Is Sprint really Floundering?

Mikey47

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No, those are not small markets, but the problem is that Sprint isn't fully deploying LTE in those markets like Verizon or AT&T has done. Instead they turn on a little here and there which results in sporadic coverage until they get more areas turned up. This adds to the frustration of those who want LTE. They hear a market has been turned up, but the coverage is anything but solid. In comparison, Verizon and to a lesser extent AT&T didn't actually turn up LTE until the vast majority or the entire metro area was ready, thus in effect blanketing the area with coverage and leaving no question that LTE service was turned up. I experienced this first hand in Birmingham, AL where the April 2011 tornados destroyed some cell towers west and northwest of the metro area. Instead of turning up LTE on the unaffected areas and working on the damaged ones, they delayed turning it up by six months until all the towers were ready. I understand Sprint doesn't really have that luxury at this point, but at the same time the way they're turning up LTE is frustrating end users.

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't argument.

So, you would rather have everyone wait 8 months so they could turn LTE on for everyone instead of turning it on piece by piece?

Look how everyone is screaming now can you just imagine how they would be crucified if they said "Hey trust us, we have 80% of <insert location name> covered, but we are waiting until we finish that last 20% before we turn it on."
 

Mellimel22

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Thank u lol. Sprint is doing some thing NO other carrier has done. Rebuild the whole infrastructure tower by tower. And FYI when sprint started lte here in Chicago it started with more lte towers operational than att and vzw

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cgardnervt

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Thank u lol. Sprint is doing some thing NO other carrier has done. Rebuild the whole infrastructure tower by tower. And FYI when sprint started lte here in Chicago it started with more lte towers operational than att and vzw

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Thats great and all but the fact still remains. Att and Verizon's back bones are years ahead of Sprint's still. Until this is fix or they until they have 100% LTE coverage the rest will remain in Sprint's Shadow. Its cut and dry. I left Sprint last summer for att and the network truly is A LOT better. However I know the can depend heavily on location.
 

Mellimel22

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Thats great and all but the fact still remains. Att and Verizon's back bones are years ahead of Sprint's still. Until this is fix or they until they have 100% LTE coverage the rest will remain in Sprint's Shadow. Its cut and dry. I left Sprint last summer for att and the network truly is A LOT better. However I know the can depend heavily on location.

Bro att is STILL announcing new markets and their coverage here in Chicago is a pure joke especially there lte coverage. Vzw isn't 100% either.

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bearballz72

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Well it really it depends where you are. When I was on At&t 2+ years ago, the 3G coverage really sucked in Chicago. My GF has At&t and she can barely get a good LTE signal in the Loop. Out in the 'burbs At&t is pretty good.

Same can be said with Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon etc. It's all about location. Right now Chicago is the largest metro area in the country with the highest completion rate for Sprints rollout of Network Vision. It's not perfect, but if the Speedtest below is any indication of what hopefully Sprint customers can look forward to within the next year or two. I'd say Sprint is on the right track and people will begin to notice.

350218842.png
 

cgardnervt

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Bro att is STILL announcing new markets and their coverage here in Chicago is a pure joke especially there lte coverage. Vzw isn't 100% either.

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus rockin 4.2.1 using Tapatalk 2

First of all I didn't say anything about att's LTE market. As far as I see it att's LTE is not to far ahead of Sprint. Would you please re-read my post? Thanks

In case you don't here is what was said. Sprint's BACK BONE is the issue. So that would be Sprint's 3G towers. So is you take the 3 companies and look at their 3G speeds you have the following where I live...

Sprint - Where I live your lucky to get 400K on a great day. If you want screen shots I will have my co-work's Evo take one for you.

Verizon - They are also CDMA like Sprint. But their speeds are more in the 1 meg range here in VT. In some cases higher or slower but not by much.

ATT - HSPA+. I can get up to 10meg in my area here in the middle of no where Vermont!

So its not a flame to Sprint its a fact and nothing to I would take to heart either. However if you live in an LTE Market of Sprint's then take advantage of it! After all they are the cheapest of the 3 companies. Your location may vary in speeds. So you may be one of the lucky few in a good Sprint 3G area. If you are again take advantage of it. But that does not change Sprint's network rep as a whole sadly.
 

Mellimel22

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Well where I live all the gsm carriers is horrible indoors but great data outside

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Mitri360

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And you just contradicted yourself. How can you say no 3G in 5 years when you only been with Sprint for 2 years? I've been with Sprint for 16 years before there was even a Verizon Wireless or AT&T wireless. By the way, "Droid" is just a VZW marketing name. Some of the problems Sprint was having over the years is because of VZW and the name it was previous to becoming VZW of today was it wasn't honoring It's roaming agreements and still isn't today. You think redoing your entire network is going to be like what VZW and AT&T doing LTE on another frequency that no one else in the world uses in which LTE roaming agreements will be totally useless. Then turn around and tell there Unlimited customers, no more perks and unlimited is what we say it is, so after 3gb on AT&T you're throttled and VZW makes you pay there retail price on phones which is msrp + 50 dollar mark up just to keep your unlimited in which they could take it away at anytime because after 2 years you are not on a contract anymore. Then there is the restrictions and crap on AT&T and VZW phones that drive people crazy at times, and how long was it after Sprint that VZW and AT&T released the updates for the same models Sprint has.

Then there are the people that say Sprint should have started LTE instead of Wimax, but at the time Sprint and Clear was bringing out Wimax there was no LTE for at least 18 months. so that theory get's thrown out the door, and then the restrictions the FCC placed on Wimax limiting it too a 5mhz carrier while letting AT&T and VZW build LTE with 10 MHz carriers even though Sprint and Clear had enough spectrum to do 10 MHz + carriers in which when they do start rolling over the wimax network and turning it into LTE-TDD, in which they will have 10-20 MHz carriers in the 2500/2600 mhz bands and have roaming in Asia along with it. For now Sprint is rolling out 1X-Advanced on there 800 SMR frequencies while at the same time redoing there 3G network and putting up LTE-FD on there 1900mhz pcs bands. which is 1 of the reasons why Sprint can go with a embedded sim card in there LTE phones because it is on the same frequency as there 3G instead of being like VZW and AT&T on the 700mhz bands.

i should have clarified. i was with virgin mobile(sprint) for 1 yr, and i have been with sprint officially for 2 yrs. what i meant by the "droid" name was the smartphone in general. each company had their own around the same times. 2007 was the 1st iphone when att started to realize there was a smartphone market for consumers as well as business. motorola Droid was vzw big beginner smartphone when they realized. sprint had the blackberry and palm which were branching to regular comsumer markets as well as business. yes sprint was the 1st to make an advance in the network upgrade game(with Wimax) and were hampered by the fcc. but that doesn't make sense as to why at this point in time there are still so many markets that don't even have evdo service from sprint. LTE may not have came around for another yr. i'm aware of that also. but what i'm saying is that 3g has been around for long enough that they have seen the need to improve and haven't before now. Wimax could have been rolled out to more markets better than it was before they stopped pushing it out.

everyone is aware that the nextel merger could have been handled alot better. they could have done something with that spectrum and space before now. they had a 51% stake in clearwire since the begining and were and still are the majority of clearwire business. they could have thrown that weight around and pushed for more from them. when lte became an obvious winner in the 4g wars they could have/should have done what they're doing now and build out their own lte network instead of waiting around for that lte from that other company(i don't remember their name but the lte that effected gps signal). all the next generation network preperation could have been done while finishing the roll out of their already aging and unfinished 3g network.

even with all of these network issues and transitions they could have came out on top. there are phone modems that are capable of doing 3g, wimax, and lte. they themselves even sold(idk if they still do) a wireless hotspot with that capability available so that people had something at all times while they're in their transition stage. why couldn't that have been done for their phones while they're in this transition? the area i'm in currently has clearwire but i have an lte only phone. my gs2 has better speeds than my s3. makes no sense to me. as to why they let this go on.
 

bearballz72

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Look I think everyone knows the past screw ups Sprint has made, along with all the other carriers. Again hindsight is always 20/20. The fact is that with the deal with Softbank they now have the capital to invest more money in the Network Vision rollout. Plus with their controlling interest in Clearwire, they now control more spectrum than any other carrier (including At&t and Verizon) in the country, although it's not useable for the current crop of LTE enabled phones yet.

I think Hesse has them going in the right direction. It may not be a quick as some folks want it to go but going back to my original post, I just don't know what else they can do.
 
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gameaddict8

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Engadget had a good solution. Wimax hotspots for customers in the network transition.

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Ry

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Well it really it depends where you are. When I was on At&t 2+ years ago, the 3G coverage really sucked in Chicago. My GF has At&t and she can barely get a good LTE signal in the Loop. Out in the 'burbs At&t is pretty good.

Same can be said with Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon etc. It's all about location. Right now Chicago is the largest metro area in the country with the highest completion rate for Sprints rollout of Network Vision. It's not perfect, but if the Speedtest below is any indication of what hopefully Sprint customers can look forward to within the next year or two. I'd say Sprint is on the right track and people will begin to notice.

http://www.speedtest.net/android/350218842.png

And one location doesn't instantly change the "floundering" perception.
 

Ry

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Look I think everyone knows the past screw ups Sprint has made, along with all the other carriers. Again hindsight is always 20/20. The fact is that with the deal with Softbank they now have the capital to invest more money in the Network Vision rollout. Plus with their controlling interest in Clearwire, they now control more spectrum than any other carrier (including At&t and Verizon) in the country, although it's not useable for the current crop of LTE enabled phones yet.

I think Hesse has them going in the right direction. It may not be a quick as some folks want to go but going back to my original post, I just don't what else they can do.

I think everyone knows that Sprint is finally headed in the right direction with Network Vision, shutting down Nextel, buying up Clearwire, and getting an infusion of cash from Softbank. But until all of those efforts are complete, it's going to be hard for Sprint to break that "floundering" stigma. We'll see as earning reports come in throughout the year. Sprint needs to show that it can gain and hold onto subscribers.
 

thenameisnigel

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Sprint's been at this, what 8-10 months (?) and you already have some pretty large metro areas covered. Hindsight always being 20/20, Sprint should of been rolling out LTE instead of Wimax. Now they're playing catch up.

Clear handled the WiMAX rollout. Sprint tried to invest in an outdated technology. LTE didn't come around until the rollout of WiMAX in which kinda messed up Sprint a bit.

But I love Sprint's CS, I love WiMAX at the moment, that's why I'm not upgrading to an LTE enabled device yet. LTE hasn't rolled out to my area so there's no need to get a new phone if I'm going to have to use Sprint's 3G (or as I call it, 2.5G). It's a stepup from 1xRTT though, but I have faster speeds when I'm roaming rather than using Sprint's 3G. But that's because we didn't get the NV upgrades yet.
 

bearballz72

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And one location doesn't instantly change the "floundering" perception.

It does when you live in that location. I'm not out to defend Sprint by any means, I have no incentive except to expect good service at a reasonable price. I've had my issues with them just as other customers have had issues with their carrier.

Like I said I think their heading in the right direction under Hesse. Things are looking up in the area where I live and I hope it spreads to other places. :)
 
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Mellimel22

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It does when you live in that location. I'm not out to defend Sprint by any means, I have no incentive except to expect good service at a reasonable price. I've had my issues with them just as other customers have had issues with their carrier.

Like I said I think their heading in the right direction under Hesse. Things are looking up in the area where I live and I hope it spreads to other places. :)

+1 that

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Mellimel22

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How bout two people in Chicago lol

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makaroni

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When I was on AT&T they went through the same situation with their LTE network rollout. It was terrible (especially in downtown Chicago) and customers complained like crazy. They now love it.

I don't think AT&T was selling LTE capable phones yet though before they rolled out the service. That's my problem with Sprint. To me the LTE capable phones do not perform well on a network without LTE. I had a terrible experience on their network with the GS3 and left

My GS3 sleeps in the bed and I make my girlfriend sleep on the couch
 

Paul627g

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I've had my share of complaints with Sprint over the years ( roughly 8-9 yrs now) but when it comes down to it I have unlimited data which is a huge bonus for me with 3 daughters on cell phones.. LTE has been slow going but when your doing a complete overhaul of your network its expected. LTE upgrade in Chicago is somewhere around 60 % complete and not bad for the most part. I'm running a Sprint Galaxy Nexus and so is my daughter then my wife has a SGS 3 and LTE works great for us. My other two daughters have my old Epic 4g running off Wimax (4g) and the black sheep of the family has the iPhone 4.

If Sprint would just get their 3g improved to match the other carriers I wouldn't really have a complaint in the world.

At one time Sprint was top of the mountain, these days its been Verizon and AT&T. I'm sure given time Sprint could make a run at the top 2 spots again.

Floundering though? I don't see it... If anyone is floundering I see Verizon hurting more as time goes by with their poor treatment of customers, removal of unlimited packages and slow agonizing waits for updates on their most popular phones.