eljam

 

Sprint Wimax Chicago Love

 

I live & travel around the Chicago area, mainly the I-55 corridor and the streeterville area in downtown. I have found decent to good coverage except for when in buildings in the downtown area & older homes in some neighboorhoods. I even get a good 4G signal in my home & don't need to use WiFi in the house as much. I'm in no rush to upgrade to another 4G phone since, unlike some others (maybe most?), I've been able to get a lot from WiMax. I'm even considering getting a Virgin Mobile 4G hotspot to go some a wifi tablet we have.

The only complaint I have isn't with the coverage but with the way handoffs from 3G to 4G are handled on my EVO. Sometimes the connection will resume, sometimes it will not. However, 3G has also gotten better along my travel route, as my phone dropped a 4G connection after just a couple of minutes but the music stream continued on 3G with no interruptions.

We were over on Rt. 59 in Naperville this past weekend, and my wife could hardly connect or keep a call going. However, the next day we were on I-80 heaed towards Iowa and calls connected regularly, with no issues. There no one, consistent behavior that we have seen, just general service problems. However, I am seem sporadic 'upticks' in 3G speed around the Joliet / Plainfield area.

We were so frustrated, I called and complained & threatened to drop my service a third time a couple of weeks ago. We have a two line account & my wife's BB is droppping calls regularly, probably a combination of a device issue and NV upgrade / backhaul work. They credited our account this month and for several future months since we've been seeing the issue regularly since Februrary and then sent us an Airwave device to use in our home. We haven't connected the Airwave yet because we spend more time away from home and she needs something more reliable in the chicagoland area as opposed to solely working at home.

Yah, I tried calling Sprint, they had nothing helpful as usual.

 

Eventually phone calls came back. Just took a while, then even on calls it would take like 10-15 seconds to connect.

 

They did most of the tower upgrades back in April so we already went through that pain of drop calls.

If you can, more Pics please... Looks very nice and it's tempting me to use my upgrade.

Welcome

Thanks!

My 3g isn't all that fast but it's usable and I have mostly full wimax 4G bars I'm on the west side of Chicago also

 

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

Are you experiencing delayed text messages as well? My wife and I are both getting them 12+ hours (in some cases, a full day) after they are sent. I've got an open ticket with the network team but have not heard a resolution yet.

Welcome!

 

And thanks for the compliments.

 

Robert

They are well deserved. I hope the detailed updates continue!

Hello and I too live here. I'm in the Garfield Ridge area. I am holding out hope that NV fixes the awful 3G data speeds. WiMAX is holding me over. In some area I get 7-12 download but than sometimes it's as slow as 3G. I am willing to give Sprint till the new iPhone launches and if it does not support LTE I will have to jump ship.

I'm actually in the Plainfield / Romeoville / Joliet area. My 4G never gets as slow as 3G. 3G is at times barely usable which is ironic since my WiMax signal is decent and I also have Wi-Fi at home. I've done Speed test but I'm too frustrated to list the speeds here. First the perk removals, then the worsening 3G speeds, then the billing changes, and now bad service due to the NV updates. I'm not sure how much more they can drop the ball recently, but since we haven't had this level of 'bad' before, we're holding out hope the call setup issues (and delayed text messages) get better soon.

Hello everyone! I'm Elliot. My wife & i have been Sprint customers for 6+ years and don't want to leave Sprint (phones off contract soon) so this site has been helpful as we've been trying to determine what we will do.

Unlike most, I get a decent WiMax signal in my home and the area and it's generally available on my daily train rides into & out of the city. My issue has been the deterioration of 3G in my area (probably due to influx of iPhone users) and the battery life on my Evo 4G.

I'd consider a 4S on Sprint but the woeful 3G speed (and eminet arrival of the iPhone 5) gives me reason to pause.

Great site, great info, great updates!