brad162

I've had 4G popping up on my Evo LTE off and on all week (even got some in Tempe around Tempe Marketplace the other day) but it never stays on long, just long enough for SignalCheck Pro to alert me, then it goes away before i can do anything.

I'd imagine that they're getting ready to do a mass light up before too long (and i hope they do, as it's long overdue here)

Comparing to my Wife's S3 and Co-Worker S4, their phone can hold 4G LTE much better than my EVO LTE phone.  We are seeing almost -10db difference set side to side comparison.  It works, but if you have a weak LTE signal it ain't going to work well compared to other LTE phones.

 

That is a difference of getting LTE indoors on a S3 or S4 but your only able to pickup 3G on your EVO.

 

Download SignalCheck Pro, compare to someone with S3 or S4 you will see the difference on the LTE department.

My Evo LTE actually has better RF than my S3 did, but I also took the antenna off and re-seated it properly (mine seemed to be slightly dislodged), and now it's working just fine.

LTE is up around 16th st and Indian School. Nothing great. It's around 5Mbps but still better than the 200kbps 3G it was broadcasting before. It seems to make it until around 22nd St before dropping out.

You may have no complaints but there's a reason the entire New Mexico backhaul contract that Centurylink won got rejected for non compliant backhaul and put back out to bid during the summer. 

I would imagine that's because most of it's rural and CL has not bothered to upgrade many of the remote areas past ADSL/ADSL2 yet. Also, i'm not sure what the network is like there. I know plenty of places cable is fine to be used for backhaul but in my opinion Cox is not one company that should ever be used.

Honestly, i know Sprint has a fiber drop here in Phoenix for SprintLink. I really do not see why they just do not use gigabit microwave since it's a big valley and it's not like they'll have a hard time getting line of sight considering most buildings here are not that tall.

I think you are the first person I've seen on this board that has good things to say about CenturyLink.

They've always done me right, i still have a legacy Sprint landline dryloop DSL account i've had since 2006 set up at my sisters place in Ohio. It's price locked for $20/mo for 3/512k and has been solid since installed.

Here in Phoenix they've always worked quite well anywhere i've used them. The tech support is awful at times but my speeds are a consistent 40/5 (speed i'm currently on), up until last month i was on 80/40 bonded VDSL2 and it was solid 78/38 even during peak times, Cox even with Docsis 3 would usually drop packets like crazy around here and slow down to a crawl at times even when i was bonding 8 channels on my modem.

So overall i have no complaints, and i'm not giving my money to lame Cox (i really hate that cable company after three different places in the valley i experienced lots of error packets on my lines and it took Cox around three months each time to actually finally fix it, and then it'd usually come back randomly)

COX can be better than Century/Qwest/Us West/Ma Bell. The other metro fiber links are few and far between. 

While Cox can be better than CenturyLink, it's usually not. Anywhere a cell site would be located, CenturyLink normally has fiber stranded not too far away, and from what i've seen them do with bonded VDSL2 (i have it at home in downtown Phoenix), they can provide some serious bandwidth if necessary to the places fiber is not so close, and the advantage of using them over Cox is it's a real fiber link not the metro ethernet crap through a coax line that Cox runs (we have it at work, and it's reliability leaves a little to be desired)

Qwest gave DSL a bad name here in Phoenix, but ever since CenturyLink has taken over, i've had nothing but great experiences with it everywhere i've lived in the valley, and with the upgrades they're having to do for Prism, pretty much the whole network is going to have fiber readily available for companies like Sprint to tap into if necessary.

I went to the site at 19th and Camelback today, and i was impressed.

The tower on camel back is in the park n ride I was over there today had no lte had strong 3G but the speeds still sucked this is also a century link backhaul which is probably why it's done. We have been waiting on a certain cocky cable provider at a lot of sites. However like I said there are 20 to 30 sides scheduled in the next three weeks and roughly 27% of Phx in 3 months

I was just over there at the record store a few hours ago, and no LTE or 3G, just 1XRTT data. Site must be down for tuning, either that or it crumbled after people noticing LTE there.

I'll check back in a few days when i'm back over by there to see what the speeds are like.

Also, it does not surprise me Cox taking their good 'ol time, if it's anything like getting the DOCSIS nodes fixed in my last three neighborhoods fixed for over saturation, then we have a good long while to wait. I'll never give that company any of my money ever again after being forced to deal with them for so long. Glad where i'm at CenturyLink was able to do a 40/20 DSL line for me no questions asked

Part of it may be that the old equipment isn't setup to accept a different type of backhaul, or the amount of time to get enough T1's installed to get the data speeds high enough would either match with NV or exceed NV's time line. If there's anything I can tell you working in telecom, it's that EVERYTHING takes 10x as long as it really needs to because of the BS in the industry. Permits from local government, community backlash (then complaints about reception), cashflow to get it done (not an issue with NV, but in other regards usually), and of course competition in the area being one of the few wirelines capable of providing adequate backhaul. There are a lot of areas where Verizon and AT&T are the local telcos that have the fiber available that Sprint needs for the enhancements. They obviously want it to take as long as possible to be installed within the contract terms..

while i do agree with your post to an extent, in AZ the primary fiber providers are CenturyLink, Cable One, SuddenLink, and Cox.. None of which have anything to do with AT&T or VZ $$$ wise, and even cricket has been able to roll out LTE in Phoenix before Sprint has even started to do anything meaningful with Network Vision, that's what people are upset about.

While yes permits take time (and Phoenix being by far one of the worst localities to deal with government wise), that can only get you so far considering every other provider has been able to pull off data upgrades years ago

Honestly, if Sprint could just put proper backhaul in to get at least 500k/sec (it can be done with EVDO, i've seen VZW do it in several large cities), then people would not complain since they'd be able to do anything they want, but the sub 100kbps speeds at times are what's killing them.

I work there and honestly that's the only complaint i ever get is slow data, and i never know what to tell them other than we know and are working on it (but these are people who were told back when the OG Evo came out they'd be getting improved "3G" and WiMax then, so they're already mad about that)

We are never told to lie, and to be honest most of the reps in my store (even the techs) just use pandora when out at the most, so rarely ever notice "slow data", i notice it and am probably the only one out of several employees that notice the slow 3G, although that's because i've used an awesome WiMax network where i lived before and know what a phone can do when paired with a properly working and non-overloaded network.

Honestly, even the upper management knows there are issues, but the problem is all we can do is create a network ticket, and hope something gets scheduled to get fixed as soon as possible, but in markets like Phoenix, they do not have many options until they can finally get LTE installed and nix Nextel so more wireless resources are available. Here, from what i've gathered looking at internal tools it's more of an exhaustion of the current spectrum in certain areas, that's where 800MHz and LTE will help offload and hopefully correct the issues.

Lol all my phones was rooted and the two sprint techs I know phones are also lol.

 

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Technically if it's a nexus it does not matter, since it's what that device is made for. I'm talking about the s3's and evo's that come in like that. if your having issues, especially what they bring them in for (95% of them are software related issues due to buggy roms), all i can do is hand it back to you and tell you to get it back to stock to see if it's still doing it and let me know if you're still having issues.

I love it when people come back with the remark that they are not the one who did it and do not know how to get it back, well then stop letting other people make mods to your phone if you do not know how to reverse it, as it does void the manufacture warranty.

I still have an aircard through Sprint, and cannot use it half the time thanks to the 3G being way over crowded here in Phoenix, but it's sure nice to use when i'm in a WiMax area (i will buy a TriFi when they finally get LTE here in Phoenix)

I can say though as an S&R Tech here in Phoenix, i do see a lot of phones that i have to send back to the customer because it's rooted (95% of the time has some free tethering app installed) and i cannot work on it unless they get it back to stock.

I can say it's a chronic issue here in this market, and the 3G performance shows it. now, i cannot speak if tethering is the issue, but it cannot be helping either. I just hope the NV upgrades come soon as they cannot come fast enough.

You would be amazed to see how much capacity is actually at a cell site, and just the sheer volume of data hits it's getting throughout the day. Trust me when i say there's plenty of capacity, but in markets like Phoenix, it's just a matter of way too many subs in a given area at a given time, LTE should help as well as Nextel refarm, since it's separate bandwidth from what's currently being used, but only time will tell.

Honestly i'm sure that announcement was to light a fire under sprint since the softbank deal was announced, if you think about it what better way to get some of that cash than to almost stop expanding since you're short on cash when your majority owner just came across $8 billion (or 20.1 depending on how you look at it)