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Comments on news posted 2012-11-26 16:14:18: Sprint has lit up eleven more LTE markets with a continued focus on smaller towns and cities. ..

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Ctrl Alt Del
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join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to Happydude32

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Re: Tired of waiting for LTE

Sprint's 4G LTE is apparently not much better than their Wimax. Here's Ellicott City MD:

»/r0/do ··· /LTE.png
Happydude32
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And it only continues to get better



Yesterday’s result was from the suburbs. This is what I got when I was in the heart of downtown Buffalo earlier this morning, a few minutes before 7AM. And this was the second fastest result today. The fastest was 6.86 Mb Down but that was at 5AM.

The question posed, why do you need these insane speeds on a cell phone. Well I don’t, but like I said, after reading posts on this site for the past three years bashing Sprint, bashing their wimax network and every one bowing down to suck the dick of Verizon and their ‘awesome’ LTE network has me scratching my head. What many people don’t realize is that Sprint and/or Clear unofficially launched a ton of wimax ‘markets’ and I use that term very loosely, in order to keep their licenses. I’ve been to some smaller towns in the middle of nowhere, where there are pockets of wimax coverage, the signal is not as strong is in official markets, and I was still able to achieve 6-10Mb down. While I wasn’t expecting 30Mb plus around the clock with Verizon, I can’t achieve speeds faster than 15Mb down, which is on par with what I was getting with Sprint when I was in Rochester using wimax.

LightS
Premium Member
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX

LightS

Premium Member

True - I suppose it was more of a question. lol.

I suppose we get good luck with both networks.

Here are all of the tests I've done today on my iPhone 5 - most with about 2-3 bars, the 25+mbps being at full signal.

iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

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Re: Numbers game...

I echo toby's "huh?"

Sprint has been working on its own LTE network (as opposed to Clearwire's higher-frequency, footprint-limited WiMAX network) since well before the iPhone 5 was launched. Heck, the iPhone is one of the poorer devices, feature-wise, on Sprint that does LTE. The big example being its inability to do voice and any kind of data at the same time, though every other LTE phone on Sprint can at least do voice and LTE at the same time, and many can do voice and 3G.
iansltx

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Which phone do you have? If you're looking at bars to show what signal you've got, they're dead wrong. You have to go into field test mode (##DEBUG#, passcode SPRINT) to get real readings. -90 dBm RSRP is good. -100 is okay. -110 is bad.
iansltx

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Correction: Sprint LTE theoretically supports 37/18 with full signal. Realistically, if you're the only one on the tower sector and have full signal, 36/14 is doable (I've been in this situation). Real-world speeds with good signal will realistically be half that.
iansltx

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Re: Tired of waiting for LTE

Give T-Mobile a year and a half. They'll have 20MHz FD LTE carriers capable of giving a consistent 30 Mbps, up and down. Maybe even double that for downloads.

Sprint will also be able to hit that once they get Clearwire TD-LTE online.
iansltx

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Give it a week or two. They probably don't have the tower tuned right at this point.
BiggA
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join:2005-11-23
Central CT

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

AT&T and Verizon did the actual markets. Like, you know, downtown.
Expand your moderator at work

NY
@mtahq.org

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Anon

Tired of waiting

It was about 2 years ago I bought my HTC Evo 4g from sprint, they told me that 4g would be out shortly. Two years later at the end of my contract I was still waiting and face with the descision of changing carriers. I decided to go with Verizon and am I happy, the speeds on my phones are quite impressive, compared with the constant buffering I was use to with sprint. I got tired of waiting, if they have there act together 2 years from now I will consider coming back, but just couldn't see running my new samsung note 2 on a 3g service.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

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Re: Tired of waiting for LTE

Well... He also doesn't have full signal. 17/5 Mbit/s is pretty good but not up to par for his signal strength. Still much better than WiMAX.
NiteSn0w

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Re: Numbers game...

Oh yeah with a loaded network everything will drop to half but half is still pretty damn amazing especially with how consistent the latency has been on Sprint's LTE network. With latency below 60ms in most cases I don't think anyone can complain about the network. Unless they're out in a field in the middle of Kansas trying to have a pissing contest with Verizon's or AT&T's LTE network. But even then the latency will be a big factor in performance. You can have 70 Mbit/s (probably not even that specifically due to latency) of throughput but with 150+ms latency you're not going to be able to enjoy it much at all. AT&T has done better than Verizon with latency but in a lot of areas they're still pretty high up there.
NiteSn0w

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

Sprint works from the outside of the market inwards in most cases. I'm assuming this is because they want to bring the upgrades to the people first and provide a network that doesn't cut off once you leave a major city's limits.

Look at both of these maps I have linked to below and tell me which has more coverage in markets where LTE is/has been deployed.

Sprint Coverage
AT&T Coverage
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to NiteSn0w

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Re: Numbers game...

Depends on where you are. I've seen 50-70ms latency consistently with Verizon these days. Sprint has been lower, but the connection speed and low jitter on VZW means that you don't really notice a difference, all else equal, unless you're gamin0 (which I do)g, and maybe not even then.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

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There are quite a few places where I have seen consistently high latency on Verizon's network one of which would be here in Cleveland. Latency sits around 125ms+ and speeds never really surpass 12/3 Mbit/s. It's about as bad as using 3G to browse the web. Even though you have good download speeds you still have high latency which makes web browsing feel sluggish. If Sprint can one up Verizon here I wouldn't be surprised. Clearwire WiMAX is already better than Verizon LTE here. Sprint seems to have consistently low latency all around the country with very little variation.
BiggA
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join:2005-11-23
Central CT

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

Not getting anything on either of those...
iansltx
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Austin, TX

iansltx to NiteSn0w

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Re: Numbers game...

What does a traceroute look like out of CLE? I know that for awhile Verizon was hauling LTE traffic in Denver out to Seattle before doing anything useful with it. I imagine that the issue is similar where you are.

T-Mobile is actually quite good about this, as is CricKet; since neither have national backbone networks, they'll just dump traffic onto the Internet at the nearest large city.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

Member

I can't check on Verizon right now, as my mom is the one with Verizon LTE and getting her phone from her for 5 seconds to run a traceroute will be like pulling teeth, but I can try and grab one later on today.

I wouldn't doubt Verizon is doing something ridiculous with traffic before it hits the internet from here. Verizon shouldn't have any problems putting in a LTE core here. Sprint has managed to do it just fine, eHRPD is already up and running in CLE.

It seems like everything from CLE on Sprint's network goes to CAK and gets dumped onto the internet. Latency from CLE to CAK is ~5ms on my home internet (it should be much lower for fiber). This should mean that latency on Sprint's LTE should sit around 25-30ms for local sites and 35-50ms for everything from the east coast to Kansas.
NiteSn0w

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

Zoom out (scroll) from your location and you'll be able to see coverage in markets like Chicago, Atlanta, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas.
xenophon
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Re: Numbers game...

said by NiteSn0w:

Oh yeah with a loaded network everything will drop to half but half is still pretty damn amazing especially with how consistent the latency has been on Sprint's LTE network. With latency below 60ms in most cases I don't think anyone can complain about the network. You can have 70 Mbit/s (probably not even that specifically due to latency) of throughput but with 150+ms latency you're not going to be able to enjoy it much at all.

I completely agree with this. A smartphone only needs a few Mbps. After that, latency matters more to app performance. Bloggers and speedqueens don't seem to understand latency impacts app/web performance. Sprint is winning when it comes to latency partly because they have more sites closer together.
BiggA
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Central CT

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

Neither of those maps is even close to accurate. The AT&T one is missing huge chunks of AT&T LTE coverage.
NiteSn0w
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Re: Numbers game...

said by xenophon:

said by NiteSn0w:

Oh yeah with a loaded network everything will drop to half but half is still pretty damn amazing especially with how consistent the latency has been on Sprint's LTE network. With latency below 60ms in most cases I don't think anyone can complain about the network. You can have 70 Mbit/s (probably not even that specifically due to latency) of throughput but with 150+ms latency you're not going to be able to enjoy it much at all.

I completely agree with this. A smartphone only needs a few Mbps. After that, latency matters more to app performance. Bloggers and speedqueens don't seem to understand latency impacts app/web performance. Sprint is winning when it comes to latency partly because they have more sites closer together.

Well there's latency over the air-link but that's likely minimal. Having sites closer together will reduce latency there. But also having less people on each tower will reduce latency from cell load.
NiteSn0w

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

No... AT&T are missing huge chunks of LTE coverage.

Those maps are generated by users using the Sensorly Android application which reports what your phone is connected to along with the GPS coordinates to create an accurate coverage map. Enough people use the Sensorly application to provide an accurate representation of actual coverage.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon to NiteSn0w

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Re: Numbers game...

Yup, and because Sprint sites are closer together, there are fewer users per site. And of course Sprint has half the users of ATT/VZW.
BiggA
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Central CT

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Re: You know a company is screwed when...

AT&T has LTE from New Haven to Providence along the NEC that is not shown on that map. Those maps are utterly ridiculous, and do not represent reality.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

Member

If you know it exists and you're going to be traveling through that area go ahead and download Sensorly and map the area. Sensorly uses crowed sourced data, it's not going to show what hasn't been physically mapped. But it certainly does give a pretty accurate representation of coverage in places people frequent.
BiggA
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join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

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That map has virtually zero accuracy. Although they lag behind actual deployment, the carriers all have maps on their websites that are, if anything, very conservative.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

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Those aren't carrier provided maps though. That's what customers with the Sensorly application have actually been able to connect to.

The carrier provided maps over exaggerated real world coverage.
BiggA
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join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

There is a LOT of coverage that's NOT on the Sensorly maps, and DOES exist in real life. Their maps are basically worthless.
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