MacPCS

That's pretty crazy data speed.

Just as an aside, how is Dallas now in terms of 3G? I'll be going there in mid-march and the maps look like it's coming together rather well - particularly LTE - which I can't use yet heh.

I agree with the minority on the need for HD Voice calls. For example, when you use FaceTime or Skype to make a call, the quality of audio is an order of magnitude better. Doesn't sound like it'd be that important, but if you're out on a business trip and you want to talk to your little baby kids then definitely you (and mores, they) can appreciate a more natural sounding conversation.

iPhone 4 and the 4S both support EV-DO Rev. A over 800Mhz and 1900Mhz. 5 supports Rev. B, but Sprint doesn't have that so sadly it goes to waste here.

Me too!

Sprint announced toward the end of december that Muskogee (and Ponca City, Stillwater, and a few more) are in progress. The sponsor section has more specifics on Oklahoma on the Maps, but Sprint has started to dip their big toe into the OK market and Muskogee is certainly going to be a part of that.

sounds like it's specifically for Clearwire... not sure of another domestic carrier that would be remotely interested in that. wouldn't that be something if their LTE rollout on 2500/2600 would be an expansion of WiMAX as well.

yeah there is an enormous amount of iPhone users. Getting 800Mhz LTE (and 2500/2600) would be a major help to Sprint. If they can get the next Evo, GS4 and iPhone 5S to have all of those... they're going to have a great head start on device penetration once their network vision is fully implemented. By that time, those will be the lower end of devices, but still incredibly popular in a couple years. Users would benefit immediately on network launches though, which basically makes it a win win. Hopefully they can make it happen in at least two of them.

could be when you're on the threshold of good vs. poor coverage (as reported by the bars). When you pick up the phone, a little bit of signal attenuation affects it just enough to cross that threshold so it appears worse than it is. Check the engineering test screen for a better indication.

Lots of folks are excited about an LTE Advanced network. Why not? It's the new hotness in cellular data technologies. I'm trying to get a better understanding of how in the real world it will impact us Sprint phone users. So the three key advantages of LTE Advanced (LTE Release 10) to my knowledge are as follows: Carrier Aggregation Improved Multiple antenna support better handling of additional nodes Not sure how much benefit from improved multiple antenna support we'll get on phones due to power requirements... maybe tablets and personal hotspots though? Carrier aggregation seems like the major real benefit for Sprint users. I know Sprint is doing a 5x5 deployment but will they use this aggregation support to combine their 800Mhz spectrum as well as their 2.5G from Clearwire? I'd think Clearwire wouldn't be able to do it regardless given that it's TDD and not FDD, is this correct? Most of you seem to have a far greater wealth of knowledge of all things cellular data, so I was hoping you could clarify some of the benefits we'll see in the real world. Yes, I know there have been other topics about LTE-Advanced, but none seem to really address what I'm trying to find out. Thanks.

yeah. Two in particular are regular sources of frustration. By 71st st and 169. The target and that area. All bit unusable 3G data. The other is on 61st st just west of Sheridan. My wife's family lives back in there and whenever we are over in that area 3G is useless. It's pathetic on all carriers there. VZW, AT&T and Sprint. Other than the freight elevator at work, it's the only place I've ever dropped a call on Sprint in the past decade.

Basically the pixels are so small and close together that at a "normal viewing distance" (read: not eyes on screen) you cannot discern individual pixels like you can on a normal LCD screen with the naked eye (hence, retina). I have a gorgeous 24" monitor I'm typing this on right now for example. I can tell the pixels have a small black space between all of them. On a retina display (iPhone 4 / 4S / 5, iPod Touch 4th or 5th gen, iPad 3rd or 4th gen or 13 or 15" MacBook Pro w/ retina display)... you cannot. It also tends to include other technologies like In-plane switching (IPS) that enhance the quality of the display, but the 'retina' part could exist without that (see iPod Touch 4th gen). I think I just met my daily quota of parenthetical statements.

Thanks for the clarification.

This I guess comes leads to the question: What makes one site ready and another not ready? Are they not all ready or is there something I'm missing?

I'm not disagreeing, I was just curious as to why not fix the most saturated sites first, rather than ones in communities (like, lets say Ardmore) that won't help as many customers get a better experience sooner. Yes obviously I want the whole thing fixed - I spend just enough time in smaller towns like Poteau (and even Muskogee) to care about them personally a great deal. It just - to me - makes more sense to attack the problem by prioritizing sites (regardless of location) that are the most overloaded first as that would seem to me to remedy some of the perception (and reality) of an overloaded and broken network sooner. This might even push Tulsa and OKC even farther down the list. I know when I was in LA a while back it was absolutely pathetic even trying to make a call (!) which is something I absolutely love about Sprint is my ability to make a call here is second to none. Again ultimately none of this academic discussion matters because it'll get completed regardless and I fully admit I know very little regarding the complexities of building an entirely new network from the ground up like the logistics of coordinating with contractors and vendors.

but they only announced that it's begun, whereas they've not said that re: OKC or Tulsa. not a big deal as it'll get done at some point anyway, but it's just a rather curious option and just for my curiosity's sake, I'd love to know the set of criteria that makes one town ready before another, or rather how they prioritize one town over another.

It's crazy to think that ardmore and Muskogee would get any action before Tulsa (or OKC) just given how overloaded the network is here. Stilwater and Lawton I get (OSU and Tinker AirForce Base, respectively). Yeah they don't do it based on pops or anything because of the scale of what they're doing.... but it'd be nice. Not to mention the perception would change far more rapidly which I promise you is hurting them in Tulsa at least.