Sprint LTE

[Illusions]

Sprint seems to be moving very slow in getting the LTE network up and running. Verizon and ATT at least a year ahead of Sprint...with many markets already on LTE.

Sprint plans 15 markets by mid 2012, 120 markets by end of 2012, and 260 markets by end of 2013. No detail plans have been published on which cities fall on the 2012 or 2013 roadmap -- so with only a few mentioned so far, has anyone heard anything regarding new markets to be announced soon.

Will you guys stay on Sprint if the top 2 competitors have speeds 20-40X faster (Sprint 3G vs Comp LTE)? You may have to wait 2 years on Sprint if your in a market to be upgraded in late 2013.

 

[Paul627g]

I will continue to stick it out with Sprint. Sure I would love to have Big Red's LTE speeds and coverage but like many I can't afford their packages when you have a multiphone family which quickly jacks the bill up fast on any carrier.

If Sprint can come in even close to Big Red's or AT & T's LTE speeds I will be happy. I think the move alone from Sprint's current bandwidth they are running on with Wimax to the newer, lower frequency with LTE should overall provide better coverage and building penetration which is something Sprint suffers in badly. Many times I'm in a store struggling to get a signal but yet the guy next to me on competing carriers is mult tasking on his device with no problem.

As for roll out on cities with LTE. I would hope Sprint is going to really push hard on getting good coverage as quickly as possible. The money being dumped into this transition is only going to be a profitable turn around if they can get the LTE market up and running in major cities and beyond fast and with as little service quality interruption to its current and new customers.

Plus there is this talk I heard in the past of Sprint eventually freeing up the current direct connect 800 mhz (I believe thats the freq.) that the Nextel device's used for years. They say once that is done LTE/3g can move to this frequency and again improve overall. As any previous Nextel direct connect users knows you could get two way talk in the worst of signal areas which made it so valuable. I hope this talk/rumor is true because it would be a life saver....

Going to be an interesting 12-24 months...

 

[benny3]

but isn't the direct connect and the 2 way that boost mobile use runs on IDEN, i know my friends that have boost get much better coverage than i do and $50 a month for unlimited and i for what i pay with sprint it sort of ticks me off just a little....lol
I live in Mich and sprint currantly has 4g in only 1 major city and no plans to expand now with talk of the LTE coming. for me i live in the northern part and more than likely never see anything more than the not so great coverage and slow speed 3g. i do agree that sprint has the best rates, im like you i have 4 devices on my account and could not afford the Big Red with data

I will continue to stick it out with Sprint. Sure I would love to have Big Red's LTE speeds and coverage but like many I can't afford their packages when you have a multiphone family which quickly jacks the bill up fast on any carrier.

If Sprint can come in even close to Big Red's or AT & T's LTE speeds I will be happy. I think the move alone from Sprint's current bandwidth they are running on with Wimax to the newer, lower frequency with LTE should overall provide better coverage and building penetration which is something Sprint suffers in badly. Many times I'm in a store struggling to get a signal but yet the guy next to me on competing carriers is mult tasking on his device with no problem.

As for roll out on cities with LTE. I would hope Sprint is going to really push hard on getting good coverage as quickly as possible. The money being dumped into this transition is only going to be a profitable turn around if they can get the LTE market up and running in major cities and beyond fast and with as little service quality interruption to its current and new customers.

Plus there is this talk I heard in the past of Sprint eventually freeing up the current direct connect 800 mhz (I believe thats the freq.) that the Nextel device's used for years. They say once that is done LTE/3g can move to this frequency and again improve overall. As any previous Nextel direct connect users knows you could get two way talk in the worst of signal areas which made it so valuable. I hope this talk/rumor is true because it would be a life saver....

Going to be an interesting 12-24 months...

 

[Paul627g]

Yes your correct about the direct connect, I had read that Sprint has been in the process with all their changes of moving the whole direct connect over to a different band thus in return freeing up that low end frequency which is supposed to be prime bandwidth for something like 3g & LTE...

Someone has better info on this, please do chime in and correct me... I just do recall reading something about this and it sounded very promising..

 

[prolongExistence]

Yes your correct about the direct connect, I had read that Sprint has been in the process with all their changes of moving the whole direct connect over to a different band thus in return freeing up that low end frequency which is supposed to be prime bandwidth for something like 3g & LTE...

Someone has better info on this, please do chime in and correct me... I just do recall reading something about this and it sounded very promising..

Yes, you are correct. Sprint plans to completely shut down the iDEN network in 2013. They have already introduced their new direct connect on their cdma network with the Motorola Admiral. The Admiral can DC on the new cdma CD network but is also backwards compatible with the iDEN DC network to help their existing customers migrate.

Their plan/theory is that they will be able to use the existing iDEN towers to provide LTE service rather than having to jump through government hoops and then spend money & time to build new towers. Also, by increasing the amount of towers on the network, they can in turn increase the number of customers connected without lag.

 

[Illusions]

Sprint is moving too slow. Sprint connection speeds are horrible and competitors are already on LTE in larger markets...this is a very bad recipe for Sprint.

Instead of focusing on network upgrades and migrating to LTE, they brought the Iphone to the network -- monumentally stupid execs. The Iphone may turn out to be the Sprint killer!

 

[dchawk81]

I'll believe it when I see it. Sprint made big promises with WiMax.

 

[Verdes8891]

I'll believe it when I see it. Sprint made big promises with WiMax.

Sprint made big promises with Wimax because of how well Clear was doing at the time. Now... well we all know how thats turning out.

 

[dchawk81]

Sprint made big promises with Wimax because of how well Clear was doing at the time. Now... well we all know how thats turning out.

It still falls on Sprint. I'm pessimistically hopeful that they pull through. The other carriers are far too evil to be the only ones standing.

 

[Droid800]

It still falls on Sprint. I'm pessimistically hopeful that they pull through. The other carriers are far too evil to be the only ones standing.

How does it fall on sprint that their network partner failed to deliver on their obligations?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Droid800]

Sprint is moving too slow. Sprint connection speeds are horrible and competitors are already on LTE in larger markets...this is a very bad recipe for Sprint.

Instead of focusing on network upgrades and migrating to LTE, they brought the Iphone to the network -- monumentally stupid execs. The Iphone may turn out to be the Sprint killer!

Sprint had 4g before everyone else. They just backed a standard and had the rug pulled out from under them by Verizon and others. (Verizon initially backed wimax) They made a smart decision initially, and got smacked by Verizon when it was too late to switch.

They've been working on network upgrades like expanded 3G and LTE for over three years, well before any negotiations for the iPhone took place. That's beside the fact that the way wireless companies are structured anything having to do with the iPhone would not have affected network upgrade decisions.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[SERO wireless]

Sprint is moving too slow. Sprint connection speeds are horrible and competitors are already on LTE in larger markets...this is a very bad recipe for Sprint.

Sprint is doing penance for past sins. Faced with fleeing customers and larger competitors rolling out 4G they took a shortcut instead. The plan was to come out with faster a 3G (WiMax) network before AT&T and Verizon could finish their networks and then be first to market, advertise their network as, "4G" and hope customers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Unfortunately, they did and left Sprint in droves. Sprint had no choice but to bite the bullet and build an LTE network.

At some point Dan Hesse went to Sprint's board to explain that the billions they had already spent on WiMax were gone, he'd need another $8 billion or so to build a new network, all their high-end phones in development would need to be scrapped and they would probably have to offer deep discounts on their existing high-end phones just to get them out of inventory. I wasn't at that meeting but I can assure you it wasn't pleasant.

Instead of focusing on network upgrades and migrating to LTE, they brought the Iphone to the network -- monumentally stupid execs. The Iphone may turn out to be the Sprint killer!

A national communications network doesn't turn on a dime. Just figuring out how to pay for the new network took a while - Sprint hasn't turned a profit since 2007. It isn't a matter of just flipping a few switches, there are 22,000 towers that need to be upgraded and 20,000 to be retired - that takes a while.

One way to pay for the new network is new customers. Sprint added 1.6 million of them last quarter. 720,000 of those customers (45%) chose an iPhone. Meanwhile, T-mobile lost 700,000 customers last quarter. T-mobile said they left mostly because they couldn't get iPhones. That's right, hundreds of thousands of customers left a great network to join one with data speeds comparable to a 800 baud dial-up connection just so they could get an iPhone. Overall, 40% of the phones Sprint sold in Q4 were iPhones.

If Sprint didn't get the iPhone there's a good chance that they would have lost customers in Q4. Without the revenue streams from the iPhone and the coming revenues from their iPhone 5 exclusivity agreement there's no way they could convince investors to give them the money they need for their network upgrade.

 

[dchawk81]

Sprint is just going through what AT&T went through 5 years ago.

I wasn't an AT&T customer then, but I'm sure it sucked just like it sucks to be a Sprint customer now. AT&T is better now, and Sprint will be in a couple years.

What I fear though, is Sprint may become as arrogant as AT&T once its network is competitive and follow the herd into tiered/capped data and high prices.

 

[li2327]

I'll deal with the lower data speeds to have unlimited data. I use way too much data to have to worry about going over.

 

[Illusions]

People leaving everyday because of slow and unreliable service. I don't want to move to ATT or Verizon due to cost, etc. but Sprint is making it hard to stay by not being competitive. I do not believe the Iphone has been positive for Sprint -- basically just spin by management and PR departments.

The only news on LTE is Atlanta....the rest of the country, no news. No way they meet the rollout plans for 2012 given how slow they are moving. All I ask is that they give us details on when we might see LTE in our respective areas, instead of keeping everyone in the dark.

 

[taronba25]

Whoa, you're on Sprint and you worry about data? it's 20-30 bucks well spent for the piece of mind. Nice picture too!

 

[smcolbert]

That's all well and good if you don't use much data. I'm away from wifi a majority of the day and use well over 2 gigs in just podcasts. Altogether I use 5-6 gigs a month, not a package or overage I want to pay.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

[chappo2000]

I think we need to be a little bit more understanding of Sprint's decision to go to wimax. First, Sprint needed to go to wimax when it did in order to utilize spectrum it would have otherwise lost. Not to mention at the time it made the decision to deploy LTE was not yet a viable technology. Yes, it turned out that LTE was better, and Sprint is doing the right thing. Is anyone critical of manufacturers for going to HD DVD instead of Blu-ray? Of course not. Consumers decided that blu-ray was the future of HD movies so manufacturers made the necessary u-turn.

If you want to get a heads up which LTE cities are likely first to deploy, there ARE educated rumors:

Network Vision/LTE Deployment Running List - Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

It's just in the best interest of Sprint to underpromise and over-deploy come 2013.

 

[crzycrkr]

I think we need to be a little bit more understanding of Sprint's decision to go to wimax. First, Sprint needed to go to wimax when it did in order to utilize spectrum it would have otherwise lost. Not to mention at the time it made the decision to deploy LTE was not yet a viable technology. Yes, it turned out that LTE was better, and Sprint is doing the right thing. Is anyone critical of manufacturers for going to HD DVD instead of Blu-ray? Of course not. Consumers decided that blu-ray was the future of HD movies so manufacturers made the necessary u-turn.

If you want to get a heads up which LTE cities are likely first to deploy, there ARE educated rumors:

Network Vision/LTE Deployment Running List - Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

It's just in the best interest of Sprint to underpromise and over-deploy come 2013.

Thank you voice of reason, lol. Also, remember people, just because coverage sucks by you doesn't mean that applies to everyone. I've been all over the country and have never had a problem. Its kinda like all the people that still cry about Sprint's customer service even though they have been ranked at the top for the last few years. Relax. Sprint is going in a good direction.

 

[dchawk81]

I think we need to be a little bit more understanding of Sprint's decision to go to wimax. First, Sprint needed to go to wimax when it did in order to utilize spectrum it would have otherwise lost. Not to mention at the time it made the decision to deploy LTE was not yet a viable technology. Yes, it turned out that LTE was better, and Sprint is doing the right thing. Is anyone critical of manufacturers for going to HD DVD instead of Blu-ray? Of course not. Consumers decided that blu-ray was the future of HD movies so manufacturers made the necessary u-turn.

If you want to get a heads up which LTE cities are likely first to deploy, there ARE educated rumors:

Network Vision/LTE Deployment Running List - Sprint 4G Rollout Updates

It's just in the best interest of Sprint to underpromise and over-deploy come 2013.

No one would criticize Sprint for WiMax if they didn't tack on $10 for it and provide it to very few areas. And if you were to argue that it's not a 4G tax - you'd only be right because it's not a 4G tax now. It started out as one, then Sprint did a 180 and applied it to all smart phones so that they could collect more rather than be forced to refund.

So yeah, WiMax itself wasn't dumb per se but adding a $10 fee and not rolling it out fast was dumb...and it left a lot of people feeling burned since they locked in for 2 years on a 4G device that'll never get a 4G connection.

Oh and you can bet your butt that people who bought an expensive HD DVD player and collection of disks are feeling rather bitter since it's no longer supported. On the plus side, they didn't lock in a two year contract that prevented them from moving on.