AJColaSC

 

Sprint (NYSE:S) is pulling back on plans to upgrade its network across the U.S. using its swath of 2.5 gigahertz spectrum, a move that will lower capital spending but raises strategic and marketing questions, analysts say.

Sprint on Wednesday unveiled new promotions for new subscribers that upgrade to the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which could be a reason it's looking to both trim spending and to beef up its network in up to five big markets.

"Their strategy, in a nutshell, is to scale back their 2.5 GHz deployment to just three to five cities, providing what they describe as a 'Tokyo-like' experience in those markets," Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson, told IBD. "In the rest of the country, they plan to be positioned as 'best value.' That marks a rather radical departure from Sprint's and SoftBank's previously stated strategy of building the 'best network' on a broad scale.

 

"And it presents an obvious, and perhaps insurmountable, challenge for marketing. How can they create a brand that stands for one thing in just a few markets (best network) and something else entirely (best value) in the rest."

 

http://news.investors.com/technology/091214-717167-sprint-pulls-back-nationwide-4g-deployment-tokyo-like-speed-in-only-5-cities.htm?ven=yahoocp,yahoo&src=aurlled

 

This seems to be oddly reminiscent of the WiMax deployment...not sure how Sprint can get away doing this as it does not appear to meet minimum coverage with the BTA.  II've back to 3G 80& of the time with all towers upgraded and without any further upgrades I will be switching to T-Mobile.  Waiting for 4G I barely get that averages less than 3mbps with good signal is unacceptable.

I haven't been getting consistent LTE since the end of April either.  Places i used to get strong LTE are now between 3G and mediocre LTE, places where I would connect to weak LTE are 3G only.  Inside LTE coverage does not exist outside of the 1 mile radios of the tower in my area.

My speeds have gone from 20+ to 2mbps with good signal in the past month.  I managed 6mbps on a Sunday in the Vista but that was it...

I'll be calling CTMS tomorrow hopefully and getting some information.  LTE with 1bar (-110-115 dbm) is aweful and usually not stable enough to stream audio.

AJCola dose your Sprint zone app under my device, then dashboard, then voice network say any tickets like the one I posted a pic of the other day? I looked at a friend's Sprint gs3 and it had nothing under it for network upgrades but I have noticed it has been better than usual. The ticket is supposed to be closed tomorrow as far as a voice and data issue and the network vision ticket also, I'll keep y'all posted of it dose and if I see an improvement.

 

Sent from my LG G2 on the Now Network

I'm not running a Sprint / Samsung Touchwiz ROM so I cannot answer for those applications.  However, the following link should display the same information you are asking about.  Not much regarding NV of late for me.  Have dropped calls now and previously may have been tower under upgrades.

http://zone.sprint.com/servicetrender/getstatus?mdn=[Yournumberhere]

Note:  Your post was difficult to read and was thus skipped after several English errors.

Been getting alerts from Signal Check Pro about 1x 800 coverage in the Columbia area. Phone seems to treat it like a roaming condition as it tries to cycle to a different tower or frequency so it may have pretty low priority in the PRL.

Been getting alerts from Signal Check Pro about 1x 800 coverage in the Columbia area.

Spoke to an Ericsson Tech last night.  It seems for our Market, Most Fiber (Backhaul) is not ready. Therefore the sites that are running LTE are still running on T1 circuits. And Thats the reason why the LTE is typically 15dm less than DO and 1X coverage. Once the more capable backhaul is integrated, the power will be turned up on the LTE to match the existing site coverage.

LTE will not be turned up until appropriate backhaul is in place (not T1 lines).  It is true most backhaul is not ready and that is probably a big reason for the large amount of 3G only sites completed, the equipment may be ready but the 4G will not be activated until backhaul is ready.  Signal strength does not correlate to backhaul, it is true that you may receive LTE from a futher tower than 1x which would explain a huge difference (>15dbm).  I checked several sites that are 4G live and they are either ATT or TWC provided.

Oh man! Look at Sensorly in the SC market! Just about all of I-77 from Charlotte to Columbia is now LTE (wasn't just this past Saturday when I went to Georgia from Charlotte on I-77), and most of I-26 all the way to I-95, and even down I-95 towards Savannah as well. That is impressive!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

What are these towel upgrades you speak of? :-D I kid I kid

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

For those of you with LTE phones that are getting no evdo or 3G connections when they are doing towel upgrades switch to CDMA only mode.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

I just had a huge issue with the past 24 hours after Modem & Kernel flash wiped all my activation info. I replaced MSID and data login info but still no data connection with after going back to Stock, a Hard Reset, Hands Free Activation or Profile Update (which is where error showed up).

Long -> Short Sprint rep said it was a Samsung only error and needs to be elevated to manufacturer.  Give Sprint a call and have them send off a ticket, mine was fixed within a couple hours after having no data all day.

I think the tower at the corner of Devine and Rosewood is in progress, pics here.

eHRPD spotted in Columbia

25xxx is not 3G roaming AFAIK, at least on verizon

I picked up 24006 from xda which should be LTE and is definitely 3G VZW roaming (regional)

Edit: digiblur is right. Uploaded LTE PRLs

24006.zip

LTE_PRL.zip

Couldn't check it out because of time but there were definitely 4+ guys up there working on equipment and Sprint signal is definitely down. Saw a work trailer and what looked like some newer panels but it was hard to say.

Could be a backhaul upgrade in preparation for NV. Or temporary upgrades hard to say. That tower is pretty massive though, I would think they would be on site preparing well in advance with a drop container full of cable rolls and new equipment.

On top the storage place? I'll be by there tomorrow, might be able to check it out. Doubtful its NV though as I don't see that starting here until late next year.

Noticed they upgraded most of the towers adding carriers and T1/Fiber runs and have cut out a lot of further updates. Speed has increased most everywhere I've seen, from 150 to 300kbps, and 300 to 600kbps, etc. If the earlier report was right about fiber coming downtown I'm sure that was a big part of it. Latency to Spirit (downtown Columbia) is still horrible, even when 2 miles away. Much faster communicating with Greensboro, NC test server. Hope this gets nailed down as it seems to be a terrible routing setup.

Check one of the other SC threads. Short answer: don't hold your breath.

I broadcast both 2.4/5 GHz for Wifi and the 5 is terrible for penetration/reception especially between floors on small antenna phones. There was an ICS power issue for 5 as well on the E4GT.

sorry i forgot to quote b4. Im still learning proper blog etiquette. Thanks for the quick answer.

This is a forum, not a blog. That said, Sprint does not make any LTE information site by site publicly available. Definitely not on the network.sprint.com site for tower upgrades. Do not look there.

However, if you become a sponsor (see donate link) the private sponsor section has all the information you could ever want on LTE rollouts on a site by site basis.