similar "buried needle" speedtest occur here in Midtown Atlanta not two days ago. Things are looking up!

I wonder when band 41 will be on the majority of Sprint sites?

Ba ha ha ha! I would expect similar grammatical suicide from the folks here running Atlanta. Jesus.

I'm a little surprised by how many difficult sites are left, especially in more rural areas, like East Kentucky. Those should be dead easy permits. I guess in areas like that it's more backhaul related?

Absolutely.

I have the M8 as well and, on the rare occasions I actually need 1x800 it seems to make the transition with no issue. I'm using stock PRL. Haven't changed a thing in that regard. Edit: Just a thought but do you think it's more network related and not the phone itself? Could your proximity to Canada and being on the fringe of 1x800 coverage be causing these issues? I am only offering a guess here.

Even in Columbus they did much better than in previous rounds though the latest report from Columbus is the second half of last year as this year's first half report for that metro area isn't yet available. So that speaks volumes.

Smart man.

It's 2pm EST and I still haven't seen any official announcement. Nor do I see the indicated new spark markets marked yellow on Sprint's own coverage maps. Hmm. Maybe it will be a late day announcement? Also, with this already being late February (mid to late-ish), I have a hard time seeing Sprint having another, separate launch event for those much larger cities listed at the end of the article, including Atlanta and Nashville. And, in my experience here in Atlanta, it isn't ready to be launched yet, anyway.

I am having severe is issues after downloading this update. I received the notification that the update was ready yesterday afternoon and proceeded to promptly download it and install it. This took about an hour - much longer than I'd anticipated. But that wasn't the issue. It was the battery life after the update. Something like 120 minutes! This phone had excellent battery life before the update! But the worst part is that once the battery finally drained completely last night, the phone refused to power back on and after being plugged in for several hours did manage to reboot but only after somehow completely erasing everything on my phone! It was a mess. I had to reinstall everything. I couldn't be more pissed with this update. Oh, and the phone is significantly slower and more laggy. Someone please give me my kit Kat back!