drewsonian

Now that I'm on a Framily plan with unlimited calling I'm thinking about dropping our home phone. Does anyone have experience with MagicJack service? I will still need a line to use for work purposes but was looking into lower cost Voip.

 

Or you could use your sprint phone as a line and get a google voice number to associate with it. Then, receive calls on your phone both personal and work and to make calls using the new google voice number, you just have to use the google voice dialer to make sure that the outbound caller id is the new line. I'm assuming the biggest reason that you want a separate line is for a separate work number, though and not something like you like your current landline phone so much that you don't want to switch. You could also get the sprint home connect, which is $10-20 per month or something like that and converts your home wiring to use the cell towers instead.

Quick question: on the map, will orange sites go green?  3G/800 to 3G/4G?  I'm looking at moving down near Mt Sterling and the sites there are currently orange.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: Sorry, opened wrong tab, wrong thread.

So it looks like I mistakenly thought that sprint was going to waive the $15 fee temporarily for anyone who had upgraded after Jan 10 as well as before, but after talking to a few reps this is not the case. Have several lines that I should have upgraded before the 10th, but now I'd have to have the $15 few if I upgrades them and then switched to Framily. Any ways around this? I could have sworn that at one point they said this, but I guess not. I suppose that the $15 or $20 is probably still better than some of the easy pay options for like a high end droid, though...

Well i am not him but when he said this the other day i took it as everywhere. Cause if you have a old ED1500 Amazon etc will not upgrade it now even cause that plan is not in there system. When i tried to upgrade last month on AMazon on a line that was upgrade elig it came up the plan is not supported. Now i could call up sprint and get the phone from them and it work okay. Even if you go to Walmart they have to call up sprint if you are on the ED1500 plan. The only plajn right now that can upgrade with ease is the everything myway plan.

 

But i took it as it would be from every place and if not good luck getting places to upgrade your phone on the ED1500 plan etc as it is not in the sprint system anymore so when you try and upgrade anywhere it does not let you anymore. You could do this as of September but since then it has been taken out of the sprint system

Thank you for filling me in... I've been tracking this thread but I must have missed his post the other day. This is interesting, though that other places can't upgrade the ED1500... I just upgraded one of my lines last week at Best Buy before knowing about framily, and I don't think they had to call sprint to get it upgraded.

In less than 90 days msrp or easy pay will be the only way to get phones from sprint.

 

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Would subsidized phones still continue to be available via 3rd-party retailers after this time(for those who want to stay with their Simply Everything plans)?

I'm interested to hear the answer on this as well... If subsidized phones are going away for my everything data family plan 1500, then I'm more likely to switch now when I can get the $15/mo fee waived.

So, I'll weigh in on my decision here, because I'm on the fence.

 

I have the ED 1500 Family plan with 7 lines.  Yeah, 7 lines.  I don't know how they ever allowed me to get that many on the same plan, but it's true. :-)

 

Anyways, it costs us about $300 / month and we have 4 lines with iPhones and 3 lines with whatever is free at the time of upgrade.  We barely use 500 anytime minutes / month, since most of us are calling mobile numbers when we call during the day, plus we have several lines with 6PM night and weekend minutes, which is carryover from previous plans.  Since we don't use anywhere close to 1500 minutes with our usage, I kind of assume we have an unlimited everything plan and don't worry about minutes.  This is a situation where everyone pays me back for the main bill, which has its good and bad points.  I am somewhat nice to some of the folks on the plan, and pay a little more than my share, so I pay about $100 per month for the two phones that are mine and my wife's.

 

I definitely use less than 1GB of data per month, but I think that's mostly because data doesn't work worth crap on an iPhone in Columbus, Ohio.  Sorry, it's just the truth until NV is actually activated.  Once that happens, I feel like I might end up using more than 1GB.  With that in mind, I figure that I would have to go with the 3GB plan to be safe for both of my phones.  So, here's what I came up with, analyzing everything over 20 months, to account for the phone upgrade / subsidizing costs.

 

Current plan: $100 / month for 20 months = $2000 (including taxes)

Two subsidized iPhones: $300 x 2 = $600

Total for 20 months on current plan: $2600

 

Framily Plan: $76.36 / month for 20 months = $1527.20  (assumes $35 / month tier with 18% discount on data and 15% estimtaed taxes)

Two unsubsidized phones: $600 x 2 = $1200 (assuming the price of iPhones don't come down)

Total for 20 months on Framily: $2727.20

 

If I was able to keep us under 1GB per month, Framily would be at $2,350 for 20 months

 

If I could keep us under 1GB per month on my two phones, I'd totally try to figure out a way to get all these lines on Framily and move liability to the actual users of the other lines.  But my biggest concern is I don't have LTE in Columbus and 3G is a joke and I have no idea how much I would actually use otherwise.

 

For now, it seems like sticking with my old plan seems like a better deal, unless the cell phone upgrade thing goes away.  Then, I think I'd regret not switching now while there is the promotional waiver of the $15 / month previous upgrade fee.

 

Good catch - bottom rack is Sprint being actively worked on.  You can see the RRHs very easy there.  Top rack is Clearwire - interesting they had a cable attached to it as well.. Maybe doing something to it at the same time?

 

I drove by here this morning and it's definitely further along than this pic - no wires hanging off and the RRHs seem to all be completely connected.  Also of note - the CABs on the ground used to be connected to nothing, and now the cables run right into the tower!  Unsure of backhaul as I didn't see any digging, but who knows if they even need to do that here.  I'm going to try to check out other sites in the area as I know that these usually go on in clusters, so I'm curious to see if Georgesville Rd has upgrades as well, although that's one on top of high voltage wires.

Anybody else having data issues this morning? Hoping its the pre-acceptance jitters. Seeing more cell holes filled in with hardware.

I have, but that's nothing new. Data issues have just been a fact of life with sprint in my area for over a year, ever since I got an iPhone 5.

I think it will manage. The Columbus Map has been updated if you need to check status as you go along.

So I don't have a 5S, it's just a 5. But anyways here are the pics for that site. I don't think there are any changes and I saw no evidence of digging or back haul around the tower. Just to confirm, this is the tower right behind the car wash, right?

I think I seen some guys running fiber to the site on Norton Road and Brandenberry. There was a truck there digging. The truck had a giant spool of cable on it and it was pretty close to the site. Not entirely sure though as I was only driving by. Couldn't stop was in a hurry. If anyone in that area has some time maybe you could swing by.

 

I'll try to check it out on my way home from work.  I was thinking about spotting a few other towers along Broad / Westgate area, so I'll try to hit that one as well.  Just don't have my DSLR with me, so we'll see how the iPhone 5S works out for these pics...

It sort of surprises me. I figured this would be one of the first towers with LTE. The pictures I took a couple months ago made me think the majority of the work was done there...except backhaul wasn't ran at that time.

 

Ditto - I thought a lot of work had been done there and it'd be live sooner than later.  However, I'm sure there are always reasons why another site might be started later and completed sooner due to all the contractor schedules, backhaul, etc.  Oh well, I'm sure it'll light up soon!

 

My commute takes me by the Jackson Rd tower that's lit up... It's like LTE is taunting me every morning and afternoon...! :-)

Isn't GroveTucky considered SW?

 

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I like to think that Galloway is the real and only southwest part of town... :-P

 

I have some good friends who live in GroveTucky and they don't fit that name at all... Or maybe it just shows something about me! Either way, it ain't no UA, that's for sure!

Now the southwest side of town needs some LTE love! :-)

I'm really not trying to be negatvie. But why do you think that they only outline unlimited data locked in for life with the new plans?

 

My guess is they will cut off your current unlimited plan in the next 12 months. But I bet they will give all current customers a chance to move before that.

 

I was thinking that they outlined it explicitly for new plans to differentiate themselves from Verizon, who has had drama surrounding data usage and now have capped data plans.

Maybe I was asleep and missed it on the progress thread, but I'm in Galloway and just ran this speed test... Amazing over what I had before!! Don't know if its just off peak yet or not, will do another test when I leave my house around noon.

 

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Ok, I'm back to abysmal speeds... However I have never had the speed above even during off peak before...

 

Maybe I was asleep and missed it on the progress thread, but I'm in Galloway and just ran this speed test... Amazing over what I had before!! Don't know if its just off peak yet or not, will do another test when I leave my house around noon.

 

Just an aside: does anyone else here have an iPhone 5? What are your speeds like in general? Mine have seemed to be even worse than my friends droids or my wife's iPhone 4. Hoping the NV solves this as I had it replaced once by Apple but it didn't fix it in the least... I want to believe that it's the network and not the phone...

 

This is a speed test I just did while traveling in Pennsylvania using LTE. Looking forward to some serious speed increases in Columbus at or above this level soon!!

 

 

 

 

There have been over 100 capacity upgrades the past view months but im pretty sure most were T1's. Its possible it was fiber but to date no ethernet backhaul has been signed off on.

 

 

 

 

That sounds about right - I have a friend who works a local CO for AT&T and he said that most of the cell companies that they are building out right now are still requesting older tech like T1s rather than ethernet, which is what he said that they'd rather put in at this point. He didn't say if AT&T provides Sprint with tower connectivity, however. I would think it would be whoever is local and cost effective?

 

 

 

That confuses the hell out of me for two reasons. 1) Why pay to have T1 ran when you have to go back and pay for fiber to be ran. 2) All the permits I've seen for Sprint mention fiber optic. I know permits have a 1 year expiration but I haven't seen T1 permits.

 

 

 

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I have no clue why cell companies would request a T1. Seemed really weird to me as well, but he actually designs and builds the local infrastructure for AT&T in my area, as I understand his position. He also did a ton of work on the Chicago AT&T network last year, designing things remotely. He could have been saying that overall, companies were still asking for T1s when AT&T wants to put them on fiber, but we were talking in the context of cell towers right before that... I just don't know if any of the work that he is doing relates to sprint at all. I'll ask him next time I see him.

There have been over 100 capacity upgrades the past view months but im pretty sure most were T1's. Its possible it was fiber but to date no ethernet backhaul has been signed off on.

 

That sounds about right - I have a friend who works a local CO for AT&T and he said that most of the cell companies that they are building out right now are still requesting older tech like T1s rather than ethernet, which is what he said that they'd rather put in at this point.  He didn't say if AT&T provides Sprint with tower connectivity, however.  I would think it would be whoever is local and cost effective?

so if 370 of 398 need upgraded, that means they are 7% complete right?

"The rest will be microwave type backhauls."    

So Columbus market launched NV 3G today. Anyone want to guess where?

Since I think the southwest side of town had some of the first permits pulled, I'd guess there, but memory may not serve me well... :-)

 

If not that, then Marion?

When the Fireworks of Red,White and Boom deploy so will LTE in Columbus. Dont quote my wishful thinking. LTE in Columbus is like the girl you wish you never met but you cant keep her off your mind

 

500,000 people downtown would probably kill a new network instantly... not that anyone would have any good 3G service downtown for an event like that anyways... :-)

No good news near Galloway/hilliard either. Still crappy as ever.

 

I stopped by the norton tower and snapped a few pictures but can't tell if it has the right equipment on the towers yet when I compare them to the thread with the tutorial. I remember that the cabinets have been upgraded though.

 

 

That's weird. Until about three months ago, I was always impressed with the speeds I'd get, especially just south of 270 on Broadway.

 

In any case, I hope it's a sign of upgrades happening.

 

I guess my problems have been on 270 going east just before and after the exit. However I'm also on the iphone 5, which has been notorious for bad 3G coverage in non-upgraded markets on sprint.