Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I bought my EVO June 4th, 2010. That was a 0002 and I am up to a 0004 now. I bought my daughter the same for Christmas.

I live north of Atlanta, GA and when I got the phone, I was given a coverage map that showed I lived just outside of the 4G area but I was assured the map was outdated so my home was probably covered. Of course, this is cutting edge technology so expect things to be a little bumpy for a while until ALL the towers get upgraded blah, blah, blah

When I went home, I would see a hint of 4G on the porch. Hardly enough bandwidth to run a successful SpeedNet. Sometimes when I did, I would get a 6.5 Meg down and about 1 meg up but nothing to write home about. I always turn on WiFi in the house, anyhow.
But I worked in Sandy Springs in Atlanta so I was pretty sure I would get good 4G there. It is densely populated and the home of UPS, where I was a programmer.

So, I get to my desk and crank up 4G. No cigar. Now I am 20 feet from a window since I am a contractor and only REAL UPS'er get to see the light of day. But I hike over to the window and I have 4G!!! So I stand there playing with the bandwidth but it is spotty and dropping out. I am 7 stories high in one of the largest cities in the Southeast but 4G is nothing but a novelty toy. I turn it off and connect to the highly restricted WiFi.

But in the car, out from the mean rooftops, I am sure I am going to be in Bandwidth heaven. I turn on 4G and after about 30 seconds, it acquires and I start streaming Talk Radio. There is Rush Limbaugh beating up on commies, just like I like. But he drops out and WunderRadio hangs. I dick around again and get him back up but if I drive 50 feet, it drops. This goes on for a half hour and then I switch it off and stream 3G. 3G gets the job done but I am paying 4G premium for 2 phones.

Being the generous guy I am, I don't whine to Sprint. I figure it'll take some time. Rome wasn't built in a day and nothing is guranteed except Shipping and Handling. I am a pretty accepting kinda guy. But every now and then, I crank up the old 4G, just to see if something has changed. Sometimes I am in a new city, getting off the plane. Maybe these people are the lucky ones. But, if anything, it seems to have gotten worse.

Then a co-worker comes to work with his ThunderBolt!! He runs Speednet and out of the box, he is getting 40 MB down!!! I actually tether to him and get like 15 down!! He is on LTE, of course. He has to pay for data after a level. But his works. I tell him, no I curse him, "your bandwidth will slow, my son" after everyone else gets on but that was over six months ago. True, he is not hitting 40 and has to suffer a reliable 25 MB deep inside the bowels of the building.

Some are there any Sprint users here that truly get a reliable, usable and solid 4G without hugging a window or sitting under the stars, perfectly still on a moonless night? Or have we been taken to the cleaners?

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I find 4G to be an utter disappointment. Sprint should be ashamed of that service and the premium they charge.

Even worse, when 4G loses signal (very often) most software apps I run (especially streaming) crash or run into problems switching networks (4 to 3g)

One thing though - the data caps on 4G LTE are going to KILL people. 40mbs down sucks up bandwidth pretty quick. I can't wait to see the fallout from that one.

Also, speed tests vs real implemented speed - that's what i want to see.

My 4g is more like no g....im in houston an can use it outside, but inside...yeah right..

Sent from my PC36100 on the PPCGeeks App

I say quit bitching and be thankful you have something. I pay 20 bucks extra a month for the evo and the nexus and the closest large city to us isn't even on the road map for another year.

Sent from my PC36100 on the PPCGeeks App

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I must admit I get descent 4G coverage at work and home. But the nationwide roll out has been a joke. This is the main reason I will not upgrade until I know definitively what there long term 4G strategy is. Wimax coverage is way too spotty. Try downloading something and if you lose 4G signal, the downloads drop when it switches to 3g.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

works fine for my, just as fast as my comcast cable and alot cheaper. honestly what do you expect, at 2.5ghz signal propagation sucks. the agreement with lightsquared should bring some better 4g action, and the consolidation of ppt/iden services to cdma will free up some extra spectrum to improve 3g service.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I expect it to work after paying a premium for two phones for over a year. This may be a shocker but I have to deliver what I promise. I am a contrzct programmer and I work off specifications. If, at the end of a agreed upon period of time, I do not deliver what I agreed upon, I have to start making concessions.
I expect to get what I have paid for.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

At work(near Atlanta) I get 6mb/s down from speednet.. However, at my house (in buford) I get jack for 4g. I'm 5 stories up at work and not near a window.

I am dissapointed I can only use it at work and it cost's an extra $10/M for the Unlimited data plan when I can only use 3g at my house.

Also, Sugar Hill? I live like 15 minutes from you. :P

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Part of the problem is CDMA's inability to penetrate buildings effectively, which is why you can go to your window and get a fair signal but not inside your house. I've had issues with it for many years.
Interesting thing about my house is that its wood frame construction with brick and hardboard siding. However, under the siding is 1" thick foam panels with foil backing on them.
I get almost NO signal inside my house unless I stand in front of a window and I can get a margianl signal. Outside, I'm at full signal and even get 4G on my EVO. Step back inside and its gone. This is one of the reasons sprint has provided me with an airave and now and Airvana - which does 3G but not 4. With the Airvana on, I get great phone and data (no 4G) but if I switch it off, the signal is gone.
The interesting thing is, I can stand on my deck in my back yard and see a tower that according to the many available tower maps, is a Sprint tower. There are others that are all close to me as well.
Sorry to go on and on...
The end result is - and I was told this in other threads in the past - is that CDMA really can't penetrate buildings well and GSM can. I guess thats why when my kids have friends over, they get perfect reception in my house with their GSM phones.

David

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Yea, I have an Airave in my house too. works better then airvana imo.

I remember where I used to work we were a VZW partner and their reps came in when they were launching their LTE network and of the info they laid down on us, the one that no one seemed to latch on to (which i found most interesting and better than WiMax) was when they explained that the best thing about LTE was that it has a no-interruption handoff back to 3G. As in if you were doing something on LTE like streaming and you leave LTE coverage, the network would do a soft handoff back to 3G without any interruption in the data.

I didn't think much of it then until I rememberd how abysmal my experience was with WiMax where I go a few blocks in my neighbourhood, lose WiMax, get disconnected from whatever I was doing and then wait eons for either 3G to pick up again or for 4G to reconnect from Zzzzing.

Oddly enough, I observe that 4G USB WiMax modems (I tested Clear service for a while as well, also sold them too) seem to reconnect faster to a lost 4G signal than phones.

Sent from my SCH-I800 using Tapatalk

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

4G is a myth to me since there is no 4G ANYWHERE in indiana that I know of. Its just a joke it seems.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

4G what the hell is that? I bought the Evo when it first came out, along with one for my Wife and Dad. I have been spending an extra $30 a month and have not once seen 4G, not at work and not at home, and neither has my Wife or Dad. The worst thing is our average speed on the crappy 3G is between 46kbps and 128kbps. This is in Riverside, CA. The area is surrounded by 4G coverage and somehow Sprint forgot about us. I wouldnt be that upset if it wasnt for the fact that when I bought the phones Sprint told me it would be coming to the area soon, and the 5 times I talked to them since its the same shit, last time they told me June.

4G sucks. That's why they couldn't keep the 10$ premium data charge to just 4G phones. On a good day i get 5-6 mps. It is constantly dropping in and out though. Maybe it will get better. I guess sprint is the cheapest so i guess u can't complain too much. Unlimited is misleading but at least we don't get charged after a certain amount.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

You are just down the street!!
You know another thing? That unlimited data is only for 4G data!!!! I was snooping around through my plan one day and noticed the fine print. I don't know what the data cap is on 3G ir if it is even published but I distinctly remember seeing the words, "Unlimited 4G Data". Now, if ALL data was not unlimited, why specify 4G. That concerned me because I stream talk radio all day. Even when on teh Harley. I make it a point to switch to WiFi just in case. I don't want to get some freaky $42,000 bill because I left my phone streaming for a month.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Are you talking "unlimited data" plans?

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Are you paying extra for it?

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Yeah, I have opne of those "All"plans.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

AFAIK I own it. And I haven't seen any extra charges as of yet, had it for about 3ish months now


We have the Unlimited data/texts + 1500 minutes family plans and so far no extra 'sacktapping' bills have come yet.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

How did you get the Airwave? My daughter is going to ABAC and she has to walk to a special place on campus, just to call. Her coverage is horrible.
Do you pay extra for it?

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

My bad, it's the Airvana Airwave. I think we pay a $5/month fee for it but going from dropping calls to 4bar signal is worth it. It costs to obtain IIRC $100. My company sprint rep sent us one, this is it on sprints site. Might have to call sprint and tell them you need a booster.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I haven't posted in a while but I had to log in and reply to this post. I have to admit that, like the OP, I had high hopes for 4g. Now I don't even turn it on anymore. Whenever I turn it on, it doesn't seem to work any faster than the 3G (which is also very slow compared to other carriers) AND it drains my battery in a couple hours. It's too bad but I think sprint made a really bad investment with Wimax on this frequency. They should have waited until they turned off the IDEN network and used that spectrum for 4G. I'm afraid the current offering is never going to amount to more than a gimmick.

That said, I've got almost 10 years with Sprint and two SERO Premium plans. I'm probably going to stick with Sprint and continue using WIFI as much as possible for the foreseeable future. Sure wish we had real 4G though.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

Thanks guy. Maybe I will make the leap.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I think gimmick is the best description. They touted 4G across the fruited plains, knowing full well that it would never be more than a novelty.

I just crossed the 10 yr mark and I think that makes me a platinum user. I was told I was a white-glove user because I have never had a late payment. I am one of those chumps that stays pretty loyal and probably will stay with sprint.

BUT - we just dropped Charter for ATT. $40/month savings, better bandwidth and more HD stations. So them Sprint people better watch out!!

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

airave's are 129.99 upfront, there is no monthly reoccurring charge and there is a 2 years contract. granted if you didn't want it you could just shove it in the closet. some stores have them on hand, all corporate stores can order them for you.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

before I did the OTA with tethering I racked up an average of 9gb a month with no issues on 3g.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

moved to Carrier Discussions. Good thread. Sprint needs to realize that many are frustrated with this.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I called Sprint about how slow my 3G was, I'm pulling like 15kbps down and up, at the end of the call the Sprint rep had the nerve to ask me to give him a good rating on a survery and I told him no I wouldn't because you didn't fix anything and I'm still pushing and pulling the same amount of data he said hold on and talked to his supervisor and they said they would send me an Airvana free of charge, I knew that wasn't going to fix the issue but agreed as it wouldn't of hurt and plus I wasn't going to have to pay for it. The Airvana is supposed to be good for up to 5k feet and it's supposed to be good for data and voice, voice seems to be good with it, but the data still sucks bad.

Our towers in my area are overloaded with to many people and that's the reason the service is slow as hell, they know about the issue and they were supposed to upgrade the towers by the end of June, but the techs that were supposed to do that got pulled because a larger market was having issues, I have had this same issue since February, have called in constantly to complain so there is a record of shitty service, what did suck about this is that I always had to go through the usual b.s. of troubleshooting the phone with them, and this last time I even had to unroot my phone and take it in to a repair center to get looked at before they said they could work with me an further on this issue, so I did that and also when I was at the repair center I had them note in my account that the towers were overloaded and that's whats wrong that it's nothing with my phone.

I finally sent an email to dan@sprint.com and someone got back to me and gave me a nice credit and is also calling me back in regards to when our towers are supposed to be upgraded/fixed and said that he would credit me as long as there was an issue, were not talking a small hick town here we are talking about a couple hundred thousand people in this town. Moral of my story is to call and complain so you have a record of all this because sometimes they don't know about things until people start complaining is what I was told.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

hm, I'm getting 778kbps download (spikes to 1mbps once in a while) and 160 kbps upload on 3G... it's bearable lol

I'm staring at sprint world headquarters in kansas and no 4g :D

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I hope you have cooling water running through that phone so you don't burn it up!!

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

before the ante up on the 4G they need to ante up on the 3G. I've been having this issue in my zip code since February and have had them credit me and even blasted them on a local radio station in a text message during a recent storm and blackout in my area and that is finally when they admit that they're improving the network experience in one of the newsletters they send. since then my speeds have improved to where I can watch VEVO during peak hours but they still slow to a crawl periodically. on the other hand when I was in Chicago this past Wednesday my download speeds were over 2mbps on 3G.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I used to live in a 4G area, now I live 2 houses away from a 4G signal :(...I miss 4G so much...it makes tethering a lot smoother experience...

3g is nonexistent at my house, everywhere else it's 1.2 mb/sec max. But at $30/month I'm not complaining.

If I were paying what most of you are paying I'd have jumped ship a long time ago!

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

but at least your 3G speeds stay at or above average. mine frequently drop to the level reported in my SIG and lower, does not do it as much but it's still unacceptable when compared to just last year.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I don't see a Sig!

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

yea sometimes it displays,and sometimes it doesn't. its in my first reply in this thread on the first page.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I live in nowhere... Sprint 3G is barely available. I have line of sight to a Sprint tower at home and get 1070 down. Voice coverage is annoying. I bounce between Sprint and a small local provider between home and work. I think the local provider is now booting roamers off after 10 minutes or so. AT&T has finally started putting in 3g / HSPA equipment on their previously EDGE only towers and and the local provider is bleeding customers. Sprint may be losing me come September. AT&T has better voice coverage now than what I'm getting on Sprint. One more tower here would make a world of difference for me but I'd be surprised to see one within the next 2 years....

No more than I've been using my EVO I could end up going the no contract route... $50 a month is appealing.

Edit: I'm in no way bashing Sprint btw. It's just the way the cellular cookie crumbles at this point in time. Sprint's plans still can't be beat for those in need or who finds it worth the prices of unlimited plans. Had to throw that out there to not sound like ship jumping whiner ... lol

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

I agree 4G should be further along by now. I did just switch over to a 4G compatible device with the Evo 3D but I don't really expect 4G anytime soon. I live in Southeast Michigan and every Sprint store I go to tells me how its been impossible with Canada so close because they are using the same frequencies. I am not sure how thats ever going to work. I couldn't get my phone before to stop jumping over to Canadian towers before and I was several miles from the border.

I still am not switching to Verizon and will gladly pay the extra $10 a month its still cheaper! I don't know how they can keep increasing the DL speed and drop down the data plans...

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

hey hey... kiowa & davetn same thread again! :>))
Sorry about your 3G Kiowa, you know what I'm getting! :>)) 3 mbs avg @ night, 2.6 daytime. .
I can't even imagine you guys @ a sprint store... I always have conflicts talking down to them :>))

We've discussed much of this in the past, but make sure you use fieldtrial or a droid signal meter to find the best reception. It would be VERY interesting to know what you are getting for -dBm...

I can see my tower about 2 miles across the lake. I get -55 in one window, turned a certain way... of course this is the spot I wifi & tether from...

The 4G tests I've done are a joke with Sprint, Clear & Verizon. All of them had their own sites & sheets showing awesome numbers, a couple even tried to show me some great live speeds... joke.

I took the device each time to my speed site & none of the 4G devices beat 5mbps in their kiosk/store!! Sprint barely cleared 4! If I'm getting 3, why the heck would I pay over $1000 more a year in plan charges for shotty 4G?!!

You could give me a free EVO 3G, I'd send it back... not worth a grand a year to me.

Re: Time to ante up on Sprint 4G
 

how the hell do they put the upgraded towers in MN first but not in the Chicago area? the highest I've ever seen here on 3G was 2.1M and that was when I was in Chicago itself. in my town last year I would consistently stay above 800 now im lucky if I can even stay above 300! they need to get their priorities straight Chicagoland is a much larger market than all of MN combined.