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IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan

Member

Numbers game...

This is the only way for it to appear that Sprint isn't so far behind on LTE..... Get the numbers up with multiple small towns launching at the same time.

I don't fault Sprint for doing it this way. They simply don't have the money or capital to launch large markets simultaneously like Verizon and to a lesser extent, AT&T does. Verizon is the king of LTE launches.

Getting numbers up quickly looks better than it really is. Hopefully they don't lose customers in the big cities while they build out small towns.

The wait for LTE on an iPhone 5 or other LTE-capable device in larger markets has got to be frustrating as hell for those folks.
ydoucare
join:2003-03-12
Lafayette, IN

ydoucare

Member

said by IPPlanMan:

Hopefully they don't lose customers in the big cities while they build out small towns.

They're not delaying big cities to focus on smaller cities by any stretch of the imagination. Most of these small cities fall within the large markets, like Chicago, that they're already working on. Chicago, for example, has hundreds of cell sites complete and operational already, they just haven't officially launched it. Sprint's biggest problem is people making ignorant assumptions of their LTE rollout based on worthless press releases.

morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
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morbo to IPPlanMan

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to IPPlanMan
said by IPPlanMan:

The wait for LTE on an iPhone 5

LTE networks have been out for more than 2 years while the iPhone 3Gs was still being produced. I think the faithful have proven they can and will wait it out for next generation LTE network.

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan to ydoucare

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to ydoucare
said by ydoucare:

Sprint's biggest problem is people making ignorant assumptions of their LTE rollout based on worthless press releases.

You mean "worthless press releases" directly from Sprint? Those worthless press releases?

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· 8Sx4B2Sk

AVD
Respice, Adspice, Prospice
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ

AVD to morbo

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If it wasn't for iPhone, Sprint would have kept its "4G" as wimax.

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

LightS to IPPlanMan

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to IPPlanMan
For what it's worth, I'm about 45 miles from Dallas and I have LTE with Sprint. Coverage in the entire DFW region is much better than it was just a few months ago.



IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

IPPlanMan to morbo

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to morbo
The device itself is no longer the limiting factor... It's geography, permits, money and NIMBY's... (Not in my backyarders...)
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon to LightS

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to LightS
Coverage in KC sucked at first too but they keep adding more LTE sites. Even outskirts of KC have LTE now. But they still need to do some more infill.

»dl.dropbox.com/u/3812896 ··· tlte.png

WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX

WHT to LightS

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to LightS
Far northwest Fort Worth on Loop 620, on a rare occasion I see 5 Mbps, but usually less than 3 Mbps...and more than often, it drops to half speed one third of the way through the speed test. Sunday afternoon 4G was 800 Kbps and 3G was only 200 Kbps.

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

LightS

Premium Member

The point of my original post, though, was to state that a large amount of cities in the DFW region have LTE service without Sprint saying explicitly that they do.

I was actually just in northwest FW (North Richland Hills) a few days ago and I was getting about 29mbps down. Pretty good.

Other times, it's lower, about 9 or so - but I've never seen 3mbps on LTE around there with Sprint. I've only had this iPhone 5 for a week, but I did a lot of driving and took note of speeds. They were almost always great. 3G is, of course, garbage lol.

morbo
Complete Your Transaction
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NIMBY is an issue with new towers. Not so much with replacing existing tower equipment. Am I missing something?

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

1 recommendation

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said by AVD:

If it wasn't for iPhone, Sprint would have kept its "4G" as wimax.

Huh?

Clearwire owns the Wimax towers and infrastructure, Sprint leased space from them.

Sprint is implementing their own LTE infrastructure on 99% of their existing towers.

Wimax is a very capable platform, it was never installed very widely.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

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to WHT
Either the tower you're connecting to is two far away or is not completely upgraded and approved by Sprint. Sprint LTE should yield 37/18 Mbit/s (up/down) with full signal.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to AVD

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to AVD
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.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

Member

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.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

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

Member

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.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

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.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

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to NiteSn0w
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.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

Member

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.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

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.