Previous Sprint users: Throttled 2G Vs. Sprint 3G

[vincentallen2]

So with T-mobile gaining alot of popularity from its pre-paid "Monthly 4G" plans and turning Sprint users into believers, and i was wondering how are the data speeds? I know that the $30 and $70 plan (the one I'm interested in) have speeds throttled to 2G after 5gbs, but even after it being throttled down, and is it still faster than Sprint's 3g speeds (in your previous experiences and area/s). I'm a Sprint user in Los Angeles, CA and im getting 3G data speeds about (literally) .5mbs per second. It may seem unbelievable, but i could take video of app downloads if need be. I'm dead serious.

I'm kind of directing this to previous Sprint users or new Sprint users that jumped ship from t-mobile, please but others are welcome to to chime in. And if you could, can you please state what state and city your residing in. Thank you

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[whatsitsname]

No TMobile 2g speed is much slower than Sprint 3g. I was using both at the same time.

Sprint 3g = .1-.5
TMobile 2g = .07

You can forget about using TMobile for normal web browsing or streaming. Most you can do is text browsing with a mobile browser like "Opera"

I'm in Sac, CA

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[vincentallen2]

No TMobile 2g speed is much slower than Sprint 3g. I was using both at the same time.

Sprint 3g = .1-.5
TMobile 2g = .07

You can forget about using TMobile for normal web browsing or streaming. Most you can do is text browsing with a mobile browser like "Opera"

I'm in Sac, CA

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Wow, that kinda sucks. So you think Sprint is better overall? I average around 5-10 gigs a month, so that is a pretty big eye opener for me.

Could you elaborate more on your browsing situation? I've never heard of text browsing, the thing that comes to mind is loading a Web Page w/o pictures. If that's the case, I'm really shocked. I didn't even know a carrier could restrict features like that.

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[whatsitsname]

You misunderstood. They don't restrict features. I'm just saying that the speed is so slow anything with pics in it takes forever to load. That is why I recommend Opera browser as it is very light.

Depends on how fast Sprint is for you. For me Sprint is pretty dreadful at .1 to .5 where I live. It used to be over 1mbps before the iPhone was released. I'm going to t-mobile as they have much faster speed on HSPA+. I did not consider them until they announced their truly unlimited data plan last month.

I use between 10 to 40 GBs a month during sport season.

 

[tube517]

No TMobile 2g speed is much slower than Sprint 3g. I was using both at the same time.

Sprint 3g = .1-.5
TMobile 2g = .07

You can forget about using TMobile for normal web browsing or streaming. Most you can do is text browsing with a mobile browser like "Opera"

I'm in Sac, CA

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

My boost speeds were pitiful. 50 kbps up 40 kbps down. T mobile's 2g would be faster!

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[Darrkman]

Left Sprint this year for tmobile. While Sprint is HORRIBLE on Long Island its still better than the 2G on Tmobile. However the HSPA+ on Tmobile us killer in NYC.

Sent from my HTC One S

 

[terminalinfinity]

Comparing the two technologies isnt fair. However T-mobile's prepaid kills virgin mobile (Sprint MVDO). I was getting about 200kbps at night where I work. Now I'm on T-mobile and get 2-7MbPS. Coverage is way better too.

 

[tube517]

It is fair. If one sucks in your area and one is better then what question is there if it is cut and dry.

 

[chunkcohen]

I just tested EDGE in Tempe, AZ on my G-Nex on T-Mobile (by turning off Wi-Fi and enabling "2G data only") and this is what I got. It's actually about the same as I used to get with Sprint 3G most of the time. But YMMV, depending on your area.

 

[vincentallen2]

I just tested EDGE in Tempe, AZ on my G-Nex on T-Mobile (by turning off Wi-Fi and enabling "2G data only") and this is what I got. It's actually about the same as I used to get with Sprint 3G most of the time. But YMMV, depending on your area.


View attachment 42372

Thanks for testing out the 2G speeds. I was wondering that if my Sprint 3g speeds were about the same as T-Mobile 2g speeds, then buying an unlocked T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 and using the monthly 4g plan (pre-paid) would just be a more wiser decision. T-Mobile seems to seems to have better coverage and the T-Mobile variant has all the GSM bands for almost any GSM carrier (from what I've heard).

I just did a speed test, and my Sprint 3g speeds were actually worse than your T-Mobile 2g speeds.

If all goes as planned, I more than likely will be a new T-Mobile monthly 4g customer

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[chunkcohen]

Thanks for testing out the 2G speeds. I was wondering that if my Sprint 3g speeds were about the same as T-Mobile 2g speeds, then buying an unlocked T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 and using the monthly 4g plan (pre-paid) would just be a more wiser decision. T-Mobile seems to seems to have better coverage and the T-Mobile variant has all the GSM bands for almost any GSM carrier (from what I've heard).

I just did a speed test, and my Sprint 3g speeds were actually worse than your T-Mobile 2g speeds. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/10/22/uny9a7e2.jpg

If all goes as planned, I more than likely will be a new T-Mobile monthly 4g customer

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I haven't regretted my decision yet. I just paid for my second month last Friday ($60 plan). I'm saving over $30/mo. over Sprint and the 2GB threshold seems to be working fine for me (I used like 800MB last month).

 

[chunkcohen]

Thanks for testing out the 2G speeds. I was wondering that if my Sprint 3g speeds were about the same as T-Mobile 2g speeds, then buying an unlocked T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 and using the monthly 4g plan (pre-paid) would just be a more wiser decision. T-Mobile seems to seems to have better coverage and the T-Mobile variant has all the GSM bands for almost any GSM carrier (from what I've heard).

I just did a speed test, and my Sprint 3g speeds were actually worse than your T-Mobile 2g speeds. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/10/22/uny9a7e2.jpg

If all goes as planned, I more than likely will be a new T-Mobile monthly 4g customer

Sent from my PH44100 using Tapatalk 2

I haven't regretted my decision yet. I just paid for my second month last Friday ($60 plan). I'm saving over $30/mo. over Sprint and the 2GB threshold seems to be working fine for me (I used about 800MB last month).

 

[terminalinfinity]

It is fair. If one sucks in your area and one is better then what question is there if it is cut and dry.

No really?.
Seriously though, its obvious if you get solid sprint 3G service in your area and spotty 4G T-mobile coverage. However this was comparing slow 3G sprint coverage to T-mobile Edge, a 2G or Second generation technology, which isnt fair if your trying to say "T-mobiles Edge isnt faster than sprint's 3g so I'll choose sprint".

As a former Virgin mobile user (Sprint MVDO) who is now on the Monthy4G, I can attest that indeed Sprint's SLOW 3G can best EDGE on even a congested day. However the overall functionality of the networks is night and day. 50KB-200KB/Sec. constantly is much worse than 5GB of 3-7MB/Sec and then ~10KBs unlimited/30Month.

 

[Ticojpunk]

Sprint 3G is pretty lackluster, but T-Mobile Edge is much worse. Any time I see I am in an area with Edge (fortunately doesn't happen too often), I don't bother using anything needing data. It really is enough for your email to sync when it needs to but not much else.

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[blackcaneaddict]

Agreed. If i had to choose between Sprints unlimited slow 3g speeds or t-mobiles 5gb high speed Internet, Sprint would win hands down. Im with Virgin Mobile and even when they slow my speeds down to 225kb it's still possible to do anything that you would normally be able to do at regular 3g speeds. Only slightly taking a little longer.

Not so much when you're cut down from 4g speed to 2g speeds with t-mobile. You may be able to stream music, but that's about it. That's also depending if you're getting good signal as well.

On the other end Sprints 2g speeds are so bad that their not even worth talking about. (yes, that bad).

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[terminalinfinity]

Agreed. If i had to choose between Sprints unlimited slow 3g speeds or t-mobiles 5gb high speed Internet, Sprint would win hands down. Im with Virgin Mobile and even when they slow my speeds down to 225kb it's still possible to do anything that you would normally be able to do at regular 3g speeds. Only slightly taking a little longer.

Not so much when you're cut down from 4g speed to 2g speeds with t-mobile. You may be able to stream music, but that's about it. That's also depending if you're getting good signal as well.

On the other end Sprints 2g speeds are so bad that their not even worth talking about. (yes, that bad).

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I disagree. Last month I was only on EDGE for 2 days before my billing cycle started again. EDGE can do most anything that doesnt involve streaming or downloading media, just takes a while. Like checking my facebook or browsing the news. And I have the option to renew early if I wanted to and restart my cycle and data. Even if I renewed every 3 weeks, I would still be paying $1.49 a day for service on the $30 plan. Not too much more than $1.25/ a day service for the full 4 weeks of throttled 3G speeds in the $35 virgin mobile plan.

And the reason I chose to switch from virgin to t-mobile was the functionality. Sprint's 3G was so unstable and spotty in my area, I couldn't use it. Netflix would buffer no matter how much data I had used, so did youtube. I regularly clocked sub-100KBs speeds on speed test. Why pay for "high-speed" data if you can't use it for high-speed purposes?

 

[blackcaneaddict]

It definitely sounds like you made the right choice to switch then. At around 100kb you might as well call that 2g speeds.

My experience with their 3g network was alot better always staying in the upper 200kb range. That was always good enough to watch Netflixs with minimum buffering.

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[tube517]

No really?.
Seriously though, its obvious if you get solid sprint 3G service in your area and spotty 4G T-mobile coverage. However this was comparing slow 3G sprint coverage to T-mobile Edge, a 2G or Second generation technology, which isnt fair if your trying to say "T-mobiles Edge isnt faster than sprint's 3g so I'll choose sprint".

As a former Virgin mobile user (Sprint MVDO) who is now on the Monthy4G, I can attest that indeed Sprint's SLOW 3G can best EDGE on even a congested day. However the overall functionality of the networks is night and day. 50KB-200KB/Sec. constantly is much worse than 5GB of 3-7MB/Sec and then ~10KBs unlimited/30Month.

I don't dispute what you are saying. My point is what's good for you may suck for others.

As I stated earlier, my Sprint "3G" was and still is horrible. So, I can attest IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, Sprint's 3G was no better and sometimes even worse than Tmobile's 2G.

 

[Mark Friedman1]

you people obviously don't know what you're talking about I have been doing searches all weekend on my sprint phone and it takes 20 seconds or more for results to come back with T Mobile it's always instant

 

[moonoverparma00]

Left Sprint this year for tmobile. While Sprint is HORRIBLE on Long Island its still better than the 2G on Tmobile. However the HSPA+ on Tmobile us killer in NYC.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/10/11/ajepega9.jpg

Sent from my HTC One S

That's Verizon speed right there!!!