maxsilver

If anyone's curious, my LG G3 Quick Circle Folio Wireless arrived in the mail today, and I love it. It's fantastic. It fits the device really well, supports NFC and QI wireless charging without any hacks or weirdness. It feels much better to me than the default back cover (textured plastic), and makes the phone feel very small compared to my previous, bulky cases. I don't know why Sprint only carries the non-charging cases. This one is only $10 more expensive than the standard one. Despite being sold exclusively at Verizon (officially anyway, as far as I can tell), the "Verizon" case is 100% compatible with the Sprint LG G3, and carries no Verizon branding or logos of any kind on the case.

This exact thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago in Grand Rapids. I was bouncing between roaming and super weak, unusable 1x800 across three super-distant sites. (Although all on the GR MSC) Then, three days later, the tower went live again. Good news: 800mhz LTE went live on that tower when it lit (wasn't there before). Bad news: They turned down the power of 1900 LTE. (Or adjusted / tilted sectors, or whatever). But they only touched it slightly. This may or may not have any bearing on your situation. But just thought I'd let you know, your not the only person experiencing that kind of thing.

Oh, sorry. I must have misread / misunderstood what you were saying. Overall performance is definitely worth touting.

Where are you pulling that info from? T-Mobile hasn't won any state in any RootMetrics report. I don't think they ever have. (see http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/map/2014-1H ) T-Mobile has won or tied for first overall in a small-ish number of cities. But never state averages. T-Mobile has gotten first in data speeds in a larger number of cities. But usually, the reliability metric pulls them down a bit in the data performance average.

Sprint's high scores are, in most markets, not in data, but only in voice and/or text. And most of those high scores aren't actually wins, they are just "ties". So, it's possible for Sprint to still come in 4th place nationally (since slow data is dragging them down significantly) but still tie for first on voice and text performance in many markets (which is a good thing, but doesn't actually push their ranking higher than any other carriers, since they are *all* getting high ranks on voice and text in most of those markets). For example, there's a Sprint press release about "#1 RootMetrics score" in Oklahoma City. Sprint actually lost in OKC, by a large margin, to every other carrier. (It was a three-way tie between Verizon / AT&T / T-Mobile, and Sprint was roughly 6 points behind everyone else). It's genuinely a poor showing for Sprint. However, in OKC every carrier had a good calling experience, so Sprint can say "Jointly awarded #1 voice network in OKC" and it's *technically* true, even while RootMetrics says "Sprint way behind in OKC in every metric except voice" Repeat that for a bunch of markets, and that's where most of these Sprint PR's are coming from right now. - - - I think this is a bad move overall, because there are a few markets where Sprint is actually doing legitimately well in these RootMetrics reports after network upgrades. Knoxville, TN is a good example, tied for data with T-Mobile, and legitimately leading in call/text over Verizon. Beating Verizon on voice and text is a big deal, and a solid win. That's something to be proud about. But those legitimately good markets will be lost in the spam of all these stretched "#1" PR's. I think some people will see that some of these PRs are misleading, and just assume they are all "lies".

I don't think that's true. Sprint appears to cover either (or both), whichever apply. See https://promo.sprint.com/Registration/ETFBuyoutLanding It reads "upload your bill showing your phone number and any early termination fee or installment bill balance, for each new-line activation to claim up to $350 Visa Prepaid Card." Presumably, that fixes the T-Mobile situation (or AT&T / Verizon folks on Next / Edge device plans)

I found an article from three years ago that seems to support what he wrote on Twitter. But then I noticed it's also written by Neal himself. So... at the very least, his messaging is consistent. http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/110711-what-is-lte/5

I'm not sure that's true. Postpaid Sprint is trialing one of those exact plans in certain markets ($40/month for Unlimited Talk, Text, 3GB data, voice + 100mb data roaming) Virgin Mobile sells $30 iPhone plans with 2.5GB data, everywhere nationwide (as seen on http://www.virginmobileusa.com/shop/cell-phones/iphone5c-white-phone/features/#plan ) The margins are lower, but I find it hard to believes that Sprint is actually loosing any money on either of these plans.

As a fellow BlackBerry user, those are not actually separate flavors of network. The "lowercase" symbol simply means mobile data is disconnected (or otherwise not yet connected). So 1x is the same network as 1X (nothing on the airlink changed in any way), but the lowercase one means "data not yet connected" This holds true for all other symbols as well, although you see it less often. ("LTE" turns to "lte" if mobile data can't connect. Still the same airlink)

Yep, I still have it. It's more like 2GB for $10-ish dollars (since it includes a $5-ish device subsidy, although a lower one at the $200 ETF "non-advanced device" rate). $5/gb seems like a totally fair, totally reasonable price for LTE data. I'd happily pay for metered data on multiple devices at that price. Agree completely. I'm pretty sure all the data/tablet rates will have to be changed. A lot of them are just...broken..right now. For instance, on most metered Sprint phone plans, overages are $15 per gigabyte ($0.015/MB) for phone data. This is really high, but not terribly unreasonable. (Same cost Verizon / AT&T usually charge for overages). But if you go over on your hotspot, that overage jumps to $50 per gigabyte ($0.05/MB). Even on the same physical phone, the "phone" data is $15/gb overage rates, and the "hotspot" data on that same phone is $50 per gigabyte. (see http://i.imgur.com/G0GIono.png ) Stuff like that will have to get fixed at some point. I'm hoping when the dust settles on these new individual and family plans, they'll start looking at the less popular stuff like tablet and hotspot data plans and bring that pricing back down to earth.

It obviously depends on a bunch of factors, and no one here can know for sure without measuring it. That said : Sprint has coverage maps at http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp. If you ignore the data part, and just use the voice portion, you'll see a "Best", "Good" and "Fair" rating. In my experience, when the tower is upgraded, areas marked "Best" have usable PCS LTE (sometimes everywhere, sometimes outdoors only, but usually some PCS LTE). Your in a "Best" area. Near the edge, but marked as "best". Someone also mapped 4G near your home on Sensorly. It's weak, but LTE signal appears to be there -- http://www.sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint#q=6201+Waterloo+Road+Northwest%2C+Canal+Winchester%2C+OH+43110%2C+USA|coverage If you have the dock, and you put it in a high part of the house (second story window facing the tower, for example) I would suspect you'd get a perfectly fine signal. - - You mention that the "tower ends 600 feet from my house". What does that mean? Do you not get voice service at your home today?

Yeah, I don't understand the stock price for Sprint. Even if you think Sprint is the worst company ever, and even if you think the company should be disbanded entirely, the stock price still seems too low. As just a spectrum holding company (even if you ingnore all revenue, and all other assets) I'd expect the price to be higher than $5.50. Sprint's market cap is lower than the value of it's spectrum alone, based on the pricing seen from the recent AWS auction. I feel like the stock price is more a reflection of investors reacting frantically to "bad performance", rather than having any meaningful insight into the actual value of the company.

I agree completely. You've been exceptionally kind and fair. Sorry, I probably should have directed that bit at AJ specifically, since he threw that label (in general, and today specifically). I didn't want to start a big back and forth about it, although now that I'm explaining it, I risk doing that anyway... (I like everyone at S4GRU, and banhammers are scary) But this is now terribly offtopic. Isn't this the thread where we complain about EDGE? I haven't seen any EDGE sites be totally useless for data (in my experience). But they are always dog slow. E-mail, maybe twitter or reddit (text only), but that's it. I've never gotten streaming of any kind to run on EDGE. Even if the site pulls a speedtest above 100k, multimedia still isn't usually functioning. I *have* seen GPRS-only sites (yes, still, in 2014). We have a good handful of them. I haven't seen any outside of Michigan -- and not very many of them. But there's definitely some GPRS here. And I'm convinced they've never had working data of any kind. Even e-mail and MMS don't function on these sites. Literally zero data.

I will not let the great state of Michigan be talked down by a fellow from Lawrence, Kansas. (that's just a joke) I wrote one rant a long time ago about how Sprint service is really bad in my market. Therefore, everyone's decided to view everything I write in an assumed "t-mobile fanboi" light, even though I'm almost always taking a fairly reasonable, fairly even stance in nearly everything I've posted here. They also assume I'm always referring to my particular market (even though I actually travel fairly regularly to a bunch of different markets: I've been all through Washington (Seattle to Spokane, including Moses Lake and Ellensberg, and down to Tacoma -- after Spark officially launched), Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Chicago (after Spark officially launched), Milwaukee, and all of urban Michigan (from coast to coast, Muskegon to Detroit and every city between). I definitely skew urban over rural (and the vast majority of S4GRU skews rural or suburban). But yep, I'm totally drawing from one "piddling little" market. Be careful. Grounded, reasonable words like that will get you branded a "T-Mobile fanboi" too. I agree with everything you've said there. And in case others missed it, *including* the "GRPS/EDGE often suck" -- I've never advocated otherwise, I simply said that on EDGE "e-mails still come through" and 1x data hasn't ever worked for me, and got hate piled on for it...

That sounds specific to your market. T-Mobile EDGE is usually a little bit slower than EVDO. But e-mail still comes through. 1xRTT is a fancy term for "no data". In my experience, I've literally never gotten data to transfer over 1xRTT, in any market. The closest equivalent on T-Mobile side would be their GRPS coverage, which is roughly identical in speed to 1x (in that, neither of them work at all for data in practice, and they both have a similar theoretical max data speeds of approx 150kbit)

*Technically*, every plan on T-Mobile is "unlimited", in that there is no overage charge for going over the limit (you just get throttled to 1x-like-speeds, except for Speedtest.net and some music streaming which never get throttled, regardless of plan). So, the $50/month T-Mobile plan could be used as a 1GB tethering, plus "unlimited (1x)" data for phone, without any overage fees. This strikes me as a bad idea, and a stretch of the language. But *technically* it would work.

I know S4GRU skews rural in general, but for most folks in urban/suburban, voice and text has been a "solved problem" for a few years now. The majority of people on Verizon or AT&T rarely have issues with dropped calls in most areas, except for areas everyone struggles with equally (like subways / tunnels / etc). It's not remotely fair that this is that way (they got free lowband spectrum, grandfathered into some sites, have monopolies in other markets to fuel expansion, etc). But that doesn't change the situation Sprint has to deal with. Sprint can't really advertise "less dropped calls", because to do so would appear like an admission that they still struggle with dropped calls. AT&T and Verizon basically don't have this problem for the vast majority of their customers, and haven't for a while now. You can advertise "faster data", because everyone still struggles with data issues in areas. But you can't advertise "less dropped calls" or "more reliable texting" because this is 2014, those problems are effectively solved. To advertise otherwise, would seem like an admission that your struggling with a "solved problem". - - (A dozen people may reply to this and mention a bunch of times they dropped calls on Verizon and AT&T, or how they still drop calls somewhere. That's all well and good, but in general, those experiences are outliers. There's probably over a thousand objective RootMetrics reports now, from all across the nation that highlight this pattern, a measurable lead on call performance by Verizon or AT&T in nearly every market -- http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/special-report-2014-1h-us )

The blunder here isn't that Sprint was open with the data. The blunder here is that Sprint took down Nextel's network and didn't have anything good ready to replace it at that time. I don't believe Sprint's messaging had much to do with it. AT&T could get the sales not because they showed Sprint's website to subscribers, but because Sprint really was "reducing your coverage." That's not some slander AT&T made up, it was often the truth (an exaggerated truth, perhaps. But still factually correct). You can't replace 10 800mhz Nextel sites with 6 1900mhz CDMA sites (or even 10 1900mhz CDMA sites) and claim your getting the same coverage. It's simple physics. 1x800 was coming, and would fix a lot of this. But it wasn't really available much when Nextel was shut down. Sprint could have lied / hidden / obfuscated this data. It may have dragged out the losses another couple of months. But I believe they were going to loose most of those folks anyway. Sprint's maps really didn't change this at all. At worst, it might have sped up the customer losses.

I've not seen this at all. My experience matches Conan's. Sites without backhaul get upgraded to HSPA. Slow speeds, but better airlink. (All the MetroPCS sites here run this way now. Which is frustrating, because MetroPCS actually had decent backhaul, that T-Mobile threw out...) Rural T-Mobile sites here that are running actual LTE are almost always screaming fast. Stupid fast. Easily twice as fast as the LTE service at our urban sites. (likely because these are all exurb/rural sites, where no one ever uses T-Mobile for their service). For example, the T-Mobile site in North Hudsonville / Georgetown Township went straight from GRPS to 50+mbps LTE. You can't pull 50mbps on T-Mobile in the city anymore (due to load), but these new rural sites easily hit that speed. I don't have any info as to whether the backhaul is "on the cheap". But the speeds are crazy fast and very reliable -- at some point, it doesn't matter whether it's fiber or microwave.

AT&T supports it. Has for at least few months now on both sides (some of their devices support it and some markets having deployed service live). http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/att-lights-lte-advanced-carrier-aggregation-chicago-other-markets/2014-03-07

I believe it refers to carrier aggregation. http://www.3gpp.org/technologies/keywords-acronyms/101-carrier-aggregation-explained

Yes, *technically* CDMA1x is a 3G technology. But EDGE is also a 3G technology according to the ITU, as it "formally fulfills the IMT2000 requirements on 3G systems". Everyone knows neither CDMA1X nor EDGE provide 3G service (in terms of data performance). Devices shouldn't try to hide their lack of data service by claiming 1X/EDGE as "3G". It's intentionally misleading. Sprint recognizes this themselves, 1x is not considered "3G service" on their coverage tool - http://shop2.sprint.com/en/stores/popups/compare_data_speeds_popup.shtml and Sprint advertises 1X as their "2G network" in their M2M materials - http://m2m.sprint.com/m2m-solutions/2g-network

Ah, ok. I must have misunderstood what you meant by "out of steam". No worries.

To be fair, that's equally a "thrown out fact based on conjecture". This particular quarter would have been low for T-Mobile if not for that spectrum sale -- this is very true. But there's plenty T-Mobile can do to offset that in the future. For example, T-Mobile's advertising spend alone was $1.1 billion in 2012 (I don't have 2014 figures off hand). They could likely cut their ad spend, without removing *any* promotions, or raising anyone's prices, and not record losses in the future. T-Mobile also still has 3 billion cash on hand. Even if they change *nothing*, they could keep recording losses for another three years straight, if they wanted. http://investor.t-mobile.com/Cache/24663697.pdf?IID=4091145&FID=24663697&O=3&OSID=9 Yes, T-Mobile is choosing growth over margins at the moment. And yes, that strategy not sustainable forever. But that doesn't mean T-Mobile as a business is at any risk. T-Mobile isn't going to go bankrupt or default anytime soon. I'm not sure what your actually trying to imply by "running on fumes". But T-Mobile is, financially, no more at risk than Sprint is, in any way I've seen from their investor reports. There's nothing inherently wrong with running a utility company the way a utility company should be run (low margins).

I'd argue the opposite. if AT&T and Verizon need the extra sites, then *everyone* actually needs the extra sites (including Sprint and T-Mobile). I'd hazard a guess that Sprint / T-Mobile phones have spotty service in or near these areas, dropping down to EVDO/1x/EDGE often when indoors. These sites probably fix that. (This obviously isn't universal everywhere. But AT&T / Verizon don't buy sites just for fun. If they need the density, then everyone probably actually needs that level of density in that area). Sometimes, yes absolutely. Extra site density is the most efficient way to improve both speeds and coverage. It also happens to require no new/additional spectrum