Wireless / Mobile → Sprint Mobile Broadband > Is Anyone Getting Very Fast Sprint 3G?

Is Anyone Getting Very Fast Sprint 3G?

As some of you may know, in midtown Manhattan, where I'm at, the WiMax, after being superb for years, suddenly went into the toilet on March 13th, and has stayed there ever since.

But what's even stranger over the past two weeks is that there has been nothing less than an extraordinary improvement in the 3G. My speeds are running at maximum spec, or even above the maximum.

I'm a Millenicom customer, but since my account uses the Sprint network I figured I could post about this here as well. Here's what I'm getting today, for example:

This message superceded by the one below.

Over the past several hours, the download speed has gotten even faster. According to both Speedtest and Speakeasy, it is well above Sprint's maximum spec of 1.4mps now; in fact, it's almost reached Wimax's minimum spec of 3mps.

Which means that the Sprint 3G is now running above MAXIMUM spec, both on the download and upload side!

Here's Speakeasy's current figure:

Your Speed Result:
Download Speed: 2266 kbps (283.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 524 kbps (65.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

And here's Speedtest's current figure:

Just enjoy the faster speeds and don't over analyze why its faster!

that's almost like me complaining because the website saying i've used 3.54MB, when I've used 1GB of data........

This could be due to Sprint's "Network Vision." After the overhaul has been completed you should see faster 3G connections, clearer voice, and fewer dropped calls.

I can confirm this, and that it is due to Sprint's Network Vision upgrades. There is a website, s4gru.com, where the exact cell site location can be found when it is upgraded. A tower close to my house was upgraded, and speeds of around 2 Mbit are very common, before, we were lucky to get above 700 kbit.

Am I just stupid? I just went to »s4gru.com/ and I do not see any link anywhere to the list of cell towers which have been upgraded by Sprint. What am I missing, please? Thanks.

Ahh, you are right; In order to see the list, you have to be a "supporter" of the page; I made a donation to the site a little while back, and that allowed me to see the exact tower locations (on a Google map) of which are upgraded. There are also forums about specific areas (New York City, East Iowa, etc) where people report their own sightings. Once you are a member, you can see the more forums listed under "The Forums"

Thanks for the info. So far the site is extraordinarily confusing to me.

The closest to material which appears to be exclusively for sponsors are the four items listed on the S4GRU page at »s4gru.com/index.php?/forum/28-th···ru-club/ . Is that what you are talking about?

Also, reference is made on one of the jungles of pages to an iDonate link in the left column which, so far, I've seen no sign of. I did find a link in a right-hand column to a Paypal donation. Is that the same thing?

Nowhere is this stated on the site, so far as I can tell, but does a donation automatically make one a sponsor? Or is there a specific procedure for becoming a sponsor buried somewhere on the site?

Also, if one wishes to become a sponsor what is the minimum donation? Will $0.01 suffice?

Thanks for any guidance; this site strikes me as very Byzantine, though I'm sure it's quite useful.

Yes, it is sort of kept hidden, probably not to give out Sprint inside information just publicly. As far as the donation amount, I'm not sure; my $25 donation was enough. And yes, it is that one paypal link on the right hand side; The name of the application is "iDonate" that handles your membership.

The "Interactive S4GRU Maps" Forums section is where it gives maps of upgraded towers as well as maps of all the sprint towers in a given region.

There is a post about becoming a sponsor: »s4gru.com/index.php?/page/index.html

A sponsor membership on s4gru.com will cost you $100.

S4GRU Membership Groups

S4GRU Sponsor. For members who donate money($100 or more in total) through PayPal to S4GRU to help fund the costs of Sprint 4G Rollout Updates, you get the S4GRU Sponsor title for six months from your last donation. Once you donate $100 or more in total, you get the title indefinitely and upgraded to Premier Sponsor (see below). S4GRU Sponsors get:

Access to the S4GRU Sponsors Forum (contents subject to change, but includes some interactive maps)
Allow profile customizations
Larger profile photos (up to 250x250)
Can edit forum posts up to six hours after posting (incognito)
No limitations on auto signatures
Not subject to flood control timeouts
Store up to 250 Private Messages
No daily limit on Private Messages
Up to 10 People allowed in a Personal Message
Can view who gave you reputation points
Unlimited inline notifications

S4GRU Premier Sponsor. S4GRU Sponsors who donate $100 or more in total, get to keep the title indefinitely and you also get in addition to the benefits of the S4GRU Sponsor above:

Access to the S4GRU Premier Sponsor Forum (contents subject to change, but includes the original baseline NV schedule maps for many markets)
Bypass word filters
Can post HTML in posts
No limit to number of people allowed in a Personal Message
Unlimited PM storage
Allow attachments in PM's
Allow unlimited amounts of reputation points to be given
Larger profile photos (up to 250x400)
Can edit forum posts at any time (incognito)
Can soft delete own posts
Avoids any moderation queues

i think i donated like $10 to become a basic sponsor awhile back and as that was coming to an end I got a PM that i could become a premier sponsor for only $50. Not sure if that was just a one time thing or if evetyone gets that as they approach the expiration of their 6 month time frame. Either way, a great site and I get my monies worth from the anticipation of updates throughout the week.
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Yeah, definately a great site, even as a free membership.

Got these yesterday at a site under network vision that just got some fresh fiber run. Hope they finish soon here so I can start pulling some 4G in my neighborhood!

Yep, that's certainly very impressive for 3G. I'm surprised they haven't changed the official Sprint 3G specs accordingly or at least indicated that the current specs will be changing ( »shop2.sprint.com/en/shop/why_spr···13:4GLTE and click the Speeds tab).

As for my 3G, this is going to sound silly, but I'm sort of nervous about switching over to it to see if it's still running above spec. You see, the Wimax was restored to proper working order a week ago, and I'm nervous about disconnecting from Wimax now to check 3G; who knows if when I reconnect to WiMax it will still be as good??

So I logged into my Speedtest account on my smart phone, and did the test there instead. My HTC Evo Shift phone caps uploads around 100kps (anyone know how to defeat that?), but the download speed test is valid, and came out like this:

I cant wait for Charleston, SC to get an upgrade. They told me it was March, its now June........

Gotta tell you, the flirtation with way above average 3G speeds appears long gone. 3G is back to its old tricks, at least in midtown Manhattan. Sometimes it averages around 550k, but most of the time, when downloading, it looks like a plane climbing and diving, with speeds varying from 300k to 600k; not too impressive. So whatever it was that the upgrade was doing for the 3G appears to have been highly temporary, at least around here.

My WiMax is completely back to normal however, a great relief, as you can see:



I just switched to Wireless 'n' WiFi because of the unlimited 4G as opposed to Millenicom's 50 gig cap (that cap was no longer working for me because of all the HD Youtube clips I was watching); as a result, because of their Tri-Fi, I can now access LTE here as well. So far it's miserable, not even as good as WiMax:



I tried it all day on the 14th, when I first got it, and finally gave up and went back to the WiMax. And so it goes.

I switched from att over 3 months ago because I wanted unlimited Internet.... problem Sprint is so slow in the Lehigh Valley and in the Philly area anyone know when they plan on upgrading to LTE in those areas?

Given that Sprint's minimum 3G download spec is 600k, that download speed is pretty good.

Given that Sprint's minimum 3G upload speed is 350k, that upload speed is pretty bad.

Gully Washer Thunderstorm but wall of rain doesn't seem to effect it.

I notice your upload speed seems back to normal.

Considering the wall of water the 770 was transmitting through to the tower it was exceptional.

Re: Is Anyone Getting Very Fast Sprint 3G?

Still going strong