kvnjcby

I have also had no LTE for 2 weeks here in Cary where I previously had service. I've reported it to Sprint -- they told me they were aware of the site outage but had no estimate for when the site would be back online.

I traveled 25 miles outside of Raleigh and instantly got a strong LTE signal. I then kept that LTE signal for several hours in areas my EVO barely got signal and where I had no idea LTE even existed (super super rural areas). I traveled in and out of LTE areas for about another hour and the device performed handoffs flawlessly. I'm now getting LTE inside of a house where an iPhone 4S and a (older) blackberry have to step outside to keep a call from breaking up. I'm VERY VERY impressed.

 

This 100% confirms in my mind that the issue so many of us are seeing connecting to LTE is regional. I am absolutely confident that as soon as I get back to Raleigh I will go back to never seeing LTE again until Sprint fixes this. Which is disappointing, because the radio in this thing, especially on LTE is the best I have ever seen in my life, by far, but Sprint has something seriously screwed up in many parts of the country  keeping us from connecting.

Interesting... I travelled through Greensboro and Winston-Salem today and had the same issue there -- LTE displays for a split second then drops to 3G. 

Has anybody put another carrier SIM in a N5 marketed as a sprint N5... Curious if there is Carrier lock..

There was custom Sprint disclaimer text on the box that said there is a software carrier lock, but I haven't tried it myself.

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This is NOT what I wanted to see. I'm in the triangle as well.... I'll be giving Sprint exactly until my return period is up to fix the problem. What good is a better radio if my phone's software can't manage it properly and I can't get any LTE at all.

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed about it! I honestly was expecting it to only be an issue with Google Play devices, but something's definitely wrong with my device as well.

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I just received my Nexus 5 from Sprint and have been unable to connect to LTE at all with it. I believe that I was within range of an active band 41 site, but I'm unable to confirm that...

"LTE" briefly displays over the signal bar, but never connects and switches back to 3G.

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I think someday it might happen, but I doubt that it would be in the next five years. Sprint just has too much to do right than having to worry about how to integrate T-Mobile.

I remember reading very similar statements last year when Sprint's acquisition of Clearwire was just a rumor. The SoftBank acquisition had already been announced and people argued that Sprint had too much on its plate to take on any more. 

I agree that any sort of T-Mobile deal probably won't happen any time soon, but Sprint has surprised us before 

Network Vision

I highly recommend looking through Sprint's formal complaint. There are some seriously awesome quotes in there. "There is nothing at the end of Dish's rainbow" sticks out   . Also, there's a lot of really interesting info in it that I don't think we knew before. 

Swapped out the image for another. It's kinda surprising at how little pictures of ALU NV base stations there are considering they're in same of the biggest markets.

The cabinets in your new pic look like legacy Motorola cabinets to me, not NV. When I first started tower stalking, I originally thought those cabinets were Network Vision as well since there are so few pics of the new ALU ones here . Here's an album of some pictures I have of NV ALU cabinets: http://imgur.com/E7fLSUW,fjtUrlL,w229fq7,GGhYt7m.

I can try to go back and get some clearer shots of the fronts of these cabinets. They seem have a habit of installing them with the fronts facing away from the fence, so it's often hard to get a good view!

Oh man. I really don't like this!

I'm under the impression that Sprint *needs* control of Clearwire -- it gives them a huge advantage. Assuming that shareholders are now in favor of Dish once again, this only leaves Sprint with 2 options: vastly increase their offer yet again, or surrender Clearwire to Dish, merge with Dish, and acquire Clearwire's assets by way of that.

Obviously, the second option is what Dish is trying to force Sprint into. I'm very interested (and worried!) to see how Sprint plays Charlie's game. He's a good player.

smorcy11, on 24 May 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

 

So I'm just curious for some perspective from you experienced guys out there -

 

It seems to me that the LTE speeds are extremely poor unless you are right next to a tower. Does the signal just not carry very well? Will this improve as more towers get lit up?

 

I have never gotten better than 10 mbps down and I average between 3-8 mbps. These are in some of the most common LTE areas of Raleigh. I've tested on Six Forks/540, along 540/Leesville area, and in Brier Creek. As well as in North Durham near Horton Road.

 

What's the deal with the weak speeds or signal strength just not carrying far?

Only ~40% of Sprint's sites in the Raleigh/Durham market have had Network Vision upgrades so far, and an even smaller percentage of them have received LTE upgrades. It is very common to pick up a signal from an upgraded LTE tower that's 1 or 2 towers away from the closest tower to you -- there's quite a bit of overlap. Since LTE speeds are highly dependent on signal strength, you probably won't see super fast speeds while you're in an area where the closest tower has not been upgraded but you can still connect to LTE. When I'm in an area with good LTE signal strength I commonly see 20+ megabits. Also, keep in mind that Sprint advertises LTE speeds between 6-8Mbps.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dish-pursues-co-development-of-fixed-mobile-broadband-offering-2013-05-24

Dish has formed a partnership with nTelos... I wonder what implications this has for Sprint, considering Sprint's existing partnership with them. I'd imagine that the true purpose of this is to somehow advance Dish's bid for Sprint...

Has sprint officially announced a Raleigh market launch yet? Sensorly is looking better and better each week. Ive read here they usually announce the launch at around 50-60% completion.

 

Seems like one or two more towers in Cary and inside the beltline will get us to near complete coverage for the city coverage. Dont knkw how far past 540 they will cover. I was surprised to see 4g all the way out in Wendell the other day. Not much and it didnt last long but nonetheless it was there.

 

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As far as I'm aware they haven't even announced the Raleigh market as in-progress yet. It seems like work has stalled a bit here, though. They installed new antennas and RRUs on a tower near me nearly 2 months ago and they haven't been back since then to install the new cabinets. Argh!

There's no way of saying at this point afaik. I recently found a fairly new tower around Raleigh (came online mid-2012 from what I can tell) that Sprint is on, so there's definitely a chance. Looking at Sprint's coverage map shows 2 "recent" towers and 1 "future" tower in the Raleigh area as well, but nothing at the location you linked. I have no idea how up to date that info is, though.

 

Yep I'm more than happy with that. I don't know if that's coming from the tower off dillard/Tryon or if it's a different tower.

It's definitely coming from that tower (which, if it's the tower I think you're referring to, is the same as the Jones Franklin/440 tower.) LTE seems to be off on it today, though.

I was able to pick up LTE near Jones Franklin and Dillard Dr for the first time today Will try to run Sensorly tomorrow. Looks like someone else has picked up LTE there before according to Sensorly, but I haven't been able to connect there until today.

Yep -- I've been having the same issue lately. Upload arrow lights up but the download arrow never does. I've found that switching to CDMA only mode fixes the problem consistently. I saw that someone else in the Charlotte thread is having the same problem, so it seems to be a weird Sprint issue that they haven't fixed yet.

Something is going on around here (Hickory/Newton/Conover) as I've had to switch to CDMA Only to use 3G data. If I leave my EVO set to LTE/CDMA, my 3G indicator has a stuck up arrow (see below) and cannot access data at all. As soon as I switch to CDMA Only, BAM!.. 3G data with no issues. Something that I've noticed is my Pings are now 125ms or lower, but my speeds still stink at around 200kb/s or slower. Does anyone know if this is indicative of anything?

Whoa! I am having the EXACT same problem as you -- you described it *perfectly*. The only catch is that's I'm in the Raleigh/Durham market. CDMA Only works without a hitch, LTE/CDMA doesn't work and has a stuck upload arrow. I can sometimes get it to work if I cycle airplane mode a couple times. Sometimes it just works by itself, but it's broken more often than not as of lately. Seems like it's just issues related to the NV rollout and hopefully they'll work themselves out. At least it's (hopefully) not our devices!

I did a speed test right next to another tower here in Cary today and also couldn't get speeds higher than 10 megabits. Everything I've read says they aren't throttling, though...